Unnecessary Confrontational Narratives By Abia State Government On The Construction Of Abia Airport At Nsulu By The Federal Government Of Nigeria.
Saturday (Nkwo) 16-08-2025.
In many ways, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has shown he has interest in the welfare and development of the South-East geo-political region.
The Nigerian civil war, commonly referred to as Nigeria/Biafra war, ended on Thursday (Orie) January 15, 1970 after a horrible bloody carnage on human lives that started in July 1966 throuh ceaseless pogroms perpetrated against the Peoples of Eastern Region in other parts of Nigeria, particularly in the North.
Reacting to the formal surrender of Biafra by Major-General Philip Efiong who was next in command to the Head of State of Republuc of Biafra, Lt Col Chukwuemeka Odimegwu Ojukwu, the then Military Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, announced a ‘No Victor, No Vanquished’ verdict. According to him, the war ended on a brotherly reconciliatory note. He went ahead to announce a 3 Rs; Reconciliation, Rehabilitation, and Reconstruction to be implemented in the war-torn Eastern Region. All these pronouncements were made in January 1970, just immediately after the civil war.
No sooner had General Gowon made the announcements than, to the chagrin of the Igbo, his Administration introduced a very obnoxious policy of a £20 flat rate for whatever amount, even if it was £1m, an Igbo had in his or her bank account before the war. When such a very hostile financial policy was introduced, it became obvious that General Gowon did not, in any way, intend to implement his so-called 3 Rs.
Ironically, the uncountable Nigerian multi-billionaires that are of Igbo extraction today had the root of their growth in that paltry sum of £20. As was predictable, Gowon did not implement any of the 3 Rs. There was no Reconciliation, no Rehabilitation, how much more Reconstruction. By the time he was overthrown on Tuesday (Afor) 29th July, 1975 while he was attending a summit of Organization of African Unity, OAU, in Kampala, Uganda, General Gowon had had five years after his pronouncement of the 3 Rs but did nothing to implement any of the Rs.
No subsequent Head of State or President, thereafter, thought it necessary to address the deplorable plight of the Igbo.
The 2023 Presidential Election saw the Igbo, as would be expected, voting massively for an illustrious son of theirs and former Governor of Anambra State, Mr Peter Obi. But that has not, unlike late General Muhammadu Buhari who had pathological hatred for the Igbo for, among other things, not voting for him in 2015, deterred President Bola Ahmed Tinubu from being considerate towards the Igbo.
His Administration has, in more than many ways, given a sense of belonging to the Igbo. During the eight years of General Buhari, 2015-2023, it was on record that no person from the South-East was a member of National Security Council. But today, the Chief of Naval Staff and Member of the National Security Council, Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ikechukwu Ogalla, is from Enugu State in the South-East. If President Tinubu did not want an Igbo there, he would have constituted the Council without an Igbo. Buhari did it and nothing happened.
In President Tinubu’s Government, an Igbo Man and former Governor of Ebonyi State, Engr Dave Umahi, is the Minister of Works and that appointment has helped immensely in the reconstruction of many roads in the South-East, including Port-Harcourt Road in Aba.
Eastern Railway Corridor, a very strategic economic hub, was completely abandoned during the Buhari Administration when the Minister of Transportation and former Governor of Rivers State, Mr Rotim Amaechi, embarked on constructing a rail line from Kano, passing through Dutse in Jigawa State to Daura in Katsina State, and connecting Maradi in Niger Republic on a 1,500 kilometres of distance at a whooping cost of $1.9b for a standard gauge. The Eastern Corridor was not even considered for ordinary narrow gauge. According to reports, Buhari justified such projects on the basis of ‘having his first cousins in Niger Republic’. He did none in the South-East because ‘he had no relationship over there’.
While the Buhari Administration created the North-East Development Commission to mitigate the disastrous consequence of self-inflicted Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East, he bluntly refused to create a regional development agency for the South-East to cushion the effect of the civil war in the region. Today, President Tinubu has, in the spirit of inclusivity, created South-East Development Commission, SEDC.
Concerned that four out of five States in the South-East, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo, have functional Airports, leaving only Abia State, President Tinubu decided to construct an Airstrip at Nsulu, in Isialangwa-North Local Government Area of Abia State.
It is worthy of note that the major difference between an Airport and an Airstrip is just the type of Runway that Airstrip has. With a solid long and well-surfaced Runway, an Airstrip will automatically effectively function as an Airport.
Taking advantage of President Tinubu’s commitment to constructing an Airstrip at Nsulu, the Government of Abia State requested the Tinubu Administration to allow it participate in constructing a Runway for the Airstrip, to translate to an Airport, and that request was granted.
It is, therefore, important that Abia State Government should acknowledge the Tinubu Administration’s generosity by letting Abia People, indeed, Nigerians know that it is the APC Federal Government of President Tinubu that is the initiator of the Nsulu Airport and is also the main financier of the project. A situation in which Abia State Government continuously creates the false impression that it is the initiator and facilitator of the Abia Airport At Nsulu is, to say the least, uncharitable, unfair and unwarrantedly antagonistic and confrontational to the Tinubu-led Federal Government.
Sir Don Ubani,
Publisher, Equity Global Reporters Ltd.
