*skills acquisition training and fish-farming training for 500 youths also
Foundation stone for the construction of the new six hundred and eighty-four (684) shops Nkwelle-Ogidi multi-purpose market in Idemili North council area of Anambra state has been laid yesterday.
Also plans have been concluded for the training of about five hundred (500) registered youths from the community in different skills, aqua-culture and agriculture to boost self-help, empowerment and the President Goodluck Jonathan’s rural communities’ transformation agenda.
The new ultra modern market, according to Chief Morris Ebo who is the chairman of Nkwelle-Ogidi community, was being developed in conjunction with a consortium of developers led by Davis Nig Ltd as part of the first phase programmes in engaging, resettling and rehabilitating interested and eager citizens into worthwhile ventures. It would be ready for occupation and full business activities in four months time and would cost about Four hundred million naira (N400m). And that it was on a Build and Transfer terms.
Overlooking the Enugu-Onitsha dual carriage way at about Km11 besides the Building Materials market, the market when completed would have all modern appurtenances including parking lot for 1000 vehicles, open spaces, toilets, water and independent 24-hour central electricity supply. Others include sanitation, fire service, banks, business centres, security, road network/drainage as well as other logistics.
At the groundbreaking ceremony and handing-over of the site, the leader of the consortium of five developers, Chief Chiedu Okeke assured that they were moving to site at once and would do a quality job, on schedule. He said it would be a historical master piece for posterity.
Ebo had noted that with the steady rising profile of the state as an oil producing state, his community wants to develop the new market as a necessary addition to the state’s commercial requirements now.
He recounted that they have also been training and re-training the local vigilante, which has seen to a drastic decline in criminal activities and other vices in the area. That it was reason why the community is subsidizing the training of the 500 youths on aqua culture and would assist them register and benefit from the Federal Government’s agriculture development fund.
He said that as more foreign and local investors are expected into the state soon, the Nkwelle-Ogidi community plans to liaise with the state’s National Assembly caucus to help get the Federal Government to beef up security and to develop some important roads in the area.
Enthusiastic traders, business executives and officials of the community leadership including Chief Edwin Okeke, chairman of Market development committee; Emma Nwabufoh, Financial Secretary; Joe Anyadufu, Treasurer and Chris Aghalu, the community’s Works Committee chairman witnessed the event.
