The ongoing public debate surrounding aviation infrastructure in Anambra State brings a critical governance question to the fore: What kind of infrastructure does the average citizen truly need right now? While the government has clarified that recent site assessments in Orumba North are for a mixed-use industrial city rather than a standalone second airport, the widespread public anxiety underscores a deeper issue. It highlights the urgent need to realign our state’s developmental priorities away from elite-centric projects and toward mass-utility infrastructure.
Anambra already possesses the Chinua Achebe International Cargo Airport at Umueri. At this stage in our economic history, expanding aviation capacity is early, counterproductive, and misaligned with the realities of the grassroots. Instead, the state’s primary focus should shift toward building a state-wide light rail network connecting all 21 Local Government Headquarters and key economic hubs.
We must ask a fundamental question: Whom does an airport serve in today’s economy? With skyrocketing inflation and a severe cost-of-living crisis, aviation remains the exclusive luxury of the political and business elite. Air travel does nothing for the market woman, the smallholder farmer, or the average civil servant. You cannot use an airplane to evacuate harvests from the rich agricultural belts of Anam or Umueri to major consumption hubs like Awka, Onitsha, or Umunze.
A rail network, however, can do exactly that—and cheaply. By slashing the cost of moving food from our rural agrarian sectors to urban markets, a state-wide train system would directly combat food inflation. Furthermore, with volatile fuel prices and exorbitant vehicle maintenance costs, an affordable rail alternative would provide immediate financial relief to millions of commuters, taking the pressure off our overstretched road networks.
Beyond economics, a modern rail system addresses Anambra’s most pressing contemporary challenge: insecurity. Our highways have become vulnerable corridors where citizens face the twin terrors of kidnapping and armed robbery. Road travel is inherently risky because criminals exploit bad road patches or isolated stretches to ambush vehicles. In contrast, a high-speed rail corridor operates on secure, controlled, and heavily monitored tracks.
Imagine a state where a commuter can travel from Awka to Onitsha, or from Ekwulobia to Umunze, within 10 to 20 minutes in absolute safety. Such connectivity would neutralize highway vulnerability, drastically reduce the state’s high rate of road accidents, and provide a secure passage for students and pupils commuting to schools across the state. It would effectively collapse the entire state into a single, highly integrated, and secure economic zone.
If we look at Anambra’s dense population and unique geography, the argument for rail becomes undeniable. A second airport or specialized aviation enclave serves thousands; a state-wide light rail system serves millions. It democratizes dividends of governance, ensuring that public funds yield the highest possible human and economic return.
While long-term multimodal transport plans have been discussed in policy circles, the time has come to move from concept to concrete priority. True progress is not measured by how many prestige projects we can boast of, but by how safely, cheaply, and efficiently the ordinary citizen can move from one point to another. Anambra does not need more runways; it needs tracks. Let us build the railway first.
