Admin l Monday, March 15, 2021
UMUAHIA, Abia, Nigeria – He isn’t a passive spectator in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). He is one of the pioneers of the four pillars (Peace and Security, Developing Infrastructure, Policy Harmonisation and Good Corporate Governance) on which the organisation effectively functions.
He is also a sounding board for new ideas for the United Nation (UN), an international organisation that preserves international peace and security and also promotes cooperation among states and international development.
The Congo Brazzaville and Central African Republic governments fall head over heels for this man’s services. But over what? Is it to replicate what Songhai Integrated Farms, a company he directs, is doing in Porto Novo?
Perhaps it could be to tap from his wisdom and precociousness — the virtues that made him part of the engineers who built the Imo Airport, Abia State University and the Federal Secretariat in Garki, Abuja at the age of 27.
Could it be because he has worked with Nigerian presidents and was also the brain behind the 1999-2007 famous civil service reform that distinguished former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s democratic government from his successors’?
It could also be that they want to know how he was able to master a lot of skills to become the kind of entrepreneur he is today. We should also not forget that the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) adopted his book, 42 Hands-On Training Modules In 42 Skills. He teaches these skills too. Maybe that could be the reason.
Could it be because he revolutionised the face of tertiary education in Nigeria and recently solved his community’s age-long electricity conundrum by building a sub-station?
Maybe the Congo Brazzaville and Central African Republic governments are smitten because of his 1000-bed University Teaching Hospital adjudged the best in Africa by former Nigerian President Dr Goodluck Jonathan when completed.
But the man whose intellectual sagacity and revolutionary leadership gave rise to the inquisitiveness, Professor Greg Ikechukwu Ibe OFR settled it thus:
“The Central African Republic sent three of her ministers to see me in Abuja. After the election, I’m going there. The president awaits me. He wants me to come and help revamp his country’s economy.”
If that left you speechless, then the reason he is wanted in Congo Brazzaville — a country of 1.696 million people — will simply blow your mind.
Prof. Ibe said, “I’m setting up two massive agricultural resource centres for Congo Brazzaville. It will be funded by the African Development Bank.”
Rural Resource Centres serve as a community approach to agricultural extension. Perhaps, the government of Congo Brazzaville saw and appreciated the success recorded in countries like Cameron and Nigeria, Akure North precisely, where it created wealth for farmers.
It is a feat worth celebrating that a Nigerian professor from Uturu, Isuikwuato LGA, Abia State, is found worthy and capable to oversee a project that will revamp the nation’s economy and ensure financial freedom for the farmers.
But why the absolute trust for a Nigerian? Isn’t it mindboggling that a billionaire in dollars, whose company is quoted in the New York Stock Exchange, who handles virtually all the UN and ECOWAS capital projects in Africa is not under investigation by international and local anti-graft agencies?
“Integrity and due diligence are the keys. I have passed all the UN due diligence tests. If you take a project that is acceptable and provide value for money, the UN will back it up with funds. But where they see no due diligence and people keep on eating this money back and front, they withdraw their money,” Prof. Ibe said.
He also added, “they work with somebody who knows the program they run. You are denied opportunities when you claim what you don’t possess. I’m a completely different kettle of fish from what anybody else is because you don’t have my exposure.”
For a state like Abia that needs rapid infrastructural development and financial freedom for her teeming youth and artisans, Prof. Greg Ibe is non-negotiable.
Maybe, just maybe, Abia State christened “God’s Own State”, is the reason God established and exposed him to the world at a tender age with the grace of “Mr fix it”.
To be continued next week.
