President Bola Tinubu is expected in Abịa State this month to commission the Port Harcourt Federal Road in Aba, nearing reconstruction by the state government.
His visit comes after former president Olusegun Obasanjo performed a similar action on the 46.4 kilometres Umuahia-Akara-Abiriba Road, also reconstructed by the government last month.
Governor Alex Otti announced this on Wednesday in Umuahia, the state capital, during his monthly media briefing for April, entitled “Governor Alex Otti speaks to Abians”.
“I hope that the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria will do us the honour of coming to commission the road like he had indicated earlier,” the governor noted.
He said the president would also flag off the construction of the proposed $1.3bn Abia Medical City during the visit, which he described as his administration’s flagship programme.
According to the governor, the establishment of the facility is expected to save Nigerians billions of dollars from foreign medical tourism and transport costs.
His words: “Those of you who have been paying attention, you know that we have been at the medical city project since 2023,” Otti further explained.
“Assembling the task force or the committee that will work on it, getting a model that works on it, getting partnerships, and most importantly, sourcing the funding. I am glad to report that it is now in place.
“We have signed up a ‘Build-Operate-Transfer Model’. We have also upgraded with a partner who has experience and who is bringing the funding. We have seen the colour of the money.
“Before now, people with some form of complicated ailments faced India and the rest of the world, where statistics show that on an annual basis, we spend over $2bn on medical tourism.”
Therefore, he observed that the state would not be greedy: “If we get 10% of that on an annual basis, that would be $200 million, which would be sufficient to run that centre.”
