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IGBO-EZE NORTH LGA: Why I prioritise agriculture, youth empowerment — Ogalla

MR Uchenna Ogalla, the chairman of Igbo-Eze North LGA, Enugu State, says his administration prioritizes agriculture, health, education, youth empowerment, and job creation.

According to him, “we have a six-point development agenda; we are looking at agriculture, infrastructure, health, education, youth empowerment, and job creation. We are also looking at increasing the internally generated revenue, IGR, of the local government. We are mainly focusing on agriculture because of the potential that we have as a local government owing to our vast arable lands.”

He explained that farming on many unused forests will displace non-state actors that use them as hideouts.

“So, cuing into Governor Peter Mbah’s 200 hectares per-a-political ward agricultural farm estates ongoing in the state, we would be able to occupy those forests and chase the non-state actors away. I have got six hectares already”, Ogalla said.

Infrastructure

On infrastructure, the chairman said his administration took road rehabilitation as a priority project and “almost all our roads are usable now. Almost all the local roads have been enhanced”.

“We have maintained failed portions of Nsukka-MCC-Igbo-Eze North road; we equally rehabilitated Ogrute-Umu Ogili Eze-Aji road; and Igogoro-Okpo road which is about 10 kilometers. The other road going from Japan Road-Igbo-Eze Secondary School Road has been rehabilitated too. We have done another one at Umuopu-Ette, Ulo-Ette Centre; we have graded almost all the roads in Umuogbuagu, and Umuagama.

“Equally the roads in Aji, Isi-Ugwu and Amachalla are motorable now. We also graded Amufie-Olido Market-Ogbodu Road. We graded it up to the boundary between Igbo-Eze North and South Local Government Areas at Iheakpu. We graded Umachi-Amube-Orie Igbo-Eze Road. We also did Umuida-Aguibeje-Unadu Road. All the local roads in the 20 political wards in our local government area are connected now”.

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On the health sector, the chairman explained that when they came on board, there were an existing 20 ward-based health centres and another 16 health centres built by either private individuals or NGOs and donated to the local government. They visited the health facilities and discovered that only 12 of them were working below optimum.

“We are assiduously working on revitalizing all the health centres in our council and by the grace of God they would be re-launched into full operation very soon.”.

Ogalla also said his administration focused on youth empowerment and job creation because the youths we didn’t take care of today maybe the cause of insecurity we would fight tomorrow.

“In Igbo-Eze North Council, we are taking a step further because we believe that youth empowerment is not all about acquisition of skills. Here, when people get the skills, we try to groom them the most and empower them to produce what they have learned. This year, my administration is planning on building human beings, not structures.”

For these projects and programmes to materialise, the council needs more money, he said, adding that he would reform the revenue collection method in the council.

“We are reforming our revenue collection strategy in our local government. We received a total of N2, 000,000 as IGR in 2023. It sounds very funny for the entire local government to generate such a paltry sum in a whole year. So, we are looking into how the revenue is collected, who collects what and where? Where do what was collected go to?

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“We know that Igbo-Eze North Local Government Area being a sub-urban local government area can generate revenue far more than N2, 000,000 for the whole year. This year, we shall introduce electronic means in our revenue collection. We are hoping that electronic means would help us to pluck loopholes in our revenue collection. We are already getting negative reactions from the people that used to collect the revenue, but we shall overcome them.”

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