Its hilly geography signposts a state destined for greatness. Enugu, the ‘Coal City’ State and its inhabitants are faced with a new height of reality, prepared to embrace a futuristic present, courtesy of a new Sheriff in town, the fifth executive governor of Enugu. Governor Peter Mbah stands atop a mountain of possibilities in Enugu, underlined by his educational and medication interventions. The Mbah revolution is unfolding, and its disruptive innovation has already been unleashed on the landscape. Things are changing and changing fast. Water is flowing from taps that had been dry for over 50 years. Mbah is a dreamer who seems to turn the words of Liberia’s ex-President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf upside down, that “if your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough.” The catch here is that Mbah’s dreams don’t scare him. They scare the Enugu people. He comes with a fierce sense of urgency to give meaning and energy to leadership and governance. If you have not been to Enugu to see things for yourself, then take a trip there. Bayo Akinloye was there recently and reports
Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu exemplifies modernity, momentum, and magnificence. Imbued with ingenuity, serenity, and perspicacity, Mbah has demonstrated a people-centred gamut of governance in less than one year. In his search for excellence, Mbah has been unwavering and unstinting.
His campaign tagline in the build-up to the 2023 gubernatorial election in Enugu underscored his style of governance and application to public service. Its hilly geography signposts a state destined for greatness. Enugu, the ‘Coal City’ state and its inhabitants are faced with a new height of reality, prepared to embrace a futuristic present, courtesy of a new sheriff in town, the fifth executive governor of Enugu. Governor Peter Mbah stands atop a mountain of possibilities in Enugu, underlined by his educational and medication interventions.
Since the assumption of office on May 29, 2023, Mbah has opened a new chapter of politics, governance and technocracy—his focus on health and education with its attendant projects that cut across 260 wards. Metaphorically, Mbah transcends the past, reinvents the present, and fast-forwards the future. His gubernatorial campaign tagline well articulated this: ‘Tomorrow is here’.
Like prose, the Enugu governor is a riveting short story narrated in a suspenseful and dramatic style. Mbah does not just talk the talk; he walks the talk. Not a few observers conclude that “his leadership shows past governors of the state were marking time while in the saddle.”
Mbah is building smart schools across 260 wards, devoting 33 per cent of the Enugu budget to education. Schools are built for the whole of Africa and the world. They are designed to build capacity not just for the state, the country, and the African continent but also for the children of the world who will benefit from a lifetime quality education. Mbah could not have a better vision for the future.
The smart schools
The Mbah administration is constructing 260 model smart schools. Each smart school comprises a crèche, nursery, primary, and junior secondary school and makes provision for children with special needs. Each smart school has a clinic, ICT centre, e-library, science laboratories for primary and junior secondary schools, tech laboratory, centre for robotics, studio and interactive boards.
It also has a one million litre underground storage water to support a clean and safe learning environment for children across the 260 wards and renewable energy as an alternative power source. The pilot project at Owo, Nkanu East LGA, is already running.
According to Mbah, the objective is to turn Enugu children into global citizens by ensuring that every Enugu child gets equal or better quality education than their peers in Europe, America, and other developed parts of the world.
Once in a Generation’ Mbah
Benevolent and magnificent individuals like Mbah come “once in a generation.” Already rich by dint of hard work and inventiveness, Mbah is not driven by primordial political posturing. Many consider Mbah hard-working and honest. He is believed to be in politics to add value and not to steal. He is different from several political opportunists, it is said, and anything he promises, he does.
It is little wonder his electoral promises are worth their weight in gold. Political analysts noted that even the Obedients are gradually accepting the reality that Mbah is the man Enugu needs for redemption, restoration, and revolution. In driving the narrative progressively forward, Mbah demonstrates the value of “health is wealth” with his administration’s ultra-modern health facilities.
Level 2 primary healthcare centres
The Mbah administration is constructing an ultra-modern Level 2 Primary Healthcare Centre in each of Enugu’s 260 wards with the requisite sanitation and hygiene facilities, water, doctors’ and nurses’ quarters, and backup power sources. Besides ramping up the human capital training to manage these facilities, the administration has successfully digitised patients’ records by migrating from analogue record keeping to the electronic medical record (EMR) platform.
In his previous public service, Mbah made a significant impact as Enugu’s commissioner for finance and economic development during Governor Chimaroke Nnamani’s tenure. As a testament to his contributions to Enugu’s fiscal operations through the strategy document he evolved, which became the operating template for the Enugu government’s development programmes, the NewsWatch magazine’s special publication of July 3, 2006, described Mbah as “a man ahead of his time.”
In less than one year as the executive governor of Enugu, Mbah has stood his ground against criminals to telling effects.
The command and control centre
Insecurity in Enugu was at its peak when Mbah took over the reins of power. Kidnappers were on the rampage. Non-state actors imposed a compulsory Monday sit-at-home on the people, and it was usual for gunmen to drive through several local government areas to launch death crusades in the city centre and still return safely to their abodes, living bodies of gunned down security agents in their trail. To stop this, Mbah banned sit-at-home, effective June 5 2023. Instructively, despite threatening fire and brimstone, the non-state actors have been unable to launch any attack on the state since that day till date, as the Mbah administration took drastic steps to curtail their excesses, deploying technology to fight crime.
The Enugu governor has set machinery in motion and is ready to launch a hi-tech command and control centre (CCC) to put the South-East state under effective surveillance. The centre, located at the Government House, is the endpoint of fibre optic cables, which the administration is laying in the city centre and six other local governments of security concern. With high-tech cameras mounted in every nook and cranny, operatives at the CCC can view the entire Enugu metropolis and the six LGAs captured in the first phase on the screens. That way, it should become easier to prevent and fight crime.
The CCC has the Distress Response Squad (DRS) arm, piloted in August 2023. The full complement of the DRS will comprise over 100 vehicles and will be launched along with the CCC. The DRS comprises hi-tech patrol vehicles with security surveillance cameras capable of facial and number plate recognition.
New Enugu City
As a former finance commissioner for finance, a member of the Federal Accounts Allocation Committee (Nigeria’s highest fiscal allocation body), chairman of the Federal Accounts Allocation Committee’s Sub-Committee on Legal Matters, chairman of the board of directors of the Enugu State Insurance Company and chairman of the board of directors of the Enugu State Finance and Investment Company, the incumbent governor is creating a new city.
The New Enugu City is a sprawling 10,000 hectares of land that traverses five LGAs: Enugu East, Enugu North, Enugu South, Nkanu East, and Nkanu West. In October 2023, the Mbah administration flagged off the first phase of development, which includes a 17km dual carriageway, feeder roads, and other critical infrastructure. The first phase of the city, which will be ready in 24 months from October last year, covers 26 square kilometres.
This aligns with its campaign promise and determination to restore Enugu’s lost glory and make it the premier destination for investment, business, living, and tourism. According to Mbah, the envisioned New City, which is smart, would rub shoulders with any great city in the world, underscored by the contracting of the project to the China Communication and Construction Company, CCCC.
The city comprises three islands: Happy Island, Vitality Bay, and Innovation Park. The New Enugu City will have a dedicated power project, a central sewage system, and centralised public utilities, including central high-speed internet. Mbah recently signed the New Enugu City Development Agency Bill into law to underscore the administration’s importance to the city.
Road projects
Mbah promised to construct at least 10,000km of roads in the next eight years, or 1,250 kilometres per fiscal year. In October 2023, he flagged off the construction/reconstruction of 71 urban roads and 10 major inter-local government and inter-state roads. He has even awarded many more since then, turning the entire state into a construction site.
The major inter-local government and inter-state roads include the 40km Owo-Ubahu-Amankanu-Neke-Ikem dual carriageway, 40km Ama Brewery Junction-Eke-Akama Oghe-Iwollo-Uzo Uwani Road with a 4.2km spur to Aguobu Owa in Ezeagu, Agu-Mgbuji-Ogete-Eha-Amufu road and the Ikem-Nkwo-Odenigbo-Eha-Amufu-Ichama Benue Road, and 15km Amechi-Idodo-Amagunze Road, among others.
Amechi-Idodo-Amagunze road
Presently, for the people of the Idodo zone of Nkanu East to get to their local government headquarters at Amagunze, they would have to traverse Enugu East, Enugu North, Enugu South, and Nkanu West LGAs. But with the new road, which cuts across Amechi-Idodo-Oruku-Amagunze, with two major bridges over the Ido and Iyaba rivers, which Mbah’s administration is already under construction, it will take less than 20 minutes.
The road will not only link the Nkanu East North but also serve as a gateway from Nkanu land to the northern part of the country and vice versa. Most importantly, it will create access to the food baskets of Nkanu, Ebonyi State, and Benue.
Owo-Ubahu-Amankanu-Neke-Ikem road
The 40km dual carriageway was conceived by the Mbah administration as a gateway to the North Central region. It will greatly shorten the travel time from the South East and parts of South-South to the North and vice versa. It aims to open up these rural food baskets and the economy on that corridor up to Benue and other parts of the North. People along this corridor have endured post-harvest losses over the years because of a lack of access roads.
Restoring Pipe-borne water in Enugu
Ninth Mile 24/7 Water Scheme: In fulfilling his campaign promise to restore water to the Enugu metropolis in 180, Governor Mbah inaugurated the 70 million litres daily Ninth Mile Corner 24/7 Ultra-modern water scheme. With this and an additional 50 million litres of water daily, the administration has raised the water supply from an occasional 2 million litres daily to 120 million litres daily. Massive reticulation has been ongoing to replace asbestos dating back to the colonial and Dr Michael Okpara days, which have become unhealthy and weakened by age.
