We are consciously investing in infrastructure to make Akwa Ibom investors’ haven

Governor Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom State recently presented his midterm report as it were when he marked his second anniversary. Charles Udoh, commissioner for information and strategy in this interview with JOHN OSADOLOR and ANIEFIOK UDONQUAK gives a highlight of the major achievements of the state government in the last two years. Excerpts.

What would you consider to be the major achievements of the Akwa Ibom State Government in the last two years?

Let me start from the basic ones, today Akwa Ibom State stands as one of the pinnacles of  foreign direct investments into Nigeria, the National Bureau of Statistics lends credence to this in their publication that rated Akwa Ibom only second behind Lagos  State. But I always choose to leave Lagos State aside because Lagos State is in a class of its own; it is a mini Nigeria. If you take Lagos State out of the equation, Akwa Ibom State attracted the highest volume of Foreign Direct Investment in Nigeria in 2016 and if you also consider that our revenue inflow has dwindling drastically,  our Internally Generated Revenue  (IGR) has also been impacted and you also you know that the main source of income for the state comes from oil revenue which continuously in the few years has been on the decrease, oil production has decreased, the price of oil has decreased, that has ultimately affected earnings from crude oil. This means that the economy of Akwa Ibom State has taken a direct hit but despite that Akwa Ibom State stands tall as one of the few states in Nigeria that is up to date in terms of payment of salaries. Akwa Ibom state stands tall in terms of providing basic amenities. In Akwa Ibom we preach the gospel of people oriented government, we preach the gospel of sustainable development. Education is still free at basic level and compulsory too. The State government spends N600 million every year to pay the WAEC fees for indigenes of the state and Medicare for certain category of people is still free. If you  add this to the fact that we are focusing on industrialisation,  But for you to attain the height of industrialisation, your need to provide the enabling environment, you need to provide access roads, you need to provide security, and power has a major role to play.

In what specific sectors would you think the achievements have been very visible?

Today we have constructed over 700 kilometres of roads and these are not just roads for the fancy of it; these are economic roads linking the major economic nerve centres of the state with the major agricultural nerve centres of the state. Opening up access roads to the rural areas. The governor has continuously preached that development should be taken from the hinterland to the urban centres and this is the reason why we are opening up those roads.  People are asking ‘why are you still building roads when the previous administration had spent so much money building roads,’  we are preaching that people should go back to the farms, now if the man in the hinterland produces tomatoes and does not have access to evacuate them, it is going to get rotten and he will get discouraged. So we are opening up the rural areas to allow people to produce and evacuate them to the commercial centres of the state. We are building a power plant which produces over 191 MW of electricity. People may say why are you investing in power, is that your business and we say look, we have to drive industrialisation, we need to create that enabling environment. The Nigeria police recently indicated that Akwa Ibom State has the lowest crime index in Nigeria and that is not something that happens by mistake. This is something that happens by design because we have consciously invested time, energy and resources into providing security for the state to make it safe for investors. All this is geared towards attracting investment to the state. Nobody will come to the local environment to invest if he does not trust you and if he does not  have confidence in the leadership of the place. The National Bureau of Statistics is the major pointer to the level of confidence that the world economic community has in Akwa Ibom State. They believe in the leadership of Akwa Ibom State and are building industries in the state. For instance, the Syringe factory is 100 percent privately owned. Unlike the normal practice in the country in the past whereby industries are initiated by government and are run as a government entity, when the government of the day leaves, those industries die and even when the government of the day lives, if they shift attention, those industries die. Today, we are building industries that are 100 percent owned by private investors who bring millions of dollars to invest in Akwa Ibom State,that shows some level of confidence in the government of the day. Talking about the Syringe factory, it is the biggest in Africa, when it finally comes on stream that will be the number syringe factory in Africa. We are building a syringe factory that would produce 400 million syringes annually with a capacity to expand it to one billion syringes per annum without building additional structures. Right now we have eight production lines installed ready to roll.

What is unique about the syringe factory and why is the state government going into partnership to build factories?

We are a country that is approaching may be about 200 million people in population and we consume six billion syringes per annum. Do not forget that syringes are disposable; we use up to 6 billion yearly, so it is a huge market. Image if Akwa Ibom State were to take the inflow for the first year, 400 million syringes,  it means that we are going to employ the value chain that is going to come with that syringe factory. It is an enormous market, from the distributors to workers to the local communities. It is a huge opportunity that we are creating. Do not forget the number of people that are going to be employed directly and the families whose lives would be touched. That is a massive opportunity for our people.  Today we are talking about the meter production factory. We are proactive, we are building a meter production factory in Akwa Ibom State because we know that there is a gap, all these things we are doing we know that there are gaps and we are trying to bridge those gaps. We are producing pencils today, if you check, you can see how much Nigeria spends importing pencils and toothpick. What does it take to produce these things?  Today we have a cottage industry that produces pencils and toothpick and the question is that what are doing with cottage industries? We are trying to ensure that we set up those industries where they have shared services which would be cheaper to run. The pencil and the toothpick factory is housed under one building, so they share cost of electricity and other services. It is cheaper to run them as such.  Today we are supplying pencils to some states of the federation and the pencils are produced from old newspapers.  Look at the value chain, for instance, it means that the vendor who sells newspaper, at the end of the day instead of going home frustrated; he has where to sell the leftovers. We are using recycled nature which makes it environment-friendly. That factory might be cottage today but by the time we are moving step by step, we will expand and the capacity will grow. We start small and grow big. One of the major challenges that industrialisation has faced in Nigeria has been when you start you want to run without crawling. When you have those teething problems and you cannot solve them, the industries go under. We are starting small but we shall increase capacity in the long run and expand those industries to optimum capacity.  We also building flour mills, we all know the value of flour mills. We have a coconut plantation spanning three local government areas and right now we have flagged off the coconut refinery.  Remember that coconut oil is being seen as next to crude oil. We have planted over 2 million coconut seedlings. When the coconut trees begin to mature, we need to begin the refinery and that is another huge opportunity. It means that Akwa Ibom will be earning more in terms of Internally Generated Revenue. Today we struggle because the major economic activities are centred on government but we want this to change. We want the private sector to provide the major economic activity in the state. We have also realised that Akwa Ibom is surrounded by other states and then we have the Atlantic Ocean and accessibility to Akwa Ibom from those states is by road.  We realised that those roads are federal government roads and there are in a state of disrepair. If we depend on those roads, our economic life would be affected. We also have an airport but recent experience tells us that if anything happens to the airport, our economy would crumble; we set sight to building a second runway as a back-up plan so that at any given time we have two runways and we are currently expanding the terminal building to accommodate more passengers.  All this is geared towards opening up the investment window, making the environment conducive for investors who graciously see Akwa Ibom State as a potential destination for investment.

In what particular sectors is the state government seeking investors?

The opportunities are enormous and I would not want to be limited to a particular sector.  Take agriculture for instance, few years ago, not many would believe that cucumber could thrive in Akwa Ibom, that you could have tomatoes planted here. That is the beauty of Akwa Ibom State. Our land, our weather, our climate is such that food crops can grow all year round.  It is an enormous field that you can tap into. From agriculture, industrial development to power and education, in fact every sector of the economy is suitable for investors to come in, even tourism. Today we talk about medical tourism but we do have educational tourism here where children from neighbouring states come here for the free and compulsory education scheme of the state government. As a state, we would not chase them out because if you train your children but you do not train your neighbors’ children , your children are in danger. So we are allowing children from neighbouring states to benefit from free education in Akwa Ibom State.  Also look at medical tourism, we have a specialist hospital , the best equipped around here. Many Nigerians travel abroad for Medicare; some of the hospitals are not as good as what we have here. The facilities and personnel that we have at Ibom Specialist Hospital is one of the best. Somebody who needs specialist treatment, you do not need to go abroad, come to Akwa Ibom State and get the same result. So the opportunities are so enormous. When it comes to recreation, we have a five star hotel and the second one in Ikot Ekpene is going to begin operations soon. The idea is to open up the state; there is peace and serenity here; you can come here for your holidays. We also have a fantastic beach, one of the cleanest along the West coast of Africa, the Ibeno Beach. We want to drive tourism traffic.

Where would you like to see Akwa Ibom state in the next couple of years?

Six years from now, I dream of an Akwa Ibom that is investors’ destination of first choice in Nigeria. If an investor is coming to Nigeria, the first place that he would want to go should be Akwa Ibom State. I also dream of Akwa Ibom where tourists would come from far and wide to savour the hospitality and goodwill of the people of Akwa Ibom State. I dream of  Akwa Ibom State that Nigerians would no longer need to go to India for Medicare.