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Hon Emmanuel Orie: Building Roads, Touching Lives

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So far, the record has been impressive. Give or take a few shortcomings, the successes have far outweighed the omissions. Emmanuel Chigozirim Orie, honourable member representing Ohaji/Egbema at the Imo State House of Assembly, has pushed through a popular raft of reforms in double-quick time. He has masterminded a sweeping positive change in the infrastructural, socio-political, and economic life of the Ohaji-Egbema polity. And he has done all this while looking cool and stylish. He began his new career on a difficult terrain, with his party losing both at the state and federal levels. His party’s internal democracy too was in turmoil. To crown it all, Emma’s hard-earned victory at the polls was vigorously challenged in court. But in the face of all these, he providentially made it home and dry. Today he appears to be operating a poll-tested and crowd-pleasing agenda. New roads, Women and Youth empowerment, sports development, scholarships, community health care, and other
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Lagos BRT and the Neglect of Ajah Metropolis by Chigozie Chikere

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The Lagos Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), since inception, has continued to enjoy city-wide patronage as the scheme expands in infrastructure, passenger volume, and area network coverage. Like the teeming mainland populace, the islanders are not left out in the scramble for this innovative mass transit option. It is however disappointing to know that, aside from the aging red buses with few new additions and stressed out passengers queuing under sun and rain, the BRT leaves no trail of operational presence in Ajah metropolis. In all fairness, what serves as a BRT terminal in Ajah is a filthy sidewalk on a stretch of muddy pools and decomposing roadside refuse. The buses themselves are parked on top of moist garbage and smelly stagnant pools and therefore exposed to messy splashes and sprays from other vehicles cruising by. Incidentally, the air around this makeshift terminal is not only fouled by the stench of compost and pungent exhaust fumes, but also made smoky and much more un
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Time to Unbundle Nigeria Customs Service By Chigozie Chikere

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The new measures to ensure transparency in Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) took a new turn last week as the Comptroller-General, Col. Hameed Ibrahim Ali (Rt d) ordered officers of the agency to declare their assets. This drive toward effective public service delivery in NCS is a welcome development as it is pivotal and underscores the seriousness of President Muhammadu Buhari’s on-going fight against corruption in Nigeria.Pivotal in the sense that it is nearing one decade since the Act  establishing the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) came into force – a legislation that empowers CRFFN to regulate standards of training and certification for freight forwarding practice but cedes licensing to NCS. Today, the freight forwarding reform machinery still appears to be in need of a lot more than a new spray of paint and, this development, experts have linked to unresolved jurisdictional issues between CRFFN and NCS. Since inception in 1958, NCS ha
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Fuel Crisis and Implications on Lagos Traffic By Chigozie Chikere

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The school of Lagos-watchers that keep an eye on the city’s traffic management chiefly out of a morbid fear of decline or of possible worst-case scenario has taken on new adherents of late. For signs are mounting that the stakeholders’response to the revolutionary measures taken by Governor Akinwunmi Ambode less than a week after his inauguration to tackle the Apapa gridlock has slowed – or even, some say, gone into reverse. Though the governor and his team have continued in a most civil manner to confront the menacing situation by experimenting on a range of time-honoured strategies including consultations with stakeholders and inspection tours to black spots, the chief worry is that the situation goes beyond what a state can handle. It is connected to fuel scarcity,which obviously reflects the failure of a nation to harness and effectively manage her natural resources. What started as crawling traffic in and out of the Tin-Can Island ports, the tank farms, the factories, a
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Hon. Emmanuel Orie: An Agenda of Restoration for Roads, Power, Healthcare, Etcetera

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Outside Ohaji/Egbema, his local constituency, Honourable Orie is anything but a household name. A graduate of University of Abuja and a new entrant in the Imo political arena, he commands no battalions and strikes few public poses. But if the obviously marginalized constituency finally breaks away from relegation and settles into socio-political revival with visible developmental indices in the next four years, it will be in no small measure thanks to him. As the House Member representing Ohaji/Egbema constituency in the Imo State House of Assembly, Hon. Orie has spent the last six months investigating into the slow pace of development in the constituency and has for the time being held culpable the moribund state of electric power supply that threw the constituency into darkness for the past five years. As House committee Chairman on Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) Affairs, he is on a vantage position to supervise all projects of the commission in the stat
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