Our constant clamour for resource control must also include an insistence on local government autonomy. Let us start by examining the potential of Ikot Abasi Local Government Area

Ayo Akinfe

[1] Nigerians talk a lot about resource control and the need to reduce federal control over the states. However, this process needs to be taken a step further as we have 774 local government areas who should also be allowed to explore their potential just as states would do in the new Nigeria we are trying to create

[2] Let us get the process going today looking at Ikot-Abasi Local Government Area in Akwa Ibom State. Who is to say that this local government area cannot generate as much as say $10bm in internally generated revenue if allowed to run its own affairs

[3] First and foremost, Ikot-Abasi, the local government headquarters should be a global port of the same stature as say Shanghai, Rotterdam, Antwerp, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc. At one stage it was Africa’s largest slave port, so we should be ashamed of the fact that we have not converted it into a major global cargo port

[4] All the Igbo slaves sold by the Arochukwu slave traders were shipped through Ikot-Abasi. At the very least, all those countries who benefited from the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade should be compelled to expand Ikot-Abasi port as reparations

[5] Also, how many Nigerians know that in 1929, Ikot-Abasi was the centre of a major uprising against the British. Women from that town took exception to that excesses of the colonial administration. We need a revival of that fighting spirit

[6] Today, China’s port of Shanghai has a capacity of 42.5m Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit (Teu), compared with Ikot-Abasi’s planned 9m Teu. I find this totally unacceptable. We need to match these kind of international standards

[7] As you would expect from the world’s largest port, the Port of Shanghai is equipped to accommodate some of the world’s biggest vessels. Infrastructure and dock-side assets include 100+ tonne lifts, fixed, mobile and floating cranes, as well as break-bulk, bulk, and passenger terminals. We should demand all this as a minimum at the Ikot-Abasi Deep Sea Port

[8] In addition, there is no reason why Ikot-Abasi should not be home to one of the world’s largest shipyards. Has President Tinubu ever asked British shipbuilder Swan Hunter to come and open a facility in Ikot-Abasi?

[9] Do you know that Ikot-Abasi was home to one of the first British consulates in Nigeria? Also, the late Justice Udo Udo Udoma, the first Nigerian to bag a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in law, was from Ikot-Abasi. Why has a tourist industry not been built around all these monuments with hotels, amusement parks, beach trips, restaurants, etc

[10] Ikot-Abasi is not short of oil and gas deposits. Its major onshore oilfield Itapate and its offshore facility Adna can easily sustain a thriving petrochemical industry. I challenge the people of Ikot-Abasi to tell us why they have not attracted a Dangote Refinery to their local government areas

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