Oron Meeting: AKSG Gives Reasons To Location, Name-Change Of Deep Seaport

...As Akan Okon Preps Oro indigenes For IDSP Jobs

By UbongAbasi Ise

The officials of the Akwa Ibom State Government had, over weekend, explained to the stakeholders of Oron nation how the present site of Ibom Deep Seaport project was arrived at contrary to allusion to political interest and influence.

In a bid to resolve questions bordering the location and name-change of the deep seaport project, a delegation of Akwa Ibom State government which include the Secretary to the State Government, Dr. Emmanuel Ekuwem, the Commissioner for Economic Development and Ibom Deep Seaport, Mr. Akan Okon, the Chairperson of Technical Committee on Ibom Deep Seaport, Barr (Mrs.) Mfon Usoro, and other state government officials met with Oro stakeholders at Oron Civic Centre.

During her presentation, Barr. (Mrs.) Mfon Usoro said her committee, following the inauguration in 2016, received the Outline Business Case, OBS, on the project which was previously done and signed on October 15, 2014 at the time of Chief Godswill Akpabio’s administration.

According to Usoro, the location that was found in the approved OBS still remains the approved spot for the harbour, adding that “the government of Governor Udom Emmanuel has not changed it.”

She said her committee, through research, discovered that Akpabio’s administration had engaged Worley Parsons as well as MBTS of the Netherlands to do feasibility study and to come up with ideal location for the seaport project. The chairperson of the technical committee said far from politics, the two companies, which are internationally acclaimed engineering and port consultants, did a professional job and could not have dabbled into Akwa Ibom politics.

According to her, five potential locations considered for the project include Oron (location 5), Tom Shot (location 4), Okposo (location 3), West Point (location 2) and Seaside (location 1).

Mfon Usoro said out of five potential locations considered by these foreign port consultants, it was Seaside (location 1), which is the present project site near Unyenghe, that was appointed as the most favourable location for the Seaport project.

On how the site was chosen ahead of others, Usoro said Oron, which was marked location 5, was dropped because of its position outside the Industrial City zone.

She explained that Seaside scored +7, West Point had -3; Okposo and Tom Shot scored -2 and -11 respectively, and the result came out with an October 2014 date, noting that the location for the seaport was since determined during Godswill Akpabio’s administration and not this present government.

Speaking further, the chairperson disclosed that evaluation factors considered by the consultants for the choice of the site include technical compliance, development feasibility of the site, social impact, time to market, nautical access, environmental impact, opportunity, amongst others.

“I reiterate that the location of the seaport to where it is now was made by the previous administration, and it was approved by the Federal Government of Nigeria. We have nothing to do with it,” she said.

The Secretary to the State Government, Dr. Emmanuel Ekuwem, clarified that the approved site for the seaport project falls within unpopular fishing settlement at the shore of the Atlantic Ocean with proximity to Ibaka.

On why the state government chose to go with Ibom Deep Seaport instead of Ibaka Deep Seaport as the project name, Ekuwem said it is the policy of the state government to use ‘Ibom’ or ‘Akwa Ibom’ appellations to describe its projects, mentioning Ibom Power Plant, Ibom Specialist Hospital, Ibom Le Meridien Hotel and Golf Resort, Ibom Tropicana, Akwa Ibom State Polytechnic and so on as examples.

He said following personal clarification of the approved name for the project by Governor Udom Emmanuel, it had taken him over 17 occasions to explain to Oro indigenes the rationale behind the name preference.

The Secretary to the State Government assured Oro nation that name-change would not stop them from benefiting from numerous socio-economic opportunities that would come with Ibom Deep Seaport and Industrial City on completion.

He said besides Ibom Industrial City, Oro nation will benefit from access roads to the seaport as road will be constructed from Etebi-Enwang Road T-Junction to the harbor while a superhighway will take off from the seaport to Ibeno area.

In his PowerPoint presentation, the Commissioner for Economic Development and Ibom Deep Seaport, Mr. Akan Okon, said it is expected that the Ibom Deep Seaport and industrial city, when operational, would produce up to 300,000 job opportunities, pointing that a lot of opportunities would open from construction stage to when the port would be operational. He was of belief that the projects would bring paradigm shift to the economy of Akwa Ibom State.

Okon noted that a major challenge that would likely face the indigenes of the state is lack of basic maritime skills, calling on the people to be fully equipped with skills and position themselves in readiness before the port become operational.

“It is very important for us to strategically position ourselves so that we can take advantage of the opportunities that would come out from these projects.

“As we are all aware, in every profession and any trade, there are basic skills that you must have. Until you equip yourselves with those skills, you will not be marketable or get employment at the place. As a people, we begin now to update ourselves.

“For Ibom Deep Seaport, we should not wait until we commence operation before we update ourselves. As parents, my advice is that, we should send our children to learn courses that have relevance to maritime industry,” he said.

Mr. Akan Okon warned against the reoccurrence of the situation at the Victor Attah International Airport where over 50 pilots were needed to be recruited for the four aircrafts but the management could not get applicants from Akwa Ibom State because of lack of skills in aviation thus forcing the authority to consider people from other states. He said at the Ibom Deep Seaport and Industrial City there would be a lot of opportunities adding that “As a people, we should prepare because at the end of the day it would be sad that we have this port running and we have people from other states coming to take over work here.”

The Commissioner for Economic Development and Ibom Deep Seaport further illustrated how job opportunities would be created in the areas of civil/structural, electrical, mechanical, and electronic engineering as well as information technology.

He also explained that jobs would also be available for the indigenes in the areas of administration, commerce, import and export businesses, crane operation, transportation, logistics and so on, saying it is a project that everyone should support.

In his response, the President General of Oro Union, Bishop Effiong Ante, said the state government should ensure that Oro interest is accommodated and properly integrated in the Deep Seaport and Industrial City projects.

He regretted that a lot of people had already moved to Ibaka to acquire landed properties with the hope that the seaport project would be sited there given much publicity the last administration gave to Ibaka as the location for the project, stressing that what was known to be Ibaka Deep Seaport has now moved to Unyeghe and by extension to Ibeno.

The President General demanded that another meeting be scheduled as soon as possible to help get a technical committee from Oro nation to interact with the Akwa Ibom State Implementation Committee of the project to ascertain the true position of the matter.

A copy of a petition written by Oron Union to the Akwa Ibom State Governor, Mr. Udom Emmanuel, was handed by Bishop Effiong Ante to the chairperson of the Technical Committee on Ibom Deep Seaport, Barr. (Mrs) Mfon Usoro. The petition, dated 15^th March, 2021, was written against the relocation of the seaport from where the Union described as the natural harbour at Ibaka Bay to where they also termed as an artificial ocean created on land.