Gov. Mbah proves sleepless nights at INEC not vain, breathes life into moribund assets
By Nnamani Arinze Darlington
On the 23rd of March 2023, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), declared the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Mbah as the winner of the March 18 governorship election in Enugu State.
According to the results announced by the Returning Officer, Prof. Maduebibisi Ofo-Iwe, who is the Vice Chancellor of the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike, Mbah polled 160,895 votes to defeat his closest rival and was declared the winner, at the resumption of the final collation of governorship election results in Enugu, 48 hours after INEC suspended the exercise in the state.
Like every electoral process, the journey was intense. One of the last three days after the coalition of the result for Nkanu East and Nsukka local government was suspended was even more vicious. Enugu was literally at a standstill, waiting and anxious for justice to take its course. There was nervousness in the youths and the minds of the entire Enugu people. The fear was that there could be a miscarriage of justice. On the streets of Enugu, you could feel the palpable air of an overheated polity brought by the prolonged, tortuous road to justice that lasted 72 hours.
For Those three days, our people cooked, slept, and bathed on the road leading to the INEC office. A testament to a true sacrifice for humanity and exceptional governance that ndi Enugu foresaw when Mbah started his campaign. He had a clear vision of what he wanted and how he wanted to achieve them with a timeline on each of those audacious promises.
The Mbah Administration has, within one year, awarded the construction of 260 smart schools in the 260 wards of the state. According to Prof. Chidiebere Onyia, the secretary to the state government who made it public said that each smart school from start to finish would cost about N1.2 billion, meaning that a total sum of N312 billion has been awarded for the construction of the 260 smart schools in the 260 wards of the state.
Remember also that the state went further to budget N158bn allocation to the education sector at 33 percent of the state’s total budget which made it to the news as the highest in Nigeria both in percentage and per capita terms; beating the UNESCO recommendations of 15-20 percent of the public annual budget to fund education. No governor has ever done this in Nigeria and in recent times.
Each smart green school is a state-of-the-art structure, fully equipped with modern experiential tools with which the pupils from age 4 to JSS3, are taught robotics, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, mechatronics, modern ICT and vocational skills, science and technology, mathematics, and other aspects of cognitive education. This will restructure and mold the Enugu child into a total resource person who can compete effectively in the global market. And it is open to every child free of charge.
In the same social sector, Mbah unleashes type 2 primary healthcare hospitals in the 260 wards yet again. Each of the hospitals would have residential quarters for doctors and health workers, the same way the smart schools also have teachers’ residential quarters. The target in the health sector is to eliminate maternal and infant mortalities.
Are you aware that the Enugu State Government through Dr. Peter Ndubuisi Mbah launched and approved a Recruitment drive for 450 health workers, medical officers, pharmacists, staff nurses, pharmacy technicians, medical laboratory technicians, medical laboratory scientists, community health extension workers, medical record officers, Security officers, and cleaners. All these will add the swagger for the true meaning of dividends of democracy for the people of Enugu State.
The type-2 primary healthcare centres will also house telemedics and other modern medical facilities that will defeat the system of just building the brick and mortar but also equip it to the fullest of modern medical facilities which will be made accessible to the locals in their communities with 24/7 resident nurses and other healthcare practitioners available to the locals, free of charge.
When Governor Mbah was campaigning, he conspicuously stated that he would raise the state’s GDP from the current $4.4bn to $30bn economy in the next 4-8 years. Many naysayers said that it would not be achievable because that was too presumptuous.
Mbah’s administration has in the last one year, successfully concluded and secured investment worth over N250 billion with the revitalisation of the moribund Sunrise Flour Mills worth N40bn, Enugu’s United Palm Products Ltd with a recent partnership worth N100bn between Pragmatic Palms Limited and the state government. Not leaving the deal with a Danish company known as ODK tractors; which target to assemble over 200 tractors before the end of the year and 1,000 before the end of 2025. All these are conscious efforts by Mbah’s administration to grow the state’s GDP and to make Enugu the top three destinations for investment, business, tourism, and living.
On the 4th of August 2024, the Enugu State Government approved the sum of N183bn for the construction of 141 roads across the Enugu metropolis and 20 rural roads across the three senatorial zones of the state. The approvals were disclosed at the end of the State Executive Council meeting presided over by Governor Peter Mbah at the Government House which is in line with his determination and daring plans to construct 10,000km of roads in Enugu State in the next four to eight years.
Recall that before now, the state’s total budget hovered around N100bn and N120bn with capital expenditure of about N30bn or capital expenditure to budget ratio of about 25 to 35 percent.
In keeping with Governor Mbah’s promise to de-risk investments, boost production, and run a lean and prudent government, the Governor proposed an unprecedented N521.5bn 2024 budget with a capital expenditure totaling over N400bn, which is an equivalent of capital expenditure to the budget ratio of about 80 percent and recurrent expenditure ratio of about 20 percent. Because of his bullish approach to the infrastructural deficit across the state, he not too long bagged the distinguished award for infrastructure at the Nigeria Excellence in Public Service, NEAPS, for his impactful road interventions in the state.
Some are still in doubt of Mbah’s ambitious blueprint because of the dwindling revenues from the federal account. They ask vital questions of how Mbah will build over 10,000km of roads, provide water in 180 days, grow our economy seven-fold, build a monorail, eradicate poverty, build agro-allied processing zones, and make Enugu the most secure state in the country. They feel perplexed and uncertain because those projects are capital-intensive.
But they forgot that Mbah is a progressive visionary leader with deep connections and clout in the private sector. He understands more about radical development, doing things differently by disrupting the status quo through providing the enabling environment for a high influx of public-private partnerships and investments to the state, which will address the myriad and by mutually solving problems of unemployment, poverty, crime, and insecurity.
Some who argue that the Governor is making too many unachievable promises to the people of Enugu State considering the extreme decline of allocations from Abuja have finally taken note of how Mbah’s mind works.
A careful look at his well-detailed manifesto, which not only outlines his plans, but how to achieve them, will clearly show that he downplayed, and hardly mentioned, let alone relied on the Federation Account. He is focused on government-enabled, private-sector-driven transformation. He is focused on migrating Enugu State from a public sector-driven economy to a private sector-driven economy.
The emergence of Peter Mbah as Governor of Enugu State has consequently given succour and hope to the people of Enugu State, the people have come to believe that Mbah will fulfill his promises and take Enugu State to an enviable height; they have known that it is not just mere political rhetoric but absolute conciseness, and that is why those few who were doubting his capacity and personality took one-eighty as a retraction from their bewilderment of who Dr. Peter Ndubuisi Mbah was to who he was. Instead, Gov. Mbah has proven those sleepless nights at INEC not in vain with his dauntless leadership style in the state.
Nnamani Arinze Darlington, a public Affairs Analyst and a social commentator; writes from Enugu.
