BY CHIDI NKWOPARA, Owerri

The old Imo State, which includes parts of today’s Ebonyi State and the entire Abia State, suffered serious destruction of its vital infrastructure as a result of the 30-month fratricidal war of survival and self-determination waged by Ndigbo.

Chief Sam Onunaka Mbakwe came on board as state governor in 1979, barely nine years after the war ended. Although he found himself in the opposition Nigerian People’s Party, NPP, Mbakwe felt that creating job opportunities for the teeming youths that came out of the war fronts, was one of the surest ways of keeping them gainfully employed and away from crime.

That was how all the local government areas of the old Imo State benefitted from Mbakwe’s industrialisation programme. That was how Imo Modern Poultry Complex was conceived, executed and commissioned. Scores of people were employed and all the production lines of the establishment commenced production in full force.

The vision that gave birth to this was rudely truncated no thanks to over-ambitious military officers that in a dawn coup d’état, sacked the Second Republic civilian government in 1983. Unfortunately, the machines already bought by the Mbakwe regime and delivered to the project sites were either sold by the military, vandalized or left to rot in the crates. The two power generating stations located at Amaraku and Izombe, designed to supply power to rural communities, were equally sold.

Imo Modern Poultry Complex can rightly be counted as one of the industries that survived the senseless sales but like the crab that escaped from a trap, its legs can’t be said to be complete.

What is most disturbing about the fortunes of this establishment is that all previous administrations were not prepared to revive this money spinning poultry industry. They simply paid lip service to their promises to reactivate the establishment.

Imo Modern Poultry has a land mass of 17.7-kilometer radius or 177 hectares. Forward looking Mbakwe built a magnificent administrative block, a feed mill that also has a 3,000-tone silos and a parking lot for workers and visitors. He also built residential buildings for workers, a mechanized plant that can process 13,000 birds a day. There were also five fish ponds, a fully equipped technical and maintenance department and three 1,000KVA electric generating sets and hatchery that was capable of producing 2.5 million day old chicks per annum.

There are nine large plots of land, housing five poultry pens and each was built to accommodate 15,000 birds. The calculation of Mbakwe and his team was that the 45 poultry pens could conveniently house 215,000 layers and by extension, produce an estimated 14 billion eggs a year! By every stretch of imagination, this was and still is a money spinning establishment that was sadly left to rot away.

Thieves have, over the past years, feasted on the establishment. Electrical components of the complex, iron and steel structures, equipment of all sizes and functions were carefully dismantled and stolen by the rampaging rogues. The hatchery building was mindlessly burnt by hoodlums.

The good news is that life is gradually returning to the embattled establishment. Currently, Governor Rochas Okorocha has appointed a General Manager, Sir Frank Ibezim, for the poultry complex. Ibezim has commenced skeletal rehabilitation in some of the buildings. He told Vanguard Metro that the current rehabilitation would be done in phases.

As part of the rehabilitation process, the administrative block, some buildings in the staff quarters and recovery of the internal road network has started. Sir Ibezim has equally commenced the process of connecting the complex to the national grid of the country’s public power supply.

“We are doing everything possible to connect this establishment to the national grid. This will be the first time in history that this place is going to be powered outside the  installed generators,” Ibezim said.

Similarly, work has commenced on the 1,000-gallon capacity water tank, while two out of the three water boreholes has been reactivated.

“We are trying to reactivate all the  automotive gadgets in  the poultry pens to its original form. We have been able to convince he Governor that we will start raising birds once we repair some critical infrastructures,” Ibezim said.

VM was told that if things move as planned, the establishment will sell the first set of broilers in June this year. “We have the mandate to raise full grown birds by the end of June this year. The Governor has also promised that he will bring funds to completely revive the entire complex, if we are able to show him our capability,” Ibezim said.