REBUILDING THE SOUTH EAST REGION

 Emeka Alex Duru canvasses a unity of purpose among southeast leaders

There is need for clarification on the originality of the headline for this conversation before we proceed. It was taken from a recent thought-provoking piece by Evangelist Elliot Ugochukwu-Uko, Deputy Secretary, Igbo Leaders of Thought (ILT). The piece came the same time Dr. Uche Nworah, adjunct Professor and former Managing Director and CEO of Anambra Broadcasting Service (ABS), wrote on ‘Marketing and de-marketing Anambra State’.

 A common thread ran through both materials. They offered insights on how to reposition the South East. Though Nworah’s intervention was on the need for the image managers of Anambra State government to handle criticism with maturity and gain from it, he made useful propositions on how to make the state optimize its human and material resource potential. If Anambra gets it right, a significant step would have been made in reinventing the South East.

Uko took the debate further in identifying the challenges facing the zone and making recommendations on the strategies to fix them. He wrote, “It’s no news that our region is at the bottom of the ladder politically. It needs no saying that our zone craves and actually needs altruistic and proactive leadership. It is also obvious that lack of these brought us to where we are today”.

 That is the crux of the matter. No matter how anyone may wish to look at it, developments in the south east in the last couple of years, have not been cheery. If anything, rather, the zone is in bad shape and needs urgent intervention from relevant stakeholders, particularly, its leadership class.

Since last Monday, some major cities in the region, have been on lock-down, no thanks to a one-week sit-at-home order imposed on the people by agents of a certain Finland-based Simon Ekpa, who claimed that the measure was a sacrifice by the people for the release of detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. The one-week exercise is aside the weekly Monday lockdown that has seen the economy of the region bleeding since August 2021 when it came in force.

 To illustrate how critical the situation has been, as of April 2022, Anambra governor, Prof Chukwuma Soludo was quoted to have lamented that on every sit-at-home day, the state alone lost an estimated N19.6 billion. Within the period, more than 150 persons, including security personnel and civilians had been killed by criminals masquerading as sit-at-home enforcers. Similar stories were replicated in other states in the region. The cost in human and material loss must have risen, subsequently. 

Last Tuesday, July 4, enforcers of the directive ran wild in Isieke Market, Ebonyi State, gunning down traders and commercial motorcycle operators who defied the order. Their only offence was going out to fend for their families.  In Imo, Enugu and Abia, it is the same gory tale. Insecurity has virtually become the norm in the region. Reports from the Orlu end of Imo stretching through Awo-Idemili, Awo-Omama, Oru, Agwa, Izombe, Oguta axis, have not been funny, lately. Loss of investments is the immediate consequence, with the people bearing the brunt.

 The question has been at what point events began getting this bad in the zone. And the answer is simple! We have argued repeatedly that the sorry state of the present south east can be told without linking it to the obvious leadership failure in the zone. For long, many of those elected or appointed to leadership positions in the area have seen such as opportunity to enrich themselves and their families rather than a call to service. Consequently, the region has become a byword for failure and object of mockery before others.

 Putting it mildly, occurrences in the region are disturbing. They are piteous and discouraging. That was an area, which seven years ago, was rated the most human security secure geopolitical zone in Nigeria by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The verdict was contained in its 2016 national human development report for the country. That was a zone that had produced men and women of class in all aspects of national development. This was a region from which Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the first President of the nation, Dr. Michael Iheonukara Okpara and Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu hailed from. This was a zone that within a space of nine years after the 1967 – 1970 Civil War, had risen from the ashes of crushing defeat to produce Nigeria’s Vice President (Alex Ekwueme) and Speaker of the House of Representatives (Edwin Ume-Ezeoke), among other top-rank government officials.

These were a people who the literary icon, Chinua Achebe, captured in his concise book, ‘The Trouble with Nigeria’ as though not having advantage of early head-start, had ‘wiped out their handicaps in one fantastic burst of energy in the twenty years between 1930 and 1950’.

Today, the south east is hardly reckoned with on serious national issues. The other day, at the election of principal officers of the National Assembly, only three subordinate positions – Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Deputy Senate Leader and Deputy Minority Leader, were thrown at the zone that constituted the original tripod on which Nigeria stood.

There was no clearer way of reminding the people of their value and how they mattered in the country. You will therefore understand why Nigerians from other parts of the country, made a singsong of the appointment of Rear Admiral Emmanuel Ogalla, as Chief of Naval, the first of such gestures from the region in the last eight years. For those who make such sniggering remarks, Ogalla’s appointment was a huge favour to the south east, even when that was the zone that gave Nigeria her first Chief of Army Staff and produced the finest crop of military officers before 1966.

But who takes the blame for the area losing its place and repute among others? Of course, nobody gets respected more than he respects himself. Successive leaders of the southeast have attracted odium to the people and the backlash has been humongous. That is why charlatans have taken over, throwing up brigands who make life uncomfortable for the people. To worsen matters, there is no unity of purpose among the governing class.

It is time for the leaders to think deeply and reclaim the zone. Elliot Ugochukwu-Uko is correct that “the key is to work together as a team. In that regard Imo State governor, Hope Uzodinma and his Anambra counterpart, Charles Soludo must show leadership by bringing the new guys in Abia, Enugu and Ebonyi on board for a stronger South East Governors forum”. They should also offer good governance to the people. That is the first step in rebuilding the South East

Duru is the Editor, TheNiche Newspapers, Lagos