By: Ugwuoke S.
Obollo-Afor is in ruins, ruins of accumulated dilapidation of yester year. A commercial fulcrum of Enugu State as pivotal as Obollo-Afor has been left in the throes of enviromental decay for far too long. The town is now in shambles. Everywhere cuts a picture of despoliation and degradation!
The structures in the famous Afor Obollo Market are fast decomposing. What exactly is the use of government if it is unwilling and unprepared to serve the needs and yearnings of the people? What responsible government would let a place like Obollo-Afor ( which is even a historic town) to rot away?
Can Gburugburu just for once use Obollo-Afor to prove the naysayers wrong?
Obollo-Afor has no master plan. Development here is at best a riot of structures! Chaotic and haphazard. Things are just springing up with so much disorderliness and complete absence of well-meaning calculation.
I have been wondering, and I am still wondering, why Obollo-Afor has not received the kind of attention she rightly deserves. It is unbelievable that a place like Obollo-Afor which is the Main Northern Gateway to the Southeast has been abandoned by successive governments both State and Federal. It is absolutely unbelievable! It is shameful even.
It is unimaginable that both the Federal Government and the Government of Enugu State have no meaningful investment in infrastructure in Obollo-Afor. There is almost zero government presence here. All there is here is military checkpoints, and thieving policemen blocking the roads and extorting illegal “tax” from the people!
What moves Obollo-Afor is the sheer resilience and grit of the people at all kinds of striving in commerce and cottage industries.
It is even disheartening to call to mind the very fact that Obollo-Afor is the local government headquarters of Udenu where the current Governor of Enugu State hails from. It is just so unfortunate that for the past four years he has been in office, Obollo-Afor has remained a skeleton struggling to put on some flesh. Nothing critical has happened here in terms of development! Nothing meaningful! Nothing of note!
One of the first things Peter Obi did after assuming office in 2006 in Anambra State was producing a viable masterplan for each of the three important locations in Anambra State, namely; Awka, Onitsha and Nnewi. He did it through the agency of the United Nations Development Programme.
I believe strongly that Obollo-Afor is the new Onitsha, the latest Onitsha in the making! What on earth has made the authorities blind to the great potentials Obollo-Afor holds not just for Enugu State but also for the whole of South-East? What made Onitsha the commercial heart of the East is largely not only her prized location at the bank of the River Niger but also her strategic position as the Western Gateway to the East!
Obollo-Afor has similar character. She is seated at the Northern Gate to the East of the Niger, and occupies a nodal space with a significant number of land corridors and road tributaries leading into and from Kogi State, Benue State and Anambra State!
Why can’t there really be a well thought-out, deliberately calculated and diligently executed attempt to do justice to this interesting place? What is the Government of Enugu State waiting for? Obollo-Afor when properly developed and organized can yield revenue for government.
Is anything wrong with having dual carriage roads in Obollo-Afor?
Is it a taboo to give Obollo-Afor a master plan?
Is it unconstitutional to have well tarred and laid-out streets (yes, streets. I mean, real streets) in Obollo-Afor? Streets named after the natives, native folk names and personages!
Streets well calibrated with fixed numbers!
My address could then read; No. 3 Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi Street, Ohulor Obollo-Afor; No. 4 Odoangwu Street, Obollo-Afor; No.7 Aka-Eze-Aka Close, Amutenyi Obollo-Afor; No14 Udenu Drive, Central Obollo-Afor!
These are ideas and examples that can take shape in reality.
Is anything wrong with having this place opened up to 21st century civilization at once for good and for real?
Just look at the current state of things; a town struggling to become a town, with no master plan!
A town with no drainage system! Individuals do drainages on public roads. And yet, a government gave contracts for those substandard roads to be constructed without drainages, without service lanes, without pedestrian walk ways, without roads markings, without any form of road accessories whatever!
Obollo-Afor is dirty and filthy.
The town has no aesthetics, no colour, no cheering sites, no gladdening sceneries, no inspiring monuments, nothing to refresh the eye, nothing to console the heart, no beautiful and awe-inspiring edifices and structures to instill high-mindedness and great vision in the children and youngsters growing up here!
The main thing that keeps the town active and going is the commerce! And the beautiful heart of the people in Obollo-Afor who are very hospitable, humble, and unassuming!
Time to act is now. Those close to the Governor should draw his ear firmly and drum it deep into his hearing that he is wasting time. He has got to hit the ground running and firing from all cylinders.
Ndi Igbo si na igbu oge bu njo.
To waste time is sin.
There is so much work to do.
