Peter Mbah’s noiseless strides in Enugu

You would think I had personal relationships with Chukwuma Soludo and Alex Otti, Governors of Anambra and Abia states, the way I’ve followed their governance trajectories. I was only doing my job as conscience of society and documenter of history. Soludo I know somewhat because he was Economic Adviser to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, in whose administration I also served. He was subsequently appointed Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN. We met a few times during meetings he attended in the State House, which I covered as a component of the President’s official secretariat. Otti I never met though. But in two separate essays: “Plaudits for Soludo, Otti and Bago,” and “Soludo, Otti and Prospects for National Integration,”

I took specific note of their efforts in prosecuting people-oriented developmental agendas. With Soludo and Otti appointing non-indigenes of their respective states to the pinnacle of the civil service as Permanent Secretary and Head of Service, respectively, I reckoned elsewhere, that national integration was indeed feasible despite our fractious sociopolitics. Enugu State began to feature in my thoughts in the aftermath of President Bola Tinubu’s visit to the state early January and the jaw-dropping projects he commissioned.

I tracked the 2025 budget of the state and discovered it nearly approximated the one trillion naira mark, frantically chasing after established deep pockets like Lagos, Rivers, and now Niger State. Enugu now nestles with Ogun, Delta and Akwa Ibom states, on the column next to the big spenders. A substantial part of what the state intends to spend this year would indeed be generated via internal revenue, which was surprising. When the Nigerian Guild of Editors, NGE, served notice of its 2025 Biennial Convention for Thursday June 26 to Sunday June 29, with Enugu State as host, I reckoned it was a fitting opportunity for the verification of the good tidings from the famous, primordial headquarters of Nigeria’s South East.

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Enugu welcomes you, wide-armed, with smooth, motorable roads as you drive out of the Akanu Ibiam International Airport. Your driver is not dodging ditches or running into potholes. Mbah’s government, you get to know, has rehabilitated 90 urban roads within his initial two years in office. Very evidently, Enugu has profited from quality leadership all through the past 26 years. The baton passed down from Chimaroke Nnamani, to Sullivan Chime, and thenceforth to Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, and more contemporaneously, Peter Mbah, has steadied the state on an upward developmental trajectory.

Whereas every dispensation etches its name on the whiteboard of time, the collective interest of the people of the state, are primary. Mbah, soft-spoken, with no airs around him, welcomed us at the formal commencement of the Convention on Friday June 26, 2025, at the very stately, purpose-built Enugu International Conference Centre, also developed by his administration within the first two years of his administration. Adjacent this and under fast-paced construction is a 340-room five-star hotel, consistent with growing Enugu into a tourism and conferencing hub. Mbah’s strategic vision indeed is to elevate the economy of his state from its present $4.4 billion to $30 billion in eight years.

The opening ceremony of the Enugu Convention of the Guild of Editors, also had in attendance media heavyweights like Aremo Olusegun Osoba, a living legend of the Nigerian media, who edited Daily Times, the flagship of the erstwhile Daily Times conglomerate and served as two-time Governor of Ogun State. Chief Onyema Ugochukwu, a media icon, who holds the record of having edited three major titles in the Daily Times stable in his time, Business Times, the London based West Africa magazine, and the flagship newspaper, Daily Times itself, was present.

Nonagenarian Sam Amuka-Pemu, publisher of Vanguard newspapers, one of the elder statesmen of the profession who was expected, sent his apologies. Proprietor of Channels Television, one of Nigeria’s media bright lights, John Momoh, and the Director-General of the Department of State Services, DSS, Adeola Oluwatosin Ajayi, were equally in attendance. Media Adviser to former President Muhammadu Buhari, Femi Adesina; long-serving Adviser to Babatunde Fashola, SAN, Hakeem Bello, and Senior Special Assistant, SSA, to President Bola Tinubu on Media, Tunde Rahman, were present. For the avoidance of doubt, the Enugu Convention of the Nigerian Guild of Editors could rank as the most enthusiastically attended in recent years, commanding over 400 delegates. It was star-studded.

Typically, the third days of our Conventions are devoted to touring projects executed by our host governments. En route the Michael Okpara Square where editors converged before breaking into groups, Enugu residents were seen walking, jogging, exercising on sidewalks across the city in good numbers. It was for me, a reflection of contentment by the people with the leadership of their state. People being owed salaries, benefits, allowances and pensions wouldn’t prioritise exercising when there’s crippling hunger in their homes.   It was also a reflection of the people’s confidence in the security regimen emplaced by their government for their safety. I found myself in Group B of the tourists, guided by the Secretary to the State Government, SSG, the US-trained Professor Chidiebere Onyia.

Emeritus Editor Ugochukwu, pioneer Chairman of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, was our team leader. My colleague and sister from our days in Daily Times, Angela Agoawike, said that once she sighted Ugochukwu at the Convention, she could swear I was somewhere in the audience! Mbah’s Smart Green Schools which are being replicated in each of the 260 electoral wards in the state, must provoke the envy of many tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Thirty of this prototype have been completed. Under Mbah, education is free and imperative from kindergarten to JSS 3, to avail children of basic education.

For starters, computer literacy is compulsory for every student. Side-by-side with approved curricular, Mbah’s vision is for each child, each graduate to acquire specific skills to help them become gainfully self-employed, rather than wait despairingly, for white collar jobs which may be slow in coming, or may never come. Each school has departments or laboratories or workshops for practical teaching of dressmaking, vulcanising and mechanical artisanship, hotel management and so on.

Mbah is as passionate about the agricultural sector and has indeed established a tractor assembly workshop.

Completely knocked down parts, CKDs, are imported and cobbled together in the workshop, ensuring value chain benefits at every intersection. Patrick Nwabueze Ubru the Commissioner for Agriculture and Agro-Allied Industries briefed editors about the vision of the Mbah administration, to establish farm settlements of a minimum of 200 hectares, in each local council area. Each settlement is to grow crops compatible with its soil texture and environment to minimise crop failure. Agro-processing will be vigorously encouraged to ensure that benefits accrue to food producers down the line. The state hopes to have 1000 tractors working across the state in its bid to achieve self-sufficiency and food security. One hundred tractors have been coupled, one of them tested by Ugochukwu. It is expected that a similar number would also have been assembled before the end of the outgoing year.

With video clips of the deployment of cameras across roads in Lagos State which trended recently, it would seem, from what editors were shown in Enugu, that both states are racing for the medal for positively leveraging technology for security management. The Command and Control Centre, CCC, in Government House, Enugu, is a specifically developed facility from where the entire state is monitored. Visible and invisible cameras mounted around and about the state, transmit information, real-time, to the Command Centre.

As at the time of our visit to the CCC, 137,000 vehicles had moved around the state or driven through, that very day. The cameras can zoom to the faces of security personnel manning various outposts and pin-down points, and have the capacity to pick their name tags for disciplinary purposes in the event of misconduct in their area of responsibility, AOR. Mbah’s precedence demonstrates in graphic, practical terms, that artificial intelligence can be successfully deployed in crime tracking and security management in Nigeria. Every state Governor sincere with the pursuit of the security of his people needs to visit Peter Mbah in Enugu.

They need to experience what he has put in place, with the aim of replicating and operationalising same in their domains. The Mbah concept is powered by renewable energy and totally immune from the irascible instability of public electricity. Indeed, unabating insurgency culminating in the loss of the innocent lives of ordinary folks and soldiers, crimes like banditry and kidnapping, genocidal attacks on unsuspecting communities, can be pre-empted and mitigated with the aid of modern technology. It will unmask so-called “unknown gunmen,” outlaws and similar sadists who derive joy in the pain and grief of others.

Governor Peter Mbah treated the Guild to a beautiful gala night, after a day of trekking and climbing projects and sites being developed by his government. Very instructively, classy,   top-of-the-range alcoholic beverages and wines were served, demystifying pretentiousness elsewhere. As one who has worked with and followed three Governors and at least one President over the years, one observed Mbah’s genuine resentment for needless exhibitionism. When he got up to address editors at the revelry, he needed no podium before him, no security aide behind him. He was just himself. He capped a beautiful Convention for the Guild by confirming that Enugu State will host the next conference of the body. He can be sure we will be back with our sneakers next time. We would be delighted to continue our project tours from where we took a break from today’s Enugu State, where Peter Mbah is noiselessly taking legendary strides.

*Dr Olusunle, Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors, FANA, is   an Adjunct Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Abuja