Multi million dollar Nigerian tech park project stalled by Akwa Ibom government drainage dispute
UYO, Nigeria
Work on a proposed technology and innovation park in Akwa Ibom State, southern Nigeria, has been brought to a standstill after storm water from a government built drainage channel began cutting through the site, according to the company behind the project.
The Silicon Valley Science Park Nigeria Limited, developer of what it calls Uyo Silicon Valley, says a culvert built by the state government has been discharging city storm water directly onto its thirty five hectare plot at Ntak Inyang for more than a year.
Iboro Otu, the company’s chief executive, told SITIPPE that the water had effectively split the land in two, making it impossible to develop.
“It’s like all the waste water in that area, storm water has been channeled into a huge gutter to the plots and it’s making it difficult for us to develop the plot at the moment because it just divides the land into two,” Mr Otu said.
According to Mr Otu, the state governor referred the matter to the Commissioner of Environment, who proposed diverting the water roughly one kilometre away to a nearby river. A government contractor put the cost of that work at seven point two billion naira, a bill Mr Otu said the government agreed to cover, though nothing has been implemented.
“We are telling the government, we will not be able to use seven point two billion naira of our money for a gutter you channeled into our land. We are not asking for compensation, but you could just direct it to the river,” he said, adding that as of his most recent meeting with the commissioner, three days earlier, there had been no movement.
In written correspondence seen by us and sent over the course of this year, Mr Otu made increasingly urgent appeals to the state governor, warning in July that continued rainfall risked structural failure of the culvert itself and that the company might be forced into what he called drastic unilateral protective measures, such as sealing it, to safeguard the site.
The company’s chairman is Obong Victor Attah, a former governor of Akwa Ibom State. Mr Otu said the project began after he himself contested and lost the 2023 election on a platform built around establishing a science park, and subsequently approached Mr Attah, under whom the original science park concept was first conceived, to pursue it as a private venture instead.
The developer says it has signed a World Trade Center Uyo licence, part of a global network Mr Otu said would connect local manufacturers, including small producers in Aba and Onitsha, to international financing and export markets.
The company says it has also drawn letter of intent level interest from a Microsoft affiliated data centre operator, a Russian government linked data centre proposal, an American defence contractor for drone assembly, and an aviation firm exploring a pilot training centre, alongside a two hundred and fifty million dollar mezzanine financing package still subject to due diligence.
Mr Otu said a local investor had separately pledged eighty six billion naira toward the project within the past month. He drew a comparison with Taiwan’s science park sector, which he said generates close to three hundred billion dollars a year from a territory similar in size and population to Akwa Ibom, though he described his own company’s revenue projections, at around one hundred and sixty billion naira annually once stabilised, as deliberately cautious by comparison.
He said the company was not seeking government funding. “We are not asking the government for a penny. No one is asking for money. We already have our money. Just to create an enabling environment. That’s all,” he said.
Officials at the Ministry of Environment and Mineral Resources have not issued a public response to the company’s most recent letter, neither has the Commissioner for Environment, Hon. Nsikak Ekong responded to the SMS and WhatsApp messages sent to his phone number ending with 516.
