by Uchechukwu Okoroafor, Abuja
Dr Alex Otti, the Governor of Abia State is among the governors that was sworn into office on May 29, 2023. Elected under the platform of the Labour Party (LP) and one of the governors that was truly elected by their people in Nigeria and not rigged into office, he has a lot to do in order not to betray the confidence reposed in him by the long-suffering people of the state.
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Abia State is one of the states that has been rendered desolate by its leadership since 1999 and the emergence of Otti as governor is seen not just as a change of guard from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the Labour Party, but a sort of liberation from the tyranny of the few that had held the state in bondage. It is akin to the liberation of Israel from Pharaoh and South Africa from the apartheid regime.
To ensure that the New Abia that would emerge through Otti’s leadership works for all, we decided to present what we call Agenda for Abia Development that could guide his government, with due respect to his manifesto, and ensure that NEVER AGAIN will Abia State return to Egypt after being liberated from slavery in 2023. We are setting this agenda using data available from reliable sources showing where Abia is presently in development scale and where it should be going forward.
The national average in the standard of living has been on a downward slope, with Nigeria now being regarded as the Poverty Capital of the World. However, there are variations amongst the Regions and States. In the South East Region, Abia State is adjudged as having the worst indices of development as indicated by figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). For instance, while the National Unemployment Rate is 33% Abias own is 51%, its poverty rate is 31%. The state has the worst network of roads in the South East. Aba, its main commercial city and the honey pot of the state has the worst network of roads amongst all the cities in Nigeria.
There is no functional public water supply system anywhere in the state just as well as there is no airport. Most of its local government headquarters are in varying forms of dilapidation, its only Tertiary Health Institution, the Abia State University Teaching Hospital has lost its accreditation, just the same way, the Abia Polytechnic lost theirs. Most of its workers and pensioners are being owed arrears of salaries.
BudgIT annually assesses the fiscal sustainability of the 36 states in Nigeria using four indexes. These include the ability of a state to cover its operating costs, and loan repayments without borrowing. Other indexes include a state’s fiscal capacity to borrow more, given its low debt burden relative to its annual revenue, and the prioritisation of capital over recurrent expenditures. Within the first six months of 2015, two months after former Governor Okezie Ikpeazu assumed office as governor, Abia State was ranked 14th on the fiscal sustainability index, the second lowest in the South-east after Imo State. By 2020, the state ranked 25th on the index, emerging as the lowest in the South-east. The state, however, improved in 2021. It ranked 15th in the index, finishing second lowest in the South-east after Imo. But it dropped further in 2022, ranking 18th in the index, also the second lowest in the South-east. This indicates that Abia State performed poorly in fiscal sustainability index rankings between 2015 and 2022 as it dropped from 14th to 18th overall.
On debt burden, available data shows that Abia was on continuous borrowing under Governor Ikpeazu’s administration, resulting in a rising debt burden. In 2015, when the governor took over office, the state’s total external debt stood at $41.5 million, while domestic debt was at N33.5 billion within the period under review, according to data released by BudgIT. It emerged as the 26th most indebted state nationally and fourth in the South-east. By the end of 2019, months after Ikpeazu’s first tenure in office, the state’s total debt burden rose to N98.31 billion. This represented an increase of 223.43 per cent within six years from N30.40 billion in 2014. Still, in 2019, Abia’s domestic debt stood at N68.76 billion, the highest in the South-east. Its external debt grew to $96.59 million, the third highest in the South-east and 12th nationally. By 2020, Abia State’s domestic debt stock surged by 29.63 per cent from N68.76 billion in 2019 to N89.14 billion. Its external debt grew to $96.79 million, leaving it with a combined total debt burden of N125.82 billion.
Abia state towerThe state, consequently, ranked the 19th most indebted state in the country, the data showed. Within the same period, the state’s total debt per capita stood at N30,324, higher than the country’s average of N27,316 per citizen. Abia State was the 18th most indebted state in the federation as of December 2021, with a total debt stock of N136 billion. The state’s domestic debt stock grew to N95.21 billion while its external debt jumped to $101.13 million. The state’s total debt stock increased by 8.78 per cent from N125.92 billion in 2020 to N136.98 billion in 2021, representing an increase of N11.06 billion, data from BudgIT showed.
As of 31 December 2022, Abia’s domestic debt had surged to N103.7 billion, becoming the second highest indebted state in the South-east after Imo State, according to records by Nigeria’s Debt Management Office (DMO). Within the same period, Abia’s external debt stock slightly dropped to $94.2 million, becoming the third less indebted state in the South-east after Ebonyi and Imo. Thus, Abia State’s external debt stock grew from $41.5 million in 2015 to $94.2 million in 2022, an increase of over 100 per cent, in more than seven years, under Ikpeazu. Its domestic debt also surged from N33.5 billion in 2015 to N103.7 billion in 2022, an increase of over 200 per cent, in more than seven years, under the governor.
On unemployment rate, available records show that in the third quarter of 2017, about two years and four months after Ikpeazu took over, the unemployment rate in Abia State was 28.6 per cent. It surged to 31.6 per cent in the third quarter of 2018, the highest rate recorded in the South-east, data from the NBS showed. In the fourth quarter of 2020, the figure jumped to 50.07 per cent, the second highest in the South-east after Imo State. New unemployment statistics for states are yet to be published since 2021. Thus, Abia State’s unemployment rate grew from 28.6 per cent in 2017 to 50.07 per cent in 2020, an increase of nearly 100 per cent in three years, under Ikpeazu.
On poverty rate, in 2019, after Ikpeazu’s first term in office, Abia State had a poverty headcount ratio of 30.7 per cent, the third highest in the South-east after Imo and Anambra. The ratio placed Abia among the states below the national average. The report, released by the NBS, was based on data from the Nigerian Living Standards Survey. The poverty headcount ratio, also called the poverty rate, is the per cent of people’s population who are multidimensionally poor. By 2022, the figure increased to 33.9 per cent, the worst in the South-east. From the details above, the percentage of Abia residents who are poor increased from 30.7 per cent in 2019 to 33.9 per cent in 2022.
Abia is also poor on ease of doing business ranking. An Ease of Doing Business ranking by the BudgIT in 2017 indicated that starting a business in Abia would take an average of 44 days, the highest in the South-east. In 2018, Abia State was ranked 16th on subnational data on the ease of doing business, the second highest in the South-east. It scored 77.10 out of 100. The ranking was published in a report, Comparing Business Regulation for Domestic Firms in 36 States and FCT Abuja with 189 other economies.
It focuses on whether an economy has in place the rules and processes that can lead to good outcomes for entrepreneurs and, in turn, increased economic activity. By 2022, the state recorded a significant drop in the ranking. It was ranked 32nd on subnational data on the ease of doing business, the lowest in the South-east. Thus, Abia’s Ease of Doing Business Ranking dropped from 16th in 2018 to 32nd in 2022, under Mr Ikpeazu.
On the under-five mortality, data showed that the rate for Abia State between 2016 and 2017 was 83 per 1,000 live births, the second highest in the South-east after Imo. In 2018, data showed that the under-five mortality rate in the state was 86 per 1,000 live births. With the figure, the state clinched the third highest position in the South-east and 20th nationally. By 2021, the figure increased significantly to 115 per 1,000 live births, recording the highest position in the South-east and 11th nationally.
According to experts, there are important sectors that require investments to engineer the socioeconomic development of every society. Two of those are education and health. The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation recommended that governments of various countries should allocate 15 to 20 per cent of their total annual budgetary allocation to education. Similarly, heads of African Union countries, in April 2021, recommended the allocation of at least 15 per cent of their annual budget to the health sector. An analysis of the Abia State Government’s budgetary allocations to the education and health sectors under Governor Ikpeazu’s administration shows that the state has consistently failed to meet the minimum benchmark for the sectors. For instance, in 2017, Abia State allocated N4.4 billion to the health sector, out of a total annual budgetary allocation of N102.5 billion. The allocation was less than four per cent of the total budget, which is below the minimum benchmark for health. In 2018, Abia’s health budget is 7.5 per cent of the total budget, data from the BudgIT showed.
Also, in 2019, BudgIT pointed out that the state’s actual capital expenditure on health and education at N251 million and N683 million respectively was “incredibly low and cannot transform the state” in the long-term with regard to the sectors.
These identified challenges should form the core of the agenda for the transformation of Abia State. From the figures above, there is no sector that Abia did well. From infrastructure to ease of doing business. From health to education and in various sectors of the economy Otti has to intervene to extricate Abia from the status of the basket case of South East and one of the worst governed states in Nigeria. Policies must be developed around the aforementioned negative performances of Abia State in these sectors and reverse them to positive outcomes for the overall development of the state.