Today we visit Imo State as our nationwide Make Nigeria Better series continues. This is another state with huge economic potential and we examine what it has to offer

Ayo Akinfe

[1] Imo is one of the most urbanised states in Nigeria with a landmass of 5,530 km2 and a population of about 5m people. With a population density of about 900 people per square kilometre, Imo is never going to be a big agricultural producer, so the emphasis simply has to be on services, manufacturing and tourism

[2] For starters, I believe Rochas Okorocha accidentally stumbled on a great idea with his statue parks. I want to see statue parks built for all our African heroes in cities like Owerri, Orlu, Oguta, Okigwe, Mbaise, etc. Have a light railway linking them up and build hotels, restaurants, holiday resorts, artificial beaches, leisure centres, dolphin parks, etc around them to attract tourists. Nothing stops Imo State realising $20bn a year from tourism

[3] Imo State is fortunate to have an airport in Owerri. This needs to be upgraded to serve as a hub to central Africa. I want to see the Sam Mbakwe International Airport serve as the gateway from West Africa to cities like Yaoundé, Libreville, Kinshasa, Malabo, Bangui, etc

[4] As we all know, Imo is the pharmaceutical capital of Nigeria. Every Orlu man in this world owns a chemist, so it is time to build on that. I want the Imo State government to build a university of pharmaceutical sciences in Orlu with the aim of producing at least 5,000 pharmacists a year. Basically, it will mean training all these retailers, quacks and hustlers selling drugs and converting them into pharmacists

[5] Governor Hope Uzodinma should also set himself the task of wooing every known pharmaceutical company in the world to Imo State. Be it Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, Bayer, etc. Each of them must be brought in to open manufacturing plants in cities like Owerri, Orlu, Okigwe, Mbaise, etc

[6] Imo State only has a paltry gross domestic product (GDP) of $14bn. This for me is totally unacceptable when you compare it with say the $91bn of Lagos State. Governor Uzodinma should set himself a target of say $50bn by the end of his four year tenure

[7] Given that neighbouring states like Abia and Rivers are agrarian, especially when it comes to palm oil production, Governor Uzodinma has to make Imo the oilseed processing capital of Nigeria. Build seed crushing and processing plants and churn out finished products. Then built a direct cargo railway link to Port Harcourt so they can be shipped abroad

[8] Lake Oguta has got to be upgraded into an international tourist centre. Bring it up to the level of say Lake Victoria by building artificial features around it and constructing hospitality infrastructure in the city

[9] Can someone please explain to me why we cannot build a hydro-electric power plant on the 240km Imo River? Why can’t an artificial lake be built in somewhere like Umuezeala with the capacity to generate at least 1,000MW of electricity? That would actually be enough to power the whole of the southeast geo-political zone

[10] Do you know that there are over 163 oil wells, at 12 different locations in Imo State? I challenge the Imo State government to cash in on this and build a gas-fired power plant at somewhere like Ohaja/Egbema to generate up to 10,000MW of electricity