The recent visit by the Governor of Enugu State, Dr. Peter Mbah, to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has continued to create positive waves in the polity, writes Deji Elumoye.
Two days ago specifically on 12th June, Nigerians marked Democracy Day to commemorate the origin of the struggles that birthed the military handover of power to the civilian government of former President Olusegun Obasanjo on 29th May 1999.
But beyond the platitudes that come with each Democracy Day, Nigerians have also come to realise that democracy is not an end in itself, but a means to an end.
They want democracy to deliver more, above all security and welfare of the citizens.
It was perhaps in furtherance to this that the new Governor of Enugu state, Dr. Peter Mbah, made the State House the port of his first official visit.
Briefing newsmen after the closed door meeting with President Tinubu, he said he was in the Villa to strike an economic partnership with the Federal Government.
According to him: “I came and frankly I brought to the President, the warm greetings and best wishes from the government and the people of Enugu state.
“But, above all, you may also know already that we made massive campaign promises to the people of Enugu. And we also have expressed humongous vision. We’ve taken a bold view of what the new government could achieve in the next four years, in terms of growing our economy from the current levels to $30 billion. And one of our core governance philosophies is to collaborate and to have partnership, and we have identified the federal government as our core partner.
“We have a number of dormant assets in Enugu, which we believe partnering with the federal government, we’ll be able to transform them into productive assets.
“A lot of people do not know, but we have huge mineral resources in Enugu State. And these resources are sitting under our ground, not being productive. So, we believe with the partnership we’re trying to build with the federal government, we’re able to transform these assets into productive assets.
“Of course, you know that the growth level we have proposed is one that is going to be driven by the private sector and private sector wants the ease of doing business; and one of the core indicators of the ease of doing business is security and infrastructure. So, we also had that conversation with Mr. President.
“And finally, we also talked about the release of Nnamdi Kanu. You know, that the South East has made a collective demand to have Nnamdi Kanu released. And we basically identified with that and request, Mr. President, who in his inaugural address promised the people that he’s going to engender national healing and he’s going to serve with compassion. So we’ve basically informed him that this would serve as a pointer to his administration’s extension of hands of fellowship to Ndigbo”.
Recall that Mbah had unveiled an ambitious economic and development agenda.
Among them is to raise Enugu’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from the present $4.4 billion to $30 billion economy, which would require growing the state’s economy seven folds.
Mbah’s administration is equally working to make Enugu one of the top three states in Nigeria in terms of GDP and record a zero per cent headcount rate in terms of poverty index.
Expectedly, not a few have expressed their reservations, especially given the meagre inflow from the Federation Account into Enugu as well as Enugu’s high debt profile. But Mbah appears to understand what exactly it takes to achieve his vision and how to go about it.
Speaking with Arise News TV, Thisday’s sister medium, on 31st March 2023, Mbah was quick to remind his interviewers that he was out to disrupt the system, a view he also re-echoed in his inaugural address on 29th May where he told Enugu people that it would be “business the unusual way” going forward.
Mbah had told Arise News TV: “The truth is that if we were to do a trend analysis, our growth pattern over the years, we cannot be talking about a seven-fold economic growth. But we actually want to disrupt innovatively the current revenue model.
“We equally recognise that these current revenue models that focus on a rent-seeking approach where we have to rely on revenues from the Federation Account, come back here and, of course, the money we collect and the IGR is hardly enough to optimally intervene across all the critical sectors of our economy, hence we said that we will have to tweak our revenue model and unlock our rural economy and explore the resources we have in the state, which we haven’t done in the past.”
Enugu is endowed with oil and gas fields, coal, glass sand, iron ore, gypsum, limestone, alum, clay stone, kaolin, and other mineral deposits. But Enugu will need collaboration and partnership with the federal government to catalyse energy and mineral resources development and attract investors to explore and exploit them for the benefit of the state and the country.
The ambitious economic plan will also require energy. Mbah’s administration plans to explore renewable energy and key into existing finance to setup captive power for industries and homes, and explore solar energy, wind, biomass and hydroelectric energy sources.
Likewise, infrastructure is key to raising the economy by making Enugu attractive to local and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), a fact he also highlighted to Arise News in the aforementioned interview when he stressed that “Attracting investors will require you providing some basic infrastructure”.
In this stead, Mbah’s administration plans to construct 10,000km of roads in eight years.
But there are also critical infrastructure that would require the collaboration and goodwill of the federal government to pull through. This include the operationalisation of the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu, development of the state’s inland waterways and other critical infrastructures, which formed Mbah’s discussion with the President.
However, whether it is the infrastructure, maximising the state’s trapped and dormant resources, building the requisite infrastructure, igniting ICT and digital revolution to empower Enugu youths, among others, Enugu will require federal government’s support and goodwill in more ways than one.
But Enugu’s ambitious agenda under Dr. Peter Mbah will end up as a pipe dream without security if the prevailing insecurity and restiveness in the region is allowed to fester. South East has suffered serious reversal of fortunes as marauding criminals hide under the Biafra agitation and detention of the leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) to orchestrate havocs.
Even when Monday sit-at-home has been cancelled by IPOB and other pro-Biafra groups, they insist on enforcing it, especially in Enugu, which is the only state capital in the region that is still under total lockdown on Mondays until Mbah’s recent ban on the Monday sit-at-home.
According to Mbah, Enugu loses N10 billion every Monday owing to sit-at-home.
For the South East, the Commissioner of Police, Mr. Ahmed Ammani, put the losses suffered due to illegal sit-at-homes at N5.375 trillion.
It is therefore not surprising that the release of Nnamdi Kanu formed a key discussions point between Mbah and President Tinubu, while his appeal for Kanu’s release has hugely resonated with the people of South East extraction the world over.
At a town-hall meting convoked by the Enugu State Government in Enugu last Saturday, stakeholders and representatives of various bodies, institutions, organisations, associations, professional bodies, traditional institutions, town unions, government officials, and heads of security and intelligence agencies, equally supported and commended Governor Mbah “for the laudable steps taken so far to ensure peace is returned to the state, which include his recent visit to the President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, for the release of the leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu”.
They called on the President to “expedite the process of national healing, national integration, and national reconciliation”.
If morning foretells the day, it can be said that Mbah’s mission to the Villa was a great strategic move. Consequently, in Enugu and South East, expectations are high that the dividends of the meeting, which Mbah described as “quite successful”, will begin to flow in earnest.
