Governor Peter Mbah has spoken on how he is ‘future-proofing’ the key initiatives of his administration. From a 300,000-hectare agribusiness revolution to AI-powered “SMART Green Schools”, he says he is embedding them in systems that would outlive him.
Speaking to journalists in Enugu, Mbah said with 300,000 hectares earmarked for agricultural transformation, 18,000 educators being retrained for experiential learning, and a brand-new smart city rising from the ground up, his administration is proving that sustainable development isn’t about quick fixes but about building institutions stronger than any individual.
How will you ensure the sustainability of your projects and secure the 300,000-hectare land bank for commercial farmers, preventing future revocation? What’s the ownership structure?
When I made my opening remark, I think I pointed out that it’s very key. We believe that we need to build a very strong institution that will be stronger than any single individual. A lot of what we’re doing focuses on how to sustain our initiatives. For example, with smart schools, how do we ensure that successive governments continue to fund them and that the infrastructure and programs will be maintained? Beyond the brick and mortar, there are also soft issues like training and ensuring you have a pipeline through which the programs and activities you undertake can continue.
How do you sustain all of that? We are very conscious of that. We’re strengthening the institution by building the capacity of civil servants, who will obviously remain here. We have a program, for example, that ensures all our civil servants have access to digital training. We’re training them and ensuring that our processes are instituted. In fact, the e-governance system I mentioned to you is something we’ve implemented. All 111 MDAs in Enugu are included in our e-governance platform.
Of course, I’m also excited to speak about our financial management. We have a system here; a major part of our governance philosophy is transparency and accountability. We have a system where whatever accrues to the government as revenue is seen, known, and accurately captured. It’s not something anybody can alter; there’s actually a digital trigger for all of that. When we came in, many of those things were done manually, but we had to digitalise them. Even with our financial reporting, you don’t have to wait until the end of the year. You get a monthly report of what accrues to the government as revenue and how those funds have been spent. You can actually use a digital trigger to view all of that within a quarter.
That’s part of what we believe: if we can build capacity and strengthen these institutions, we can then sustain this. The Land Bank is a program designed for commercial farming. Beyond the large farming estates, we’re also developing it for smallholder farmers. I don’t know if you’ve visited any of these farming estates, but that’s one initiative going on across the 260 wards in the state, where you have a farming estate. Beyond that, we also want to scale up production, so we’re inviting those interested in investing in agriculture to come to Enugu. We’ve had quite a number of them already.
In terms of the structure, it differs. For example, with the company we’re working with, what used to be United Farm Products Limited, which is now Enugu United Farm Products Limited, the company called Pragmatic Farms. We had a structure where the state, I think, took 40%, and the investor had a 60% share in that business. It’s a huge farm plantation of about 10,000 hectares. We’re obviously working with the state and the company under that structure. We also have a structure where the investor wants to come into Enugu, and then we just provide them land, giving them what the lease cost is. Finally, I mentioned how we de-risk, depending on the impact of the investment. We can sometimes help the investor de-risk the investment, whether it’s the financial or commercial aspect of the investment that might create problems. Most times, we try to have a stake in the game so that it is then bankable, or the numbers will make sense to the investor. We adopt different strategies; we don’t have a one-size-fits-all approach. At the last count, over 67,000 of those 300,000 hectares have already been taken by investors. We have quite a number of other interests in the queue.
What’s the vision and goal of the SMART Green School initiative?
The SMART Green School is, again, not something that is knee-jerk. If you look at the manifesto, the “Green Land Campaign” in our education sector, we actually dealt with this. We referred to it as a cut-off point. We knew the challenges with our educational system, and we didn’t think that it was something we wanted to do better. We felt it was something we needed to do differently. The cut-off point was designed to break away from that old system and to introduce a new learning system. In order to do that, we also felt that the environment must be right, and the infrastructure must also be right.
The reason was because we felt that the true wealth of any state is not measured by the value of what they have beneath the soil. We may have had, or we still do have, huge quantities of coal and, of course, huge quantities of other solid minerals. But that will not be the right measure of our wealth. We believe strongly that the true measure of our wealth will be based on the quality of our human resources. We also recognize that the world, or the rest of the world, will not wait for our children. We understand that the evolving skills in the 21st century require us to get our children ready and prepared for them to have a fighting chance.
For example, it is projected that five years from now, AI is going to contribute $20 trillion to the global economy. In just five years from now. So, the question you ask yourself is, how are we preparing our children to acquire the skills to be relevant in this new world order? We felt that the best thing to do is capture them at a very young age. The SMART Green School is designed to ensure that we get the ideal child at age three. That’s why we have provision for early childhood learning. At age three, we provide them with Nursery One, Nursery Two, and Nursery Three.
Beyond just teaching them at that age, we also address their health profile. Because of where these children are and the level of education of their parents, we know a number of them may not have adequate medical records. In each SMART School, we have a clinic with a registered nurse. The first thing we do is to make sure that the child’s health is okay. They are not stunted; they are not wasting. In terms of their vaccination or prophylaxis, they are up to date. Where there is a deficiency, we step in to ensure that we regularize that and get them to be up to date.
In terms of learning, we’ve also completely changed the way the kids are taught. We’ve moved away from the old system of teaching these kids to what we refer to as an experiential learning system. In fact, we’ve also just recently been recognised. We won the Spencer Foundation Vision Grant. This is in recognition of what we’re doing in basic education experiential learning. A lot of robust and extensive research, not research done from overseas, has gone into this system of education and is well-documented. We have what is known as CELIV, which is the Center for Experiential Learning and Innovation. It’s the pipeline that all tutorial staff must go through in order to be qualified to teach at the SMART School.
Currently, we’re training about 18,000 of our educators through the Center for Experiential Learning and Innovation. The idea is that these kids will be exposed to all modern skills from a very young age, from Elementary One (what we now refer to as Lower Basic or Basic One). You get them exposed to robotics, artificial intelligence, mechatronics, and VR. We use VR to train them to understand reality. If they are learning biology, for example, they can actually visualize how blood is flowing through the vein with VR; it’s almost like an immersive experience. Most importantly, we’re getting these kids to see their classroom as more than just a place where they memorize or repeat what they’ve been taught. We’re getting them to see their classroom as a creativity hub, a place where they have to solve compelling social problems and, of course, also find solutions to all the problems they have. We get into projects from that age, from Elementary One. We teach them through practice.
That’s the vision. The idea is that, you know, of course, some of these things we’re doing, somebody mentioned that they are not really so fashionable because the impact of some of these things may be felt long after we have left government. We’re looking at the future, 10 or 20 years from now, because this is essentially, well, if we don’t get it right today, then we will not be able to have that reason for hope. We’re talking about the future.
How does your vision address urban growth challenges, including public utilities, transportation, and infrastructure development in communities?
Part of what we’re experiencing in Enugu is actually the other way around, where we have quite a lot of people migrating from urban to rural areas. That is largely because the style of leadership we have here is all-inclusive. We’re not leaving any part of the state out. Our programs, for example, in education, involve a project of over a billion going on simultaneously in all 260 electoral wards. That’s why somebody was telling me a few days ago that the amount of earth-moving equipment they’ve seen moved into Enugu in the last two years has never been experienced anywhere. We don’t even have enough because people who are coming here to work now have to bring in earth-moving equipment from other states to come here.
I’ve also just been told that hiring artisans and laborers in Enugu is now the most expensive in any state where you can hire laborers because essentially, you have activities going on across the state. You have major projects going on in each ward. Just as we’re doing the SMART Green Schools, we’re also doing primary healthcare centers in each ward. We’re building the farm estates. They all require earth-moving equipment.
You have quite a lot of young people who are constructively engaged. Instead of thinking of criminality as a venture, you are then able to get them to generate money or revenue through constructive engagement. Even if we have an influx of people into the city, we realized when we came in that the last master plan Enugu had was designed over 60 years ago, around the 1950s. When we came in, we developed a new master plan that expanded the city. We’re currently building a brand new city, which is going to accommodate about 300,000 households, 300,000 families. That’s because we’re actually planning for the future.
If we’re going to grow this economy to $30 billion, you must be able to provide assets and infrastructure. We’re already thinking about that because we know Enugu is already becoming a choice destination. We’re already thinking ahead. Providing this brand new city is nothing like it in the country because it’s going to be fully serviced. Your water, electricity, sewage, telecom, fiber optic internet access, and gas pipe are all going to be provided. You just go to your plug, you plug and play. You don’t need to go in there with your generator; there will be no such thing.
The roads are all designed with the width of a modern city. If you visit it, you’ll see that the primary road is about 50 meters wide. The secondary road has a width of 33 meters, and the tertiary road has a width of about 24 meters. That’s again, taking into account all the services that we need to provide in the right-of-way. It’s carefully designed to be a modern and smart city. The light rail will be on the right-of-way. If you look at the median, it’s quite sizable because we’re going to have a light rail on it.
What’s your plan to extend the Security Command Centre’s technology to local governments and remote areas of Enugu State?
We have Phase Two of the security surveillance system that is actually ongoing now. Part of what we did with the security system is to ensure that we don’t use satellites so that it’s not weather-sensitive. When it’s raining, we’re not worried whether the cameras will work. They all use fiber optic cable, so all our cameras are connected through fiber optic cable, precisely so that it’s not weather-sensitive. When it’s raining, we’re still seeing exactly what we’re seeing. What we’ve only just commissioned is the first phase. We’re now on the second phase. The second phase is designed to capture all the gateways, not just the known gateways, but also other informal gateways for comprehensive coverage.
This is also going to extend to all our communities. We currently have coverage beyond the city. We have strategic local governments, about seven local governments that are captured in this first phase. The second phase would obviously include all the additional nine local governments that have not been captured. Yes, so there is a plan for full coverage.
How are you integrating civil servants into your e-governance system, and what’s the progress on your water project?
As I said, we’re proud of our team. We actually identify that, or see that, as our major competitive advantage because we were very intentional and very deliberate in terms of making sure we have the right team. Because as an individual, it’s just so easy to do. No matter how great the ideas or vision are, we needed the right team.
In some cases, we went and begged them. A lot of these people that I work with, which is essentially the secret of our success, are people who have distinguished themselves in their private or professional endeavors. We had to go seek them out. So, thank you for those kind words. We don’t even have a choice in terms of making sure that the civil servants are part of the integration. Because we’re only here for a few days, and then we’re done.
These guys will obviously determine whether what we do now is sustained. Whether you have a superhuman who comes to start the system, it’s going to be a function of how strong the institution or the system is to push back. We’re deliberate about that integration and enhancing their human capacity to deliver. In fact, in our next year’s budget, we’re going to actually have a major structure where we will establish a training center for civil servants, just like what you have been asking about, where we’re actually trying to have the same thing. We don’t have to be sending them out; we can provide a lot of training locally.
Are there any collaborative projects with other southeastern states, given Enugu’s history as the regional capital?
What we have also experienced post-election is that the people and even those political actors in the state have also come to recognise our sincerity of purpose, that we’re just here to serve the people. For those of them who also meant well for the state, who were largely driven by service, they see us as partners. They see us as partners in progress and in the service of our state. Which is why my opponent in the last election and I are working today as one. Because, again, he feels that his idea was to serve the people, and he sees someone doing exactly that. That’s why I’ve joined hands with him to do the same thing. So, we’re working closely together. That has also brought a lot of peace.
We’re not spending money dealing with all sorts of political fights. We’re quite peaceful here in terms of politics and all that. We’re more like a unified group. I think that’s largely what it is. We believe that if we have to collaborate or partner with an institution or a person in order to achieve a common goal, it is something we’re open to. We’ve basically gone for that in most cases. We extend an olive branch. I made that statement immediately after the election and the court processes that we’re open to working together as a team to build our state, because that’s really what the objective is.
How do we bring people back to a preeminent state? What I say to my team all the time, and something that you must actually have as a skill in order for you to be successful, is team spirit. If you look at the survey or the research that has been done, even in the private sector, some research that was done by McKinsey, it’s also repeated every 15 years. I think the first one was in 2000; they repeated another one in 2015. The results have been consistent. When Forbes 500 CEOs were asked what would be their most valuable skill in an employee, what has always stood out is an employee who has team spirit, a team-building spirit, not technology, not intelligence, but team-building spirit. That has always remained number one. It’s extremely important to have the skill to work as a team.
The success of the modest achievements we’ve recorded in the state today could not have been possible if not for that team spirit. That’s why it’s hard for me to ascribe anything to an individual committee or board without using that collective pronoun, “we.” Thank you very much.