By Clement Warrie
On Tuesday, October 21, 2025, after returning from the flag-off ceremony for the ARISE Youth Friendly Center in Nsit Ubium, I decided to make a brief stopover at the Tropicana Mall on Udoudoma Avenue to pick up some groceries. As I exited the mall, my ears were pricked by the sibilance of heavy construction work at the Ibom International Hotel, located less than 400 meters within the 82-hectares of the Tropicana complex.
Drawn by curiosity, I skirted around the mall to the construction site. It was a busy hive of industry, swarming with haulage trucks, day laborers, engineers, and safety professionals in reflective gear. And towering over it all was the gigantic 14-storey hotel building, wrapped in skeletal scaffolding. A few men as little as birds, perched on the steel framework, while a massive crane arched close to the building.
For over 15 years, this 200-room, abandoned 14-storey hotel stood in infamy, with its massive grey concrete and sun-bleached blue glass dominating that end of the city skyline like a menacing tombstone.
As I inched closer to the site, the warm golden glow of the evening sun caught a male laborer idling in front of me. Not more than 35 years old, he seemed much like he might have been molded from the dust of the site. His dark skin and face and hair were coated in pale grit.
There were countless others like him at the site. Perhaps a hundred, both male and female.
But Mr Alade, the admin officer disagreed with the figure the moment I sat in his air-conditioned container cabin to discuss it.
There are 320 workers here on any given day,” he said matter-of-factly. “And upon completion, the hotel is expected to add a significant number of jobs to the 3,000 jobs projected for the Ibom Tropicana complex.”
“That’s impressive.” I replied “The governor seems quite impressed by the pace of work in the hotel the last time he visited. When is the project ex
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