Soludo’s 10 Storey Hotel And The Consolidation Of Corruption In Anambra State.

Corruption remains the bane of leadership in Africa and recent developments in Anambra state suggest that the state governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo might have caught the same bug that has plagued Africa and her leadership for more than 5 decades post independence.

The former Secretary General of the United Nations, late Kofi Annan, might have envisioned Anambra state under Soludo when he spoke about corruption and leadership failure in Africa.

In his words, “Corruption hurt the poor disproportionately because it gives impetus to diverting fund intended for development, undermining a government’s ability to provide basic services, feeding inequality and injustice and discouraging foreign investment and aids.”

Few days ago, the Anambra state governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo announced his intention to build a 10 storey hotel at Awka, a small capital city with over 106 registered and fully functional hotels already servicing all categories of local and international guests.

While Anambarians are gradually coming to terms with the fact that the governor seem to lack a sense of prioritization, the latest announcement by the state government of her intention to embark on the construction of a 10 storey hotel project at Awka has opened a new source for concern over the governors policy drive towards a dangerous trajectory that further deepens and exacerbates the fears of independent observers of the politics of Anambra state.

The disquiet and apprehension is in recognition of the possibility that the professor of economics might have metamorphosed from failure to understand basic scale of preference into an outright disposition to corruption with a heightened probability to misappropriate public funds and pilfer same for personal political aggrandizement.

THE CONTEXT IN NIGERIAN POLITICAL ANNALS

In 2008, the Akwa Ibom State government announced that it will embark on a project that will transform the oil rich state into Dubai.

“My vision is to produce a small Dubai within the Niger Delta (region of Nigeria) and create 5000 jobs,” the then governor of the state, Godswill Akpabio, who initiated the project, said in early 2012.

Armed with N120billion, The government embarked on the construction of a massive 14-floor storey leisure and business complex named Ibom Tropicana Entertainment Centre situated in 168 hectares of land in Uyo, the state capital.

It was the tallest building in the state, meant to house a 258-room five-star hotel, a Cineplex (six cinema halls), shopping mall, 5,000-seat capacity convention centre, and a theme park, comprising wet and dry parks.

By the time Mr Akpabio’s tenure ended in 2015. Only the Cinema (leased to Ben Murrays Silverbird Showtime Ltd) and a lounge was functional. The rest were uncompleted despite the N120billion capital already spent.

Many years down the line, the project which was never completed has failed to recoup even 5% of the capital investment made by the state government. Till date, Silverbird is still struggling to recoup her own lease capital.

The N120billion project employed only 45 persons, including casual workers who were employed at the Cineplex, the mall and the lounge, which was far less than the 5,000 projected at the conception of the project.

The Akpabio administration had said initially that it would cost the state N33billion to build the Tropicana, but government sources revealed in 2018 that the cost was later reviewed upward to N120 billion.

Mr Akpabio’s successor, Udom Emmanuel after pumping in extra billions of Naira into the project simply gave up and said he would rather “lease out” the Ibom Tropicana instead of putting more money into it because the state could no longer afford to spend scarce resources in trying to complete such a project considering its huge completion cost and low prospective income capacity.

Those who thought that Udom Emmanuel will do better were in for a rude shock when the same governor who abandoned the Ibom Tropicana for being a white elephant went ahead to spend N32billion on the construction of the Akwa Ibom International worship center where people will gather to sing and pray without any recourse to the financial viability of such an expensive white elephant project.

The Nigerian landmass today is littered with all sorts of abandoned projects with an estimated cumulative worth of over $100 billion.

For several insane reasons ranging from kleptomania to vainglorious megalomania, many state governors dubiously embark on white elephant projects under the guise of delivering a legacy project.

Most of these projects appear germane and plausible to the gullible, the undiscerning, the praise singers, the party allies and the cronies of the governors but to the informed and under closer scrutiny, 90% of these so called legacy projects are nothing more than a bureaucratic conduit pipe designed and deployed for the sole purpose of siphoning and looting public funds.

This class of leaders continues to ignore the people’s needs and well being while focusing on inanities as they keep coming up with wasteful and misguided showmanship projects while the people continue to suffer needlessly.

Nigerian “kleptocrat’s” proclivity for wasting public funds on vanity projects or expensive construction projects of little socioeconomic benefit is well documented.

For proper context,

At the tail end of his tenure as governor, precisely in 2007, Gov Donald Duke spent $450million (over N450 billion tax payers’ funds in today’s rates) to build and launch TINAPA RESORTS. The sum did not account for the required annual maintenance and running cost of an extra N100billion. TINAPA failed even before it was inaugurated. The project did not generate even 1% of the capital investment for the state treasury.

As at today, overgrown by thick forests, TINAPA has become a $450million habitat for snakes, reptiles and different calibers of wild animals while indigenes of cross river state continue to serve as gatemen, maids and domestic servants all over the country and beyond.

See the current state of Donald duke’s N450billion TINAPA:  https://youtu.be/B7m8FnLaxxc?si=sEBfEQ8uRxNPLAnd 

As if that was not enough, Liyel Imoke who took over from Donald Duke Ignored the lessons of TINAPA and came up with another N100billion white elephant scheme called six flags millennium park. Before the end of his tenure, Mr Imoke ended up out spending his predecessor in funding projects that ended up as liabilities to the state.

At Ebonyi state, Dave Umahi claimed to have spent N36bn in the construction of the Chuba Okadigbo airport while he was about to leave office. Less than six months later without a single commercial flight using the airport, The new governor, Francis Nwifuru approved N13.7 billion for the rehabilitation of the same abandoned airport which was collapsing due to stagnation.

This is almost N50billion public funds wasted by the leadership of a state with one of the highest poverty and illiteracy rates in the south east region. Presently, the airport has been turned into a car park and only the private aircrafts of government officials use the runway due to a total boycott by airline operators occasioned by none existent commercial traffic or zero patronage by passengers.

Not only has the present crop of governors wasted huge sums of money that could have been deployed to better serve the common Ebonyian, future governors will be forced to continue spending scarce resources to maintain the white elephant airport.

GOVERNANCE WITHOUT CONSCIENCE:

Corruption in Nigeria appears to be ubiquitous and has proven to be endemic in the Nigerian psyche and polity as a culminate result of recurrent incidents of governance without conscience.

Many observers might question the mental sanity and administrative competence of these governors who embark on these wasteful adventures, However, The truth is that embarking on white elephant projects like the proposed 10 storey hotel at Awka is actually one of the foolproof ways adopted by executives who wish to divert and loot public funds without leaving actionable blueprints or “investigatable” traces. This is due to the instability of foreign exchange and the free market indices that permits budgetary fluidity, price fixings and cost fluctuations based on individual capitalist considerations of the contactors, suppliers and  every active player in the value chain.

In the absence of people oriented leadership, corruption and abuse especially in the exercise of power within the economic, social and political institutions by the political leadership becomes desideratum.

Renowned anthropologist Daniel Jordan Smith in his bestselling book titled A Culture of Corruption, places corrupt practices within the purview of the average Nigerian political leadership while political scientist Richard Joseph went a step further when he coined and used the term “prebendalism” to describe how Nigerian public officials view their position as a personal financial entitlement and a leeway for personal aggrandizement.

Sadly, posterity has justified these men as the reoccurring decimals in the Nigerian political leadership from independence till date has proven that the conclusion of both men represents the reality on ground.

Malfeasance, looting and diversion of public funds remain the order of the day. The manipulation and abuse of government contracts by the executives is probably the most common and lucrative type of official corruption in Nigeria today and governors struggle to out-loot and surpass their predecessors in stealing public funds.

Make no mistakes about Professor Soludo’s state of mind. Like his predecessors highlighted above, the governor knows exactly what he is doing. All available premises of his recent conducts suggest that he might be plotting to raise funds from dubious means for the execution of his second term campaigns and elections.

In Nigerian politics today, there is a prevalent tendency among corrupt governors to shift funds intended for initiatives that benefit people to projects that are considered “white elephants” in order to siphon money into private pockets.

Corrupt tendencies can manifest as a lack of prioritization which ultimately results in diversion of public investment from the provision of basic infrastructure and necessary public services such as health, roads, housing, security and education to large scale projects, typically infrastructural projects which is harder to quantify statistically and investigate forensically.

Because the completion of such projects facilitates self-enrichment, the governors and executives spends comparatively more on big, difficult-to-manage projects like airports, hotels or stadiums so they can create opportunities for fraud.

THE SOLUDO IMPASSE:

Aside a corrupt motive or an intention to loot, I do not see any reasonable indices that would motivate a professor of economics to conceive the idea of building a 10 storey hotel in Anambra state today. Beside the reasons elucidated in this piece, there are other allied and sundry reasons why building a 10 storey hotel is not only ill-advised but suspicious and completely unfeasible.

1, In the midst of debilitating and more pressing needs, building a hotel is the least of many problems beguiling Ndi Anambra.

Anambra state today has degenerated to the point where it is named amongst the most insecure states in the southern region.

Aside security, Anambra state is a cesspool of collapsing public infrastructure. The entire state is battling with bad roads and poor interconnectivity of “motorable” access roads. Anambra state under Soludo has no functional public water scheme, there is the issue of erosion threatening communities, poor health care delivery, decaying public amenities, unemployment, low male enrollment in school, power generation, lack of adequate and affordable housing etc

2, The erroneous claim that the proposed 10 storey hotel is purposed to attract foreign investors and tourists to Anambra state is not just preposterous but fallacious on several premises.

Anambra state today appears on the travel advisory of major countries of the world as a high risk area plagued by insecurity.

The UK, America, Canada, Australia, most of the European, Asian and African countries has officially flagged Anambra state and has also issued travel warnings to their citizens to avoid non essential travels to the state due to high level of  insecurity. (See travel advisory links of the foreign missions of the countries below)

UK: https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/nigeria

CANADA: https://travel.gc.ca/destinations/nigeria

USA: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/nigeria-travel-advisory.html

AUSTRALIA: https://www.smartraveller.gov.au/destinations/africa/nigeria

NEW ZEALAND: https://www.safetravel.govt.nz/nigeria

With inflation rising every day and international companies originally operating in Nigeria folding up and relocating to neighboring countries. Which international investor and tourist is Soludo planning to accommodate in his 10 storey hotel?

3. Building a 10 storey international hotel in a capital city where kidnappings, unchecked cult related violence, frequent armed robberies, carjacking and unsolved murders is common place is not just strange but a possible manifestation of dubious intent and misplacement of priorities.

Over 70% of the roads at Awka, the capital city where the hotel is to be located are dilapidated. Some canals in the city are blocked and people still defecate openly in major highways.

A city where power supply is epileptic and every compound is expected to provide their own water by digging wells and sinking boreholes.

How do you attract foreigners and tourists to a city where Government officials walk around with machetes terrorizing and brutalizing road users?

A city where touts and criminals are officially empowered and used by government to harass innocent citizens in the name of tax collection.

How do you build an international hotel inside “a glorified village”. A term often used to describe Awka?

4. An international hotel can only attract patronage from international tourists if the hotel is sited in an environment that offer uncommon aesthetics or spectacular natural attractions like waterfront resorts, a lake, a beach, an awe inspiring edifice, a historical monument or a natural heritage site etc. All these are not available at Awka so how does Gov Soludo intend to attract international investments and tourism when he is simply building a lodging hotel with nothing spectacular, exceptional or different from other existing hotels?

Proximity to an international airport is also a factor that drives FDI and determines the level of international engagement in the hospitality business of any given area but somehow, Anambra state governor and his advisers seems to have failed to take this into consideration.

5. In a healthy business environment with an ideal economic model, Building hotels and investing in hospitality should be the prerogative of the private sector. A responsible government should ordinarily have no business spending tax payer’s funds on sectors that can adequately be driven and independently funded by the private sector.

There are numerous examples of these types of government ventures failing or ending up in privatization. When the government decides to start doing things that are best done by private enterprise, it is indicative of a failed government that is detached from the people.

Overall, governments generally do not have a good track record in managing businesses meant for the private sector.

All the government needs to do is to provide incentives and the enabling environment for private investors to come in and invest. This is basic economics, therefore it becomes suspicious when a professor of economics chooses to turn a blind eye to this primary economic maxim.

6, As stated earlier, Despite its relatively small size when juxtaposed with other state capitals, Awka already has 106 functional hotels. These hotels actively cater for the available demands in the hospitality market.

The international visitors to the last Anambra investment summit and other events were all accommodated comfortably by the existing hotels at Awka.

Why then does the Anambra state government suddenly feel the need to disrupt the local economy of the private investors in the hospitality sector by forcing a government advent into the sector at a time when other state governments are realizing the mistakes of the past leaders who unwittingly invested in hotel businesses and making amends by privatizing government owned hotels?

7, Hotel business do not have the comparative capacity to create jobs that the same capital investment would have created if the funds were invested in other sectors like manufacturing, transportation, health or education sector.

For a state with unprecedentedly high unemployment rate and one of the lowest civil service salary structures in the country, why would a sane uncompromised government want to invest in a sector that will create comparatively lesser number of jobs for the citizenry?

8. Policy continuity is a reoccurring problem for Nigerian leaders. Most governors come to power and abandon the projects of their predecessors while they embark on fresh projects so they can siphon funds unabated and lay claim to a phantom legacy project.

Considering the prevailing political dynamics and the historical antecedents of succession in the Nigerian polity, how wise is it for a government to invest in such a project that demands long term funding and administrative oversight?

Typical examples are the abandoned Anambra hotel at Onitsha, Awka mall and Nnewi mall etc

The fact that Anambra state government under Gov Soludo has abandoned the Anambra hotel project which is 70% complete at Onitsha and has decided to start off a new hotel project which the present governor might not complete before leaving office raises serious cause for concern.

What if the next governor comes in and abandons the proposed 10 storey hotel?

How will Anambarians recoup the lost investment?

9. The economics of hotel business is dicey and profitability is uncertain as the sector has proven to be very volatile with lots of downtimes and off seasons.

Such an unpredictable business model should never be ventured into with public funds.

The management, funding and maintenance of hotels is a very delicate and expensive venture which is better handled under a private set up as it has been observed that Nigerians generally have a very poor disposition towards the proper management of public infrastructure and an even worse maintenance culture towards same.

Till date, there is no single five-star hotel in a big oil rich city like Port Harcourt due to none assurance of return on investment.

Where is the business plan and estimated ROI of the proposed hotel?

How is the 10 storey hotel project going to be funded? DEBT FINANCING of course.

Who in their right senses borrows to fund such a volatile business?

At the last quarter of 2023, Kwara Government had to cough out N17billion for the rehabilitation of state-owned hotel which is not generating any revenue for the state while Enugu state is currently in court battling several concessionaires over the billions spent on several failed attempts to rehabilitate the Presidential Hotel Enugu.

What then is Soludo’s motivation?

What is his game plan?

10. If the rationalization given by the government for the 10 storey hotel project is genuine, then Agulu Lake Resort/Golden Tulip which is actually idling and wasting away should be a case study because it serves the exact same purposes captured in the government’s press release explaining the motivation for proposing to build the international hotel.

Despite being in a more aesthetically appealing environment with a serene lake that offers an alluring ambience, Agulu resort as at today is not yielding any reasonable income for the state government to justify its initial capital funding so why would a reasonable government be considering embarking on another such project?

How many jobs did Agulu Lake Resort/Golden Tulip create to justify the misleading unintelligent propaganda being peddled by the Aburime’s and the Ejimofo’s of this world in justification of the proposed 10 storey white elephant embezzlement conduit pipe hotel at Awka?

11.  Investigations reveal that Soludo failed in the management of his own private hotel investment and this should send a worrying signal to Anambarians.

His hospitality investment in Enugu has not yeilded reasonable returns on investment as evidenced by the fact that the Enugu state government has often sealed off the hotel premises due to the hotel’s inability to pay taxes and utility bills.

The inability to pay taxes may not be unrelated to poor profitability as a result of low patronage, high over head costs including power generation, licensing, logistics, poor management and long term maintenance requirements.

A cursory stroll through the negative reviews in the Google review page of Nondon Hotels Enugu shows how terrible the Anambra State governor was in the management of his own private hotel. 

If the governor cannot properly and profitable manage his own hotel, why is he hell bent on foisting same business model on Anambra State?

BAD FOLLOWERSHIP BREEDS BAD LEADERSHIP:

A critical study of the happenings in Africa in relationship with the dearth in leadership clearly indicates that the psychological disposition and ideological indifference of the citizenry is the major catalyst behind the corrupt tendencies and looting audacity of the leadership.

In reality, we are actually a reflection of the leaders we vote into power. We see the majority of our people voting on petty and emotional grounds. He is my candidate because he is from my village. I will vote for him because he is of my denomination. I won’t vote for him because I don’t like his party etc at the expense of character, suitability and track records.

This is the reason why Anambaraians keep voting incompetents and shady characters that have nothing to offer.

An informed electorate would have demanded to see Gov Soludo’s leadership antecedents, Social footprints and investment portfolios as a private individual in Anambra State before he is considered fit to run for office.

The uninformed sentimentalities of the masses enables these dubious characters to take power and then use executive powers to devise various means to loot and steal from the public treasury through the execution of white elephant projects after which they will deploy tax payers money to buy narratives and use media propaganda to truncate the efforts of the intellectuals and silence the voices of true advocates of good governance in society.

The truth is that Gov. Soludo’s proposed 10 storey hotel does not have the capacity to create any positive economic impact or touch the lives of the average man, woman or child in the state.

There is no gainsaying or appreciating how many schools, roads, bridges, hospitals, water schemes\treatment plants and other security infrastructure the money could be redirected to instead of some thoughtless, misguided, badly planed egotistical showmanship boondoggle tantamount to an economic disaster.

Anambra State is so gifted with abundant human resource that most of the biggest players in the Nigerian hospitality business today are Anambarians.

Why do they prefer to invest outside the state?

We the conscientious masses subconsciously enthrone impunity, facilitate corruption and catalyze the mindless looting of our collective resources when we fail to ask the salient and critical questions due to political party affiliation.

Anambra billionaire and Stanel boss Stanley Uzochukwu launched his world class hotel “The Delborough” in Lagos instead of Awka. Why?

Even governor Soludo himself choose to build his personal hotel at Enugu instead of Awka. Why?

The truth is that there are thousands of private investors that can invest and develop the Anambra hospitality sector but only if the enabling environment is provided by government.

The few Anambarians who dared to ignore the warning signs and invested in Anambara are being over taxed by Anambra state government on one hand and on the other hand, has become victims to rampaging gunmen as exemplified in the recent hotel inversion at Oba which led to the beheading and killing of hotel guests followed by the kidnap of the investor.

THE WAY FOWARD

The Soludo government must understand that Anambra electorates are not daft. The government needs to come to terms with the reality that Anambra state is not Ebonyi or Cross River or Akwa Ibom where the governors can dazzle and bamboozle the people with ease, fleece them and get away with it.

The average Anambarian is republican, witty, informed and have the mental capacity to see through smokescreens and charades especially when the government appear to be chasing shadows to the detriment of addressing pressing issues that demands government attention.

The government need to restrategize and stop being insensitive to the suffering of the people.

Anambarians desire more than anything the security of their lives and properties which is a primary responsibility and duty that the present government has calamitously failed to provide.

Anambarians want an autonomous, democratically constituted and fully funded local government system as approved by Nigerian laws.

Anambarians want a state house of assembly that is totally autonomous administratively and financially.

The over taxation, double taxation and brutality being meted out on the poor masses and petty traders should halt henceforth.

The public humiliation and brazen assault on the traditional rulers and the church should be addressed and discontinued.

The indiscriminate attack against the opposition, opinion holders, political analysts, concerned citizens, civil society’s organizations and ordinary Anambarians with dissenting voices must stop.

The long suffering civil servants in Anambra State that receive next to nothing as salary in this hard economy and other low income earners in the state deserve mass low income housing projects in a conducive environment.

Our public schools need to be better funded and our teachers need better enumeration. There is need for the construction of technical schools and research centers in every local government of the state.

Onitsha metropolis is in desperate need of new roads that will connect New Parts/Tarzan areas to Nkwelle/33 area through the Nkisi River.

The promises made to rehabilitate Okpoko and Fegge areas in Onitsha need to commence without further delay.

Borromeo round about Onitsha and Nkpor junction has a very urgent need for a fly over even more critical than Ekwulobia.

The corruption in the AIRS should be addressed and the perpetrators should be brought to book.

Awka needs a flyover connecting Regina Caeli road to old INEC road.

There is also an urgent need to commence the construction of

✓Amawbia, Agulu, Ekwulobia, Uga, Akokwa Road. 

✓Unizik junction -isu -Amanuke-Achalla LGA-Oye farm settlement road. ✓Amansea-Ebenebe-Ugbene-Ugbenu-Oba-Ofemili-Umolum-Omo-Anaku-Aguleri road etc

Nnewi roads which has been neglected for ages deserve special intervention from the state government.

Building a 10 storey hotel at this point in time is not a priority and does not make the list of critical responsibilities that require government attention in Anambra State.

Our people need to get back to their businesses on Mondays. Our children need to get back to school and return to the basic 5 day academic week. 

There is need to recover the areas of Anambra state which the government has ceded to criminals.

Fighting feanyi Ubah, Igwe Alfred Achebe, Peter Obi, Professor Orogbu, Tony Nwoye, Victor Umeh, The Catholic Church and the traditional rulers is not part of the responsibilities of a working governor.

To regain the confidence of the people, it is very important that the government jettison the ill-advised construction of the 10 storey hotel and instead focus on providing infrastructures such as roads, schools, hospital, power generation, security and industries which will positively impact the lives of every Anambarian.

Pope, a public affairs analyst writes from Abuja