Former Minister of Aviation, Osita Chidoka, has challenged the Abia State Government to move beyond physical infrastructure and focus on building strong institutions, competent public servants and systems capable of sustaining development beyond individual administrations.
Chidoka, founder and Chancellor of the Athena Centre for Policy and Leadership, made the call ahead of his keynote address to mark the 35th anniversary of the creation of Abia State, scheduled for Thursday in Umuahia.
The lecture, titled “Abia at 35: The Rise of a New Abia,” is expected to examine the state’s development journey and the institutional reforms required to build a more capable and sustainable state.
Chidoka had earlier warned during a lecture at the Abia State Leadership Academy Executive Education Series that the quality of governance should not be measured solely by the number of projects completed, but by the capacity of institutions to deliver and sustain their benefits.
He defined state capacity as the ability of government to translate policy intentions into measurable results, stressing that effective institutions require competent, disciplined and accountable personnel.
Drawing lessons from China, Britain, Singapore and Rwanda, the former minister identified merit, administrative competence, disciplined execution and accountability as essential ingredients for transforming government from a collection of political promises into an effective instrument of development.
He also questioned the tendency of governments to prioritise visible capital projects while neglecting the personnel, equipment, electricity, maintenance and administrative systems required to keep such infrastructure functional.
According to him, a newly constructed police station without operational equipment, a school without effective inspection or a diagnostic laboratory without reliable electricity may constitute physical development without necessarily improving public service delivery.
Chidoka, a former Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps, said sustainable governance requires effective coordination between political leadership and the permanent civil service.
He described the political cycle and the continuity of the public service as “two calendars of government”, arguing that the two must be aligned if reforms are to survive changes in political leadership.
Drawing from his experience at the Federal Road Safety Corps, he identified performance measurement, regular management reviews, visible results, consequences for failure, capacity development and institutionalisation as critical elements of successful reform.
He warned that reforms could disappear once their architects leave office unless they were converted into enduring systems and institutional practices.
“Reform changes what government does. Institutionalisation changes how government behaves after the reformer has gone,” he said, stressing that the ultimate test of state capacity is what remains after individual leaders leave office.
The argument assumes particular significance for Abia, which was created on August 27, 1991, as the state marks 35 years of existence.
Chidoka said the challenge before the state was to convert successive development programmes and political commitments into durable institutions capable of delivering consistent public services regardless of changes in government.
He also linked the Abia State Leadership Academy to this broader objective, describing investment in leadership and human capital as equally important as roads, schools, hospitals and other physical infrastructure.
“An academy is an intention. Its graduates will be the evidence,” he said.
Governor Alex Otti described Chidoka’s intervention as timely and relevant to the state’s emerging governance model, saying his administration was focused on merit, execution and citizens’ welfare.
Otti cited the removal of state-of-origin considerations in appointments and the appointment of a Head of Service from Edo State following a mandatory examination as examples of the administration’s commitment to merit-based public service.
Earlier, President of the Abia State Leadership Academy, Prof. Kenneth Kalu, said the institution was established to prepare a new generation of leaders and place the state on a sustainable path of good governance.
Chidoka, however, emphasised that leadership reform must ultimately produce institutions capable of functioning without depending on the personality or constant intervention of a governor.
Illustrating the point with an anecdote about a government commissioning ceremony where everything had reportedly been prepared except the scissors for the ribbon-cutting, he said the incident symbolised a wider weakness in public administration—the gap between announcing an intention and having the systems required to execute it.
He argued that effective reform should create a public service in which responsibilities are anticipated and delivered through established institutional processes rather than only when directed by a governor or prompted by a commissioner.
As Abia enters its fourth decade of statehood, Chidoka’s message places institutional sustainability at the heart of the state’s next phase of development.
For him, the measure of a “new Abia” will not ultimately be the number of projects unveiled by one administration, but whether the state develops the people, systems, standards and institutional memory needed to keep those achievements working for generations.
His prescription is straightforward: build infrastructure, systems, standards, people and, above all, institutional memory.
That, he argued, is how Abia can move from dependence on individual political heroes to a government that knows what to do—and has the institutional capacity to keep doing it.
