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By Don Norman Obinna
From coruscating, Abia State has become nondescript. It is not profane to say that she has lost her distinctive attributes since the demise to eternity, her totemic founding father, the late premier of the eastern region, Dr Michael Okpara. No thanks to her antipathetic leaders.
Okpara had no equal. He was such an outlier that Thisday newspaper of May 17, 2008, in a report under the headline “Nigeria’s harvest of failed industries”, deservedly awarded him the epithet development.
“In the Eastern Region, Dr Michael Okpara was another great nation builder who had equally great ideas transformed into action from his palm produce earnings. The agrarian revolution saw the building of farm settlements across towns and villages. The Ulonna Farm Settlement, the Obudu Cattle Ranch and industrial villages in Port Harcourt, Aba, Enugu and Umuahia, made Eastern Nigeria a region with great promise. His idea was to route develop