Having stayed almost two years in office, Aninri Local Government Area of Enugu State, under the chairmanship of Hon. Ugochukwu Nwanjoku, has built two magnificent structures housing sixty offices, a clinic, a legislative office, as well as a House for Chiefs.
Also, within the same period, the Council embarked on the construction of a 200-bed General Hospital, while it has also constructed and asphalted a 4.4-kilometer road as well as procured over 15 new brand electric transformers and repaired 16 others. The council chairman, Hon. Ugochukwu Nwanjoku, made this disclosure when a monitoring team from NLC, Civil Society Organisation, and the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) toured the area to inspect development projects embarked upon by the Council.
During the inspection tour, Nwanjoku, who was represented by the town engineer, Engr. Felix Obasi said that as a Council, they have achieved a great deal within a short time in office.
He said, “Part of what we have achieved in two years in office is infrastructure. We have erected two structures, the local government secretariat, one covering 32 offices, and of course three houses, one representing councilors’ chambers, while the other two, one serves as the House of Chiefs, while the other hall downstairs serves as the conference hall for the civil servants.”
He also gave details of the second building, stressing that “The second one houses 28 offices, all in suites. Each office has a personal toilet. That’s a modern structure. Downstairs and in the second building, lies a clinic for the council where staff who may fall ill while discharging their duties can be rushed to the clinic.
“That is the second building, and away from that, we have also fenced the local government secretariat during our first two, three months in office. We fenced the local government right around. That’s part of our achievements.” He further spoke on the general hospital and road infrastructure that the Nwanjoku-led administration of the Council has built so far.
“In Oduma, we have started building a 200-bed general hospital, the first of its kind for a local government to embark on. We are at the lintel stage, and by December, that hospital will be ready by the grace of God, and you can see the massive area of that hospital where it is situated; it is a very large scale of land measuring about 33000 square metres, and we have even gotten it fenced,” he said.
In the area of roads, the council has graded so many roads and asphalted some, and even provided them with streetlights.
“Away from these infrastructures, we have also built and completed a 4.4 asphalted dual drainage system road, Obuagu, Ezinato, Amankanu Ohofia Road, where we completed a 4.4 km asphalted road with a drainage system double and then with streetlights as well. That road, our target is that in the next one year, we shall link it to Nkerefi, about 11.2 kilometres of road, which we shall begin as soon as the rains drop to begin to link it to Nkanu East Local Government Area, which is Nkerefi to boost economic activities in that zone and have inter-local government relationship on that road.”
Commenting on their partnership with the state government on the construction of Green and Smart Schools, Nwanjoku said that they have made a lot of impact. According to him, “We have fenced all the ten smart schools, created access roads to all of them, and then of course, provided water by building overhead tanks and also ‘solarised’ the smart schools by installing all the streetlights. Once it is 6.30 to 7, the smart school will be lit up.”
Nwanjoku also spoke on the achievements of the Council in the area of health. He explained that in the Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs), “we have also partnered with the state government to erect a fence in all our PHCs. And in some, we provided boreholes where we found water. Two PHCs are at 90 to 95% completion, whose fences were also undertaken by the local government, that is, Nenwe Ward 1, Amoji Nenwe, and Nenwe Ward 2, Agbada Nenwe. So, we believe in the next month, we shall be done with the remaining PHCs in Aninri.”
The Council equally performed in the area of providing electricity for the communities.
“We have also procured for electrification over 15 brand new transformers and replaced 16 existing transformers in Aniri. We recoiled them, refilled them with oil, and we restored them to their chambers, and then empowered them with National Grid.
“We saw that as not enough to serve our people, which informed our decision to procure an additional 500 KVA and 300 KVA. And as we speak, every community in Aninri received 300 KVA transformers, and in Oduma Ward 4, we installed a 500KVA transformer for Amankanu and to Ezinato Ohofia, my zone 500KVA, making it Oduma Ward 4, 1000 KVA transformers,” he said.
However, the monitoring team discovered during the tour that of the 10 Smart Green Schools allocated to Aninri LGA, seven are operational and receiving pupils. One project has been abandoned by its contractor, while admission of children has yet to commence in two others.
The inspection also revealed mixed fortunes in the healthcare sector. Out of the 10 Type-2 Primary Healthcare Centres designated for the council area, only one is currently functional. Six completed centres have been overtaken by weeds and remain unused, while two are still under construction.
Whereas the inspection highlighted significant progress in education and infrastructure, it also witnessed abandoned and non-functional public projects, raising concerns about the pace of implementation and the need to ensure that completed facilities are fully utilised for the benefit of the people.
