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If you are a criminal, please avoid Enugu state. For, surely, you will be caught. The state’s Command and Control Centre, an intelligent grid of connected systems enabled with state-wide cameras and drones, is keeping surveillance over the state. This AI-powered 21st century centre is not a decorative design just for optics. It’s working. It is real time. Enugu is under watch. Those who committed crimes in other states and ran into Enugu to hide had been caught. Either way, avoid Enugu if you’re a criminal. The Command and Control Centre, described as the first of its kind in Nigeria, is doing 24-hour real-time monitoring over the state.
And mind you, Governor Peter Mbah, the silent foreman superintending over the state means business. He has zero tolerance for criminality of any kind. Mbah is building a state where tourists, investors and residents are secured.
True to purpose, a new Enugu is rising from the old and Mbah is the grand architect of this emerging smart state, now a reference point in good governance in Nigeria. Mbah, a lawyer and businessman, came prepared for the demands of his office. He understands the core essence of leadership and his constitutional role as governor. It is his duty to protect the lives and property of citizens as well as mind their welfare. Working with a template that mirrors that of successful south east Asian leaders and builders of modern economy, he has focused on infrastructure, security, healthcare, education, hospitality and industrialisation.
Taciturn but full of tact, Mbah has shown that building a sustainable and viable economic ecosystem in a state is not rocket science. And it is not a happenstance, either. So, he came into office in 2023 a ready man. And in barely three years and six months, it is obvious that the he has brought his private sector management tool kit to Enugu government house.
His achievements are writ large. Undeniable! That is how a brood of over 300 Nigerian editors described his imprints in Enugu state. The editors were in Enugu for four days for the 22nd edition of the Nigerian Guild of Editors conference tagged the All Nigeria Editors’ Conference (ANEC). Auspiciously themed: The Ballot, The Media and the Task of Keeping Democracy Alive; with a sub-theme: When Lies Look Real – Detecting and Debunking AI Disinformation Before, During and After Election, you’d expect a conference with all the trappings of an intellectual feast. That’s exactly what it turned out to be. Vice President Kashim Shettima (Special Guest of Honour), Dr. Peter Mbah (Host Governor), the ebullient Igwe Nnaemeka Alfred Achebe, Obi of Onitsha (Chairman); the effervescent Cardinal John Onaiyekan; Mazi Afam Osigwe, SAN (former President Nigerian Bar Association); Professor Auwal Yadudu of the Faculty of Law, Bayero University, Kano; Professor Stella Okunna, Nigeria’s first female professor of mass communication and now sitting as Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academics, Paul University, Anambra state); Dr. Richard Okoye, a medical doctor and Founder of Save a Life Group who humanised the conference with special health talk that got editors laughing but more of the time sober; among other speakers, the conference lived up to expectation. A festival of ideas, an inquisition into past elections, a synopsis of previous elections including judicial determinations, some weird, some queer, some absolutely bizarre. Mazi Osigwe called it the judicialization of Nigeria elections. But beyond that, discourses also peered into the prognosis of elections especially the likely scenarios of the 2027 general elections.
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You wonder, what is a medical doctor of the esoteric status of Okoye doing at editors’ meeting. Well, he did so much. He took editors away from the newsroom and the febrile national political economy into a different island; the island of life. Okoye professionally connected the dots between the growing incidence of sudden death, premature death and the reality that men die younger than women. Simple statistics: more husbands have died ahead of their wives. A curse? The cause. Or just a myth. He broke it down including the declining prowess of men in the ‘other room’ as they age, and the fatal consequence of enhancing masculine virality via a cocktail of aphrodisiacs. This aspect of the conference captivated the body of editors some of whom giggled like students packed in a laboratory suffused with laughing gas (nitrous oxide).
The last day of the conference followed the tradition. A moment to tour projects executed by the government and feel the pulse of the state. Here, Enugu did not disappoint. The tour afforded editors the opportunity to see, first hand, the emblems of development wrought by the governor and his team. One outstanding feature of the Enugu milieu is its dignifying aura of order and organisation amid a growing buzz of commerce. You could see an intentional effort of leadership to build a modern state. Smart schools, smart healthcare outposts from primary to tertiary healthcare institutions; a cultured deliberateness to nurture the well laid-out green areas. We saw a state steeped in its self-consciousness to develop its tourism market and create a leisure economy that feeds into the broader vision of a governor building a stronger, sustainable economy for today and the future. A state that has become one of the safest states in Nigeria. This is not a claim. It’s a culture here. A culture of peace and security typified by a healthy night life.
Enugu is innovating and industrialising. Mbah is creating a new socio-economic order. Proof is in Enugu now rated as the fastest growing economy in Nigeria by internal revenue generation moving from N23 billion in IGR in 2023 to N406 billion in 2025. Simply phenomenal. By IGR volume, it comes only after Lagos and Rivers states. And banish the thought that he is over-taxing the people. Only a paltry 13 percent comes from taxing the people. The rest revenue comes from money made from the revamped state-owned industries which had been moribund and the establishment of new ones. A check list: Nigergas Company Limited (revived after 30 years of dormancy), Enugu Haier (Aya) Factory, Presidential Hotel now run as a profitable venture, the International Conference Centre, Sunrise Flour Mill, Palm Oil mill, Enugu Air and CNG mass transit ventures, among other revenue-generating initiatives. These are revenue-spinners run in partnership with the private sector.
Here’s is what Mbah’s Enugu state offers. You fly into the state on Enugu Air, lodge at Presidential Hotel, hold your business meetings (conferences and AGMs) at the International Conference Centre, commute the state in CNG-powered vehicles with your group, spend some time at the tourists resorts, hang out at any of the many rendezvous for vintage Enugu delicacies – Okpa (made from Bambara beans), unadulterated palm wine, Nkwobi (boiled chops of cow leg garnished with crayfish, calabash nutmeg, pepper served with onions and Utazi leaf – Gongronema latifolium), breadfruit meal, and an assortment of soups.
Welcome to Mbah’s Enugu: A smart state with smart schools, smart hospitals (the Enugu International Hospital is a specialist hospital only matched by a few in West Africa sub-region) and a smart workforce and students, all from the fecund mind of a smart governor, Dr. Peter Mbah. Welcome to tomorrow!
