By Rommy IMAH
Your Excellency,
On Wednesday, February 26, 2025, at Ngodo in Umunneochi Local Government Area, history was made when you flagged off the long-awaited 12-kilometre Ngodo–Umuaku–Mbala Road Project. That day, before a jubilant and hopeful crowd, you made a solemn and memorable promise to Ndi Umunneochi: “I will send the Commissioner for Works to undertake an assessment tour of the damaged and abandoned Mmam Bridge.”
That assurance, delivered with conviction, rekindled hope in a people who had waited for decades. Sadly, almost one year after, that hope has grown faint. I do not know of any assessment tour that has taken place, or any visible steps that have followed the promise that once stirred deep optimism among the people.
Your Excellency, the Mmam Bridge is not just a collapsed structure; it is a painful symbol of neglect spanning over 58 years. Linking Isuochi in Umunneochi Local Government Area of Abia State with Achi in Oji River Local Government Area of Enugu State, the bridge still bears the scars of the Nigerian Civil War of 1967–1970. Before its destruction, it served as a vital economic and social artery connecting present-day Abia, Enugu, and Anambra States, facilitating commerce, mobility, and enduring inter-communal bonds.
For the people of Isuochi, Mmam Bridge stands daily as a reminder of lost opportunities and deferred justice.
Nearly two decades ago, driven by frustration yet sustained by hope, the youths of Mbala Isuochi in Abia State and their brothers from Awlaw in Oji River, Enugu State, took a bold step where governments had faltered. They cleared the land and attempted laying the groundwork for a makeshift culvert-like bridge, an extraordinary act of communal resilience and self-help. It was proof that, as Helen Keller once said, “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened.”
Their effort rekindled hope.
Subsequently, government intervention appeared to finally answer the prayers of the people. The early stages of reconstruction at Mmam Bridge inspired confidence: arrival of construction materials, and the visible presence of contractors all suggested that a decades-old dream was at last within reach. Then, suddenly, the work stopped.
What followed was silence, leaving behind an incomplete bridge and a community once again burdened by abandoned promises. Today, Mmam Bridge remains a stark monument to interrupted progress.
Your Excellency, a new budget year is upon us. This presents not just an administrative opportunity, but a moral moment. The rehabilitation of Mmam Bridge deserves priority attention in the 2026 fiscal framework. Infrastructure, after all, is not merely about concrete and steel; it is about people, dignity, and inclusion.
As 2027 approaches and political conversations naturally intensify, there is one project capable of speaking louder than any campaign promise in Isuochi and the wider Umunneochi area, the reconstruction of Mmam Bridge.
Your Excellency, just as the iconic Omenuko Bridge in Arochukwu stands today as a testament to your vision and resolve, so too can Mmam Bridge become another enduring legacy of your administration.
If given the attention it deserves, the bridge would unlock immense economic potential. Farmers and traders would move their produce—cashew nuts, cassava, and cherished local products such as Iwu, Omuru, Ngwisi, Ikpurube, and Nwaigu, to broader markets without waste or hardship.
Alternative and shorter routes to Enugu, Onitsha, Awka, Nsukka, the 9th Mile axis, and even northern Nigeria would open up. Indeed, from Mmam Bridge to the popular 9th Mile Corner in Enugu State is less than a 20-minute drive.
This is development with immediate, measurable impact.
Your Excellency, your reputation as a decisive, people-centred, and reform-minded leader gives Ndi Umunneochi reason to believe that their long wait will not be in vain. As John F. Kennedy once said, “The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.” The time to act is now.
Mmam Bridge is more than an inter-state link. It is a bridge between despair and hope, between abandonment and belonging, between the past and a more prosperous future. Its reconstruction would not only connect Abia and Enugu States, it would reconnect Ndi Umunneochi to the promise of governance that listens and delivers.
If this bridge is rebuilt, Ndi Umunneochi will remember. History will remember. And you, Your Excellency, will be remembered as their Nehemiah, the leader who rebuilt what had long been broken.
Respectfully submitted.
***Rommy Imah, an indigene of Isuochi, Abia State, is a Lagos-based media practitioner
