Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, first Africa-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet.
Soludo, Onitsha, Nnewi, business growth and pollution in Anambra. By Dr. Onwa Chudi Augustine Egbunike
In about 55 days, precisely on March 17, 2022, the Governor-elect for Anambra State, Prof. Chukwuma Charles Soludo will be sworn in. The fact is that the expectation level for him is very high. Whatever he does, there are two major cities he needs to pay immediate attention: Onitsha and Nnewi! Both cities are in Nigeria’s Anambra State. The incumbent Governor Willie Obiano has done his best.
Over the past 100 years, the two cities have attracted commercial investments, large scale trading, motor parts business and some industrial growth.
Onitsha is an iconic city which has, for centuries, been the destination of choice for many sojourners for enterprise and business. Onitsha continues to draw businesses from across the Igbo nation, Nigeria, its neighbors and as far flung as the Cameroons and Ghana!
It continues to attract trading moguls and small business enterprises.
It has served as the place famous for the establishment of the biggest market in West Africa, in the 1960s.
Nnewi has for long been positioned to be an industrial hub for the entire SouthEast due to the pristine ingenuity, enormous financial resources and human capital indigenous to the area.
Most of the leading investors, hard working and highly innovative Igbo business men and women are from Nnewi, and some of the neighboring towns.
Most of the people have an uncommon trait for visionary business dealings that stands them apart from the crowd of upstarts.
Significantly, with the rapid business growth, overcrowded developments and explosion of population of Onitsha and Nnewi have come squalor and pollution. There are no major areas areas zoned or mapped out as industrial parks and quarters.
Consequently , their growth has also created a large , small almost unmanageable urban slums and an increase in crime rate . Above this problem and the stifling need for vital resources such as clean water supply, environmental management and pollution.
Onitsha, despite its low industrial density (in comparison to Nnewi) is listed among the World’s most polluted cities— yet, no government agency has managed to get as far as defining and confronting it as a problem in Nigeria. (Google the world’s most polluted cities — UN).
The critical consequence is that the pollution cuts into life expectancy of the urban dwellers due to its effect on their overall health and well being of the population.
It’s getting more complicated in 2022 and going forward into the future unless the State and Federal governments of Nigeria outline, define and enforce serious environmental standard and protocol to blunt this soon-to-explode catastrophe!
It is alarming and yet ignored and/or unbeknown to the people.
They breathe some of the worst air in the World and are ignorant about it and its deleterious effect on their overall health. An example of particulate matter in the air can be cited by a research that was done around 2009 in Nigeria where the paper currency (Naira) was used as a sample. The paper currency was swabbed and cultivated in the lab. It yielded not only bacteria and fungi but grew worms of different kinds— all harmful to humans. Yes, the paper currency in Nigeria had worm eggs on them and if you are wondering how it got there, let me explain.
When people defecate in the open due to poor access to public toilets, their stool is dried up by the sun and the wind ensures that that dried stool and the entire eggs of worms are airborne. That airborne worm-eggs are inhaled by humans leading to all kinds of ailments like cholera, typhoid, stomach worm infestation . That is why open defecation should be controlled as a major public health hazard.
Also, hawkers of foods should be compelled to cover them.
Therefore, the immediate challenge remains that both cities needs to be upgraded and replanned for the common good of the environmental safety and well-being of its residents and entrepreneurs who visit the communities and people in Nnewi and Onitsha.
Onwa Egbunike is a Contributing Editor of USAfrica multimedia networks Houston, Texas, since 1993. This business insight is published, exclusively, on usafricaonline.com, USAfrica magazine (print) and some of our interactive community platforms/e-groups on WhatsApp: AnambraWorld, IgboWorld. USAfricaLIVE
