November 26, 2024

Scarce Resources, Alternative Uses, and Opportunity Cost: The Abia Experience

By Esther Ezinne Kalu

An Elementary Economics teacher can easily illustrate and demonstrate the concept of ‘Scarce Resources,’ ‘Alternative Uses’, and ‘Opportunity Costs’ with the Abia State Experience in the deployment of funds from her public treasury. Even a retarded student can grasp the practical meaning of the above fundamental concepts of elementary economics with such illustration and demonstration.
1999 -2007
The funds plundered from the public treasury for the establishment and acquisition of an Airliner and aircraft, including a shipping line and Vessels, were enough to change the face of Umuahia to a befitting Capital City. It could have been used to fix quality Roads in Aba, reconnect Abia North Zone with the rest of the State by fixing the Umuahia to Arochukwu Highway, and invest in Healthcare and Education for quality service delivery in the State.
The opportunity cost or forgone alternatives of plundering the funds to establish and acquire a private Airliner, aircraft, Shipping line, and Vessels was the glorified village square state of Umuahia as a capital city, the impassable state of Roads in Aba and the disconnection of Abia North Zone from the rest of the State.
2007 – 2015
The State treasury was looted for the primitive acquisition of choice properties in Umuahia, Abuja, and other cities, shared as ‘Agbata-Ekee’ with super stakeholders and compromised ‘elder statesmen’ and deployed for the unsustainable keke empowerment which destroyed and enslaved the youth’s demography and stomach infrastructure as a tool to impoverish and control the people could have been used alternatively to develop Infrastructures to attract private sector driven investments, develop the Agricultural value-chain to achieve food security, provide access to quality Healthcare delivery and Education for the Youths to improve human capital capacity, and transform Umuahia to compete with other capital cities in terms of infrastructure and service provision.
The opportunity cost of looting Abia State public funds for primitive acquisition of private estates, settlement and sharing with stakeholders and compromised statesmen, keke empowerment and stomach infrastructure was the high rate of unemployment amongst our youths with the rising drug abuse and violent crime, poverty and hunger, and decline in skilled manpower including the low mortality rate.
2015 – 2023
The Abia Public Treasury looted and plundered for the building of luxurious homes in the villages, building hostels and acquiring choice properties in highbrow areas of major cities within and outside Nigeria, building and acquiring Hotels, Gas Stations, Commercial Properties, clubbing and drinking expensive liquors, living lavishly and retaining several Hotel rooms around the State and Country, acquiring expensive vehicles, becoming empowerment czars to obtain titles and awards, and transforming to emergency Billionaires without enterprise could have been deployed to clean up the heaps of refuse and debris littered across Aba, the commercial nerve centre and Umuahia, the capital city, desilt the drains to arrest the perennial flooding of Aba and Umuahia, build and rehabilitate the Roads and other Infrastructures to ease traffic and mobility within the cities, pay salaries and pensions of workers and retirees, fix public schools and health centres to offer quality services to the ordinary people, build the stretch of Roads from Umuahia to Arochukwu to reconnect Abia North Zone back to the State, use the funds approved for the Airport Project to build it, fund and support State owned institutions to retain accreditation, empower the youths with knowledge based skills and competences, and upgrade the Infrastructures in Aba and Umuahia to support private sector driven investments and improve urban renewal.
The opportunity cost of using public funds for primitive acquisition and luxury, wasteful spending and consumption of expensive liquors, and personal enrichment was the rot and ruins Aba and Umuahia were left in, the heaps of unevacuated refuse and debris littered across the urban centers, impassable state of the roads, abandoned public buildings, deaccreditation of State institutions, months and years of arrears of pension and salaries of State workers, total disconnection of Abia North Zone from the rest of the State, dysfunctional civil service, local government secretariats in decay and ruins, hopeless youths and women demography, humongous debt profile with nothing to show for it and the complete lack of access to Aba markets and service points.
It is noteworthy to mention that there was an unspoken embargo restraining all the administrations from 2007 to 2023 from awarding Roads stretching up to 10km and building Roads to survive a tenure. Construction and Reconstruction of Quality Roads and long stretches of Roads were forgone alternatives to sustain the looting and plundering of public resources for personal use.
2023 – 2024
The use and deployment of Abia State scarce resources to pay State workers and pensioners as and when due, defray arrears of salaries owed by previous administrations, reconstruct strategic Roads like Port-Harcourt Road, Ohanku Road, Obiohia Road, Ekeakpara-Osisioma Road, Omuma Road, and rehabilitation of intra-city Roads to ease movement of people and goods, reconstruction of a stretch of over 100km Road to reconnect Abia North Zone back to the State from Umuahia to Arochukwu, reconstruction of Ndi Okereke – Abam Road, Nunya-Eluama Road in Isiukwuato LGA, Agbor Court, Abiriba Road, Itungwa – Omoba Road, and the Newly awarded 9 Roads across the 3 Senatorial Zone of Abia State, rehabilitation and retrofitting of 200 primary healthcare centres across the 184 wards, the Upgrading of secondary and tertiary healthcare centres around the State for quality service delivery, the ongoing rehabilitation of 221 public schools and the revocation/recovering of public schools coveted or sold-off by Agents of the immediate past administration, Reaccreditation of State Owned Institutions which were deaccredited during the last administration, civil service reforms and the training of civil servants on modern IT skills for better performance in service delivery, rehabilitation and retrofitting of abandoned public buildings to create befitting workplace environment for State workers, the light-up Abia project to luminate the streets at night for environmental security, the ongoing transformation of Umuahia to a befitting Capital City with the expansion of the entry point and building of a central transport terminal, the evacuation heaps of debris and refuse and gradual evolution of effective waste management model to keep the environment clean and healthy, the beautification of Aba and Umuahia with Roundabouts and water fountains, ongoing market remodelling, training of selected youths on digital skills, the training of 300 youths and women on modern Agricultural skills at CSS Global Integrated Farms and empowerment with start-up grant to setup farms in Abia State, the disbursement of N1 Billion as Revolving Nano Loans to 10,000 Nano and Small business owners and the reduction of the State debt profile from N191 Billion to N97 Billion without borrowing a dime from the Bank.
The public funds used and deployed on projects and programs that are impacting the generality of the people could have been shared as usual with the so-called stakeholders and cronies, used to build new homes and castles by the Ex-Governor and his appointees, club, and drink expensive liquors, acquire choice properties in high-brow areas around the world, buy exotic cars and jeeps, lodge and retain luxurious hotels around the State and country, sustain the emelagi practice to compete with Equatorial Guinea trending sex rockstar and visit Brazil or Caribbean islands to flirt with beautiful women on a bikini in the guise of investment hunt, covet and acquire public school spaces and increase the State debt profile with nothing to show for it.
It may take time to change the entrenched mentality of looting and sharing public wealth in the name of stomach infrastructure. Under Governor Otti, New Abia cannot continue with the insanity of doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Our people must realize that resources looted or shared cannot be used for the development and execution of people-oriented policies and programs, and resources invested in people-oriented development cannot be shared. This is the era of shared prosperity in sharp contrast to the impoverishment and enslavement of our youths and women with the ‘Who Say Man No Dey’ and keke empowerment scheme, which keeps them poor, irresponsible, and hopeless in the long run. The opportunity cost and forgone alternatives of the evolving shared prosperity in New Abia is the absence of blank cheques to political appointees to acquire private estates and clubs, drink expensive liquors, and become emergency Billionaires. The resources used and deployed to transform the Local Government Secretariats into functional workplace environments could have been looted and plundered as usual in the old Abia while leaving the Local Government Secretariats in ruins and unusable state.
Finally, as a raw illustration of Scarce Resources, Alternative Uses, and Opportunity Cost, the Resources to be deployed in the Reconstruction of the flagged-off 11.5 kilometers Ntigha-Nbawsi-Umuala today by Governor Alex Otti would have been looted, plundered, and shared by Erondu Jnr. and Enyinnaya Apollos for the acquisition of private estates. The opportunity cost or forgone alternative of Reconstructing the Ntigha-Nbawsi-Umuala Road is the private estate that would not be acquired by the duo of Irondu Jnr. and Enyinnaya Apollos in their rat race of Billionaire competition.