By Maduabuchi Dukor
The new smart cities, namely Awka, Onitsha, and the Anambra Mixed-Use Industrial City (AMIC), under construction by the governor of Anambra State, Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo, under the auspices of the state government, are typically sublime visions of infrastructure and industrial development that would redefine and urbanize the Anambra state sub-national in Nigeria. The aesthetic analytic is an urban trilogy and architecture reminiscent of Dubai and Singapore development and industrial models. It represents a bold and transformative urban and economic renewal unprecedented in the governance history of a third world country. As tongues and lips kept waxing, the story is that, this is the flash of a Comet or Messiah at work in a Nigerian space. It sounds like a prophecy, yet is a vision that is not empty and action that is not blind. Characterized with consistent policies, strategic planning and articulate implementations, Anambra state government has raised the notch in governance in Southeast and Nigeria, contrasting from the knee-jack and wobbly approaches bedeviling states in the federation.
In a piece meal engineering development the government instantiated these projects, collectively described as an “urban trilogy,” to ensure they are strategically designed to position the state as a modern, industrialized sub-national hub within Southeastern states, Nigeria, inspired by global models such as Dubai and Singapore. The urban trilogy is, therefore, a strategic framework that made the three smart cities an integrated development vision. Awka re-images the state capital as a dynamic administrative and innovation-driven urban center and designed as a tech-savvy government and innovation capital. This is evidenced in the purpose-built government house recently opened by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Apart from focusing on human capital development through education and innovation, the city would be housing smart government buildings, research institutions, tech parks, green spaces, and sustainable housing. All this is courtesy of the government’s fiscal responsibility, resource management resilience and innovative collaboration with private sectors
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Onitsha module is focusing on transforming an already thriving commercial hub into a world-class smart trade and logistics city. The modernization of the famed commercial city of Onitsha into a smart trade corridor is to re-calibrate the famed Igbo entrepreneurial culture as global and visible resource center in Africa. Piloted by a Chief Executive honed in competitive liberal market best traditions of ‘give and take’, Onitsha is now being transformed into logistics hubs, inland ports, high-speed transit, and digital marketplaces. Aptly, this means a great innovation of traditional market culture into a structured, tech-integrated commerce system, reminiscent of Dubai’s Jebel Ali Free Zone. Hence, strategic existence of Anambra state as the gate way to the Southeast republican business culture from the western geopolitical hemisphere would facilitate trade in the greater ECOWAS and Sahel sub-regions.
Articulate and coherence in budgetary and fiscal planning that fits into the furniture global best practices and development economics, the trilogy create a balanced urban-industrial ecosystem that radiates a triangle of governance, commerce, and industry. This, to speak the least, is the first sustainable and pragmatic developmental framework, backed by law and, implemented by the order of an elected Governor in contemporary Nigeria’s federating units. It must be submitted that this transformative governance trajectory blossoming in Anambra states serves not only the much needed economic and social redemption of Nigeria as a nation state but also the federating sub-nationals. Suffice to stay, that Anambra state adaptation of technology and Asian tiger economic development model is a vision worthy to be emulated.
The AMIC (Anambra Mixed-Use Industrial City) would be a catalytic zone for green industry, and tech-enabled infrastructure. Envisioned as an industrial space with eco-friendly manufacturing zones, tech-driven warehousing, and residential-commercial mix, it is integrated with power, transport, and digital infrastructure. Anambra state, definitely, is poised to take an enviable place in the committee of industrialized nations in the world. It would mirror the Singapore’s Jurong Innovation District or Dubai’s Industrial City in design and purpose. AMIC would create a 21st century revolution which ripple has the potential to set the Southeast and Africa on the edge of freedom from the throes of western domination. The economic transformation would rekindle an all round development that would decongest old cities in the state and redistribute growth more equitably across the state; where employment opportunities in construction, services, logistics, manufacturing, and tech innovations engender regional competitiveness within the ECOWAS corridor. With improved infrastructure, the state could attract significant diaspora investments and global capital.
The inspiration from the Dubai and Singapore industrialization modules have logically found a fertile ground in Anambra people’s culture, history and environment as a macro – entrepreneurial geopolitical zone. If true in this case why not in other federation units? It a matter of leadership in space and time. Like Dubai and Singapore, the Anambra vision is rooted in planned urbanization using smart technologies and forward-thinking urban design to create livable, efficient, and resilient cities. It is based on economic diversification and shifting from dependence on federal allocations to a revenue-generating sub-national via trade, industry, and services. Dubai’s model of rapid infrastructural transformation and Singapore’s highly efficient, innovation-led governance provide a blueprint for what these cities can become with proper planning, public-private partnerships, and regulatory reforms. Hence, the ultimate is in exposing and robustly elevating Anambra state to global competitiveness and positioning as a peaceful and a preferred destination for local and foreign direct investment.
This modus operandi and process of mounting this novel and revolutionary development model, complicated in thought and implementation, is consistent with the government’s transparency, community buy-in, and efficient land titling. Leveraging PPP models, development finance, and bond markets, Soludo’s government is promoting institutional capacities through smart governance structures and regulatory frameworks, while ensuring the cities are secure, inclusive, and environmentally resilient.
The urban trilogy of Awka, Onitsha and AMIC has the potential to redefine Anambra as a sub-national model of modern African urbanism and industrialization. If successfully implemented, it could catalyze a post-oil economic renaissance in Nigeria, showing how visionary leadership, strategic partnerships, and smart planning can produce world-class cities—even in contexts previously overlooked by global investors.
.Prof. Dukor is the President/Editor-in-Chief of ESSENCE LIBRARY(cultural and scientific development center) at UNIZIK, Awka
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