By Kingsley Adegboye

Lush City, Aba, Abia State, a residential estate being developed by Property World African Network otherwise known as PWAN Plus, may have become a source of inspiration and respite for Igbo in the Diaspora to return home, as the estate meets the standard of their dream home and environment.

Before now, the untidy environment coupled with lack of infrastructure and social amenities in rural areas is part of why Igbo in diaspora did not want to return home.

But with the development of the Lush City, the thinking of Igbo in the Diaspora is now ready to own homes at the sprawling residential estate that has all it takes to replicate their homes abroad.

Vanguard Homes & Property investigation revealed that easterners living in the Diaspora and those who relocate back to their roots actually share the same frustrations of untidy environment and lack of social amenities.

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According to Justin Okenwa, a human resources professional, “this has increasingly become the greatest challenge of many urban easterners, especially retirees and those who wish to relocate back to their roots for peculiar reasons.

“I definitely prefer to live in a nearby city when I retire, and visit my village to spend my weekends.

“It is not good for me to start learning how to cope with challenges of life in a rural setting, in my old age. Not after several years of city life.

“I have already bought a plot in Lush City Phase 2, Aba. It’s less than one hour’s drive to my home town, and I am glad I did.

“This does not in any way diminish the fact that every Igbo man holds ownership of a befitting family house in his place of birth closely to heart.”

He finds a soul mate in Akpan Ekere, from Ikot Ubo, Akwa Ibom State, who said: “One shouldn’t gamble with life in retirement. That’s why I desire to spend my retirement within an organised estate,” disclosing that he had acquired a plot of land for his retirement at Lush City, Uyo.

“Surely there’s no way I will miss the civilised lifestyle I have grown up with and used to,” Akpan noted.

Explaining why Ibo and their South-South neighbours find it difficult going back to their villages and living among their kinsmen, the Managing Director of PWAN Plus, owners and promoters of Lush City by Cedarwood, Julius Oyedemi, said until there is a paradigm shift in housing ownership pattern, many easterners and southerners living in cities will continue to find it difficult to retire to their native homes.

His words: “Our experimental estate in the commercial nerve centre of Abia State; Lush City Phase 1 Aba, is witnessing huge scramble.

“We actually sold out all the plots within four weeks. Lush City Phase 2, Aba, is also fast selling out and the third phase is loading. Interestingly, 90 percent of those who invested into Lush City exclusive estates are Igbo in the Diaspora.

“A good number of accomplished professionals living in different Nigerian cities, business people and politicians also joined in the scramble for Lush City projects,” Oyedemi disclosed.

During a recent facility tour of Lush City Aba and Uyo, our correspondent found out that Lush City projects in South-East and South-South regions are carefully targeted at creating an ideal environment and orchestrating a change in the lifestyle of the people.

Oyedemi said: “Our primary objective is to spark off development in the region and enhance the lifestyle of the people positively.

“We want to clean up the streets, and have them filled with people of positive minds. Lush City is a revolution intended to use real estate to improve South-East and South-South by planting cities.

“We believe that south easterners travel far and wide. Why should they come back to their own place and the best they see are isolated edifices spotting a predominantly remote village setting?

“While we are not saying that a village shouldn’t be a village, we want to ensure that south easterners and residents of neighbouring communities are able to enjoy good infrastructure, portable water supply, ambience, recreational facilities, security and elevated lifestyle that they enjoy in various cities where they reside.”

According to him, “Igbos have done so much but they are enjoying less. They have built lots of exquisite mansions scattered in their villages and towns.

“Incidentally, many are scared to come back home due to the absence of urban lifestyle that they enjoy in the cities. That they have beautiful houses doesn’t make isolated family mansions in villages and towns a city.

“A collection of those houses having adequate social amenities, recreational facilities, good infrastructural base and linked to sprawling pockets of towns and villages make up a city.

“We are creating an environment whereby there will be a show of creativity, innovation in the South-East and South-South through Lush City revolution.

“At the end of the day, both the typical natives as well as the cosmopolitan easterners can have a feel of ambience, security and enhanced lifestyle back in their home towns.

“When you travel overseas you find out that even the way you talk, the way you dress, the malls and places you visit, everything you come in contact with is just attractive, and all these things contribute to your lifestyle.

“We want such an environment in the South-East and South-South regions. Lagos and Abuja are already urban cities, with the vital contribution of the real estate sector. Several estates imply several developments.”

For Chief Okosisi Ochingwa, a dealer in stockfish in Ariaria Market, Aba, “this is a welcome development.”

He observed that tremendous self-developmental projects and infrastructure are taking place around Osisioma area of Aba, where Lush City Phase 1 is located.

According to Ochingwa, the place was a virgin land when PWAN Plus arrived.

“Now the place is growing fast. People no longer call the location by its original name. They now call it Lush City.

“So Lush City has become a landmark. Also, the government of Abia State has begun to improve infrastructure development in the area,” Ochingwa said.