Enugu State and Clanish Clamour for Gubernatorial Ticket Zoning

 Chidi Ibudialo Nwakaeze frowns at the quest by some parts of Enugu State to make a bid for the governorship slot based solely on ethnic background

Enugu state has a long history in the part of Southern Nigeria development and the black race in general. Enugu became a municipality in 1956 with Umaru Altine as its first Mayor. After four years, Nigeria gained her independence in 1960. On May 27th, 1967 the Nigeria Government created 12 states out of three regions – Western, Eastern and the Northern Regions and Enugu was made the capital of the new East Central State. The former Eastern region attempted to secede in the three-year long civil war with our darling state Enugu as part of the secessionist States of Biafra.

The city Enugu was named the Biafran capital until October 1967, when it was captured by Federal forces; the rest of the state was hard fought over, but much of it fell by June 1968. It is great to draw the attention of this write up to the other cities that formed the capital of the Western and Northern region. The Western state had Lagos as its capital, while Kano was the capital of the Northern Nigeria. The cities of Lagos and Kano have all advanced rapidly in terms of industrialisation and global presence, while Enugu still lags behind based on very shrewd and parochial politics that is devoid of excellence.

In 2010, the estimated GDP of Lagos State was put at $74billion and the state occupied the first position in Nigeria. Kano State which was the capital of Northern state had an estimated GDP OF $13 billion and was ranked 6th on the table while Enugu State which was the capital of Eastern Nigeria had a GDP OF $4.4 billion and occupied 25th position on the log. As at 2016 Lagos state GDP grew to $145 billion (as prepared by Lagos Bureau of Statists and it was estimated to rise to N628 trillion ($157.728 billion) by 2018 with a projected average annual growth rate of 4.2%.

The city of Lagos is called the Centre of excellence. It is amazing how backward Enugu state has  slid off the radar while the people are busy with very parochial argument like zoning instead of search for a man with the right capacity, sagacity and spirit of excellence that can take the state back to its rightful position.However, you may argue that zoning has helped the state to maintain a very peaceful disposition in eyes of everyone, but the danger of zoning heavily outweighs the peace that we sought after; let me take you on a little journey on zoning; zoning in Enugu state in the last 23years has led the sate into the election of very clannish governors/zonal heads rather than state governor with the exception of Sullivan Chime.

In line with the above, in 1999 Chimaroke Nnamani was elected as the governor of Enugu State from the Nkanu extraction (because the people sought for a clannish/ zonal governor rather than a state candidate that can grow the economy of the state), instead of the elected governor to focus on how to grow the state, he preoccupied himself with how to move everything and every institution to his home town, Agbani. He moved the law School to Agbani, Enugu State University was equally moved to Agbani. Likewise several other institutions was equally moved which left the central city  balkanised or better still, raped of its glory. It was only Sullivan’s administration that focused more on what benefited everyone. The Sullivan administration applied the 70:30 rule in its application of resources; they channeled more funds to the main city in order to rescue the city of Enugu in line per capital project allocation. Their policy was very laudable (more than 60% of visitors into Enugu State spend their time in the capital city).

Towards the end of Sullivan’s Administration, the parochial drums started beating again and the drummers went to Nsukka zone in order to produce an Nsukka governor. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi then became the new governor of the state. Upon assumption of office in 2015, he quickly commenced the reconstruction of Nsukka roads, and upon completion of the roads, he felt that he completed his assignment since he was elected as Nsukka governor rather than Enugu State governor. Who can blame him for underperformance? Absolutely no body! The governor went as far as moving Enugu Polytechnic in Iwollo to Nsukka instead of creating a new one just exactly the same very parochial thinking like Chimaroke. The above is the primary problem of Enugu state politics which has greatly affected the economy, unity and the welfare of the people. None of the governors are bothered about economic growth and welfare of the people let alone talking about advancement in comparison to our peers like Lagos and Kano state.

I have taken time to read all the write ups and arguments in support and  against zoning, I am most disappointed and ashamed that nobody has asked such fundamental questions like firstly how did our state slide out from third position if not first  (because coal, palm oil was the mainstay of Nigeria economy) down to such dishonorable position as 25th on the GDP Log, secondly, how do we work ourselves back to first three in terms of GDP; thirdly, which of the current governorship candidates has the capacity, exposure, connection, sagacity, and mental tool set to move our state back to the top three (since it is obvious that Ugwuanyi is more concerned about Nsukka local government or Zone as though he is a Chairman and not a  governor) fourthly, out of the candidates that are currently vying for  governorship position, who amongst them understands the dynamics of the building blocks of the economy and the correlation between the different variables and equally on how best to tweak them in order to grow the GDP of the state. Fifthly, which of the candidate have a proper structure that covers the whole state visa viz which of them has visited most parts of the state in order to understand what their peculiar challenges are or are we working to produce another local government governor/chairman as a state governor?

The politicians are simply using the heads of the poor masses in order to achieve their very selfish agenda; if not, can someone answer the following questions for me: firstly, how many Nsukka persons/ indigenes have gotten or bought a product cheaper in the market  because he mentioned to the seller that he was from the governors zone. Secondly, has every Nsukka person become billionaire because of the fact that the governor is from Nsukka. Thirdly, how many Nsukka people got employed in a great institution or multilateral organisation because he is from Nsukka? Obviously, your guess is as good as mine.

We keep ourselves busy with very mundane argument such as zoning or no zoning rather search for the right candidate with excellent tool set. Suffice to say, if constitution should change its root and allow Sullivan to contest again as the governor of the state, I am very sure that everyone will vote for him because of his excellent performance and not because of his zone of origin. Equally, take a look at Rivers State where an Ikwere man governed the state for eight years and another Ikwere man ( His Excellency Wike) took over and he has performed excellently well and above everyone’s expectations.

Equally take a look at Lagos state the center of Excellence, and many other examples too numerous to mention. I suggest that our main argument should be excellent performance, capacity, exposure, sagacity, and not zoning.It is even more worrisome that states like Ebonyi is even about to overtake Enugu state both in terms economy growth, infrastructure advancement technological growth and welfare of the people.In order to arrest further slide off the radar and stop the bleeding which the state is currently going through, everyone needs to suspend zoning for now and search for a proper Enugu state governor rather Zonal or clannish governor.

The governor has to be a man with the spirit of excellence, the needed global exposure and capacity for the office, a man that understands the pain of everyone in every zone of the state and equally possesses the mental capacity and sagacity to tackle them head-on then, he will begin to take our state up the ladder of the national GDP where the likes of Lagos and Kano states are. By so doing, the GDP of the state will grow, employment will be created for the timing youths of our state, welfare and academic rating of the state will grow as well hence we can then begin to attract the right investments to Enugu state both nationally and internationally.Finally, the man to do the above assignment should be called Enugu State governor and not a zonal head.

 Nwakaeze, an Economic Analyst wrote from Port Harcourt