“Today is your opportunity to build the tomorrow you want” —Ken Poirot
WHEN Peter Mbah came up with the campaign slogan “Tomorrow is Here” as the gubernatorial candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in 2023 elections, some people in Enugu dismissed it as one of the usual electioneering rhetorics of politicians bandied to woo voters and get their way into the office. I must confess: even yours sincerely did not give much thought to the sloganeering despite Mbah’s antecedents in the private sector. I adopted the body language of “let’s wait and see”.
Please don’t blame me at all. When career politicians had consistently lied to you, broken every of their campaign promises, and even denied ever making those pledges of good governance, you will begin to develop trust issues with an average Nigerian politician. It is like a beautiful young lady whose heart of love has been pierced and disappointed severally, she would begin to stereotype all men as the same in terms of deception.
But it took just one year in office as governor of Enugu State for Peter Mbah to destroy that myth, shattered the illogical notion and restore people’s faith in a politician’s commitment to unequivocally deliver good governance in an unprecedented manner. Seeing Mbah’s milestone in such brief period in office so far, the slogan “Tomorrow is Here” makes more meaning now and resonates with anyone like me, who hitherto stopped taking politicians by their words.
“Tomorrow is Here” affirms the eternal words of an American author, Ken Poirot, who said: “Today is your opportunity to build the tomorrow you want”, which also aligns with Abraham Lincoln’s famous quote: “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” This is the bedrock of Governor Mbah’s political ideology vis-à-vis leadership philosophy.
Immediately after his inauguration as governor, Peter Mbah shut his doors against sycophancy cum sycophants, and let anyone who cared, to understand that it was a new dawn and never again would it be business as usual. Like a commander who was ready to change the narrative and orchestrate paradigm shift in governance, he wore the gab of a newly hired chief executive officer with the mandate to turn around a failing company teetering on the verge of bankruptcy.
Sooner than later, everyone around got the “memo” that Governor Peter Mbah was not a typical African politician indulging sycophancy at the expense of quality of services being rendered to the populace, who have been starved of what visionary cum purposeful leadership looks like. Transforming Lion Building (Government House), in his unique administrative style, from hub of rent-seeking to epicenter of excellency in governance, is the biggest win for me.
In fact, killing the industry of sycophancy that was a huge clog on the wheel of progress of the state was the beginning of Governor Peter Mbah’s revolutionary leadership. When sycophants knew that the head huncho in office was not comfortable with praise-singing, political serenity returned to the state, and everyone got down to work. I can categorically affirm that instilling discipline in governance—leaving no room for shenanigans, was the spark that ignited exponential transformation and governance being witnessed in the state today.
Shunning unnecessary distractions with laser-focus attention on business of proactive and responsive governance enabled Governor Mbah to take off seemingly successful more than his contemporaries in other states. Under his watch, Enugu has emerged as the fastest growing economy east of the Niger. The former capital of old Eastern Region is projected to grow from $4.4 billion dollars economy to an olympic height of $30 billion dollars in the next few years! This is incredibly ambitious!
This is the driving force behind comprehensive developmental strides in the state being witnessed today. You can see that Governor Mbah is in a hurry to retrieve the state from clutches of backwardness, position Coal City on the path of progress, and enhance its speed of development to achieve systematic wealth creation and shared prosperity in the next few years.
While some of his colleagues, who were sworn in the same day as him, are still trying to find their feat, Governor Mbah has completed 30 out of 260 Smart Green Schools under construction, built 60 well-equipped Type 2 Primary Healthcare centers out of 260 under construction, finished rehabilitating 90 urban roads, while 141 others are ongoing, and completed and unveiled the International Conference Centre, commissioned state-of-the-art command and control center (by far the best in the country today) with AI-embedded patrol vehicles donated to security agencies in the State.
Transportation sector in the state has received a huge boost with the construction of ultramodern bus terminals across the states, with majority of the terminals nearly completed. With soon-to-be-unveiled CNG buses and corresponding CNG centers, coupled with newly asphalted road network kitted with remodelled bus stops, Enugu State would soon become a reference point for PhD thesis on “how-to-remodel-a-city” within the shortest possible time and limited resources.
It is, therefore, not surprising that despite being an opposition-controlled state under the PDP, President Bola Tinubu of the APC decided to start his first official visit in the East with Enugu State, which culminated in commissioning some of the landmark projects executed by Governor Peter Mbah-led administration. During the visit, the President, who said he did not mind anybody’s political party and that our languages and tribes were mere accidents of birth as we are one people living in the same house, but in different rooms, commended Mbah for bringing his private sector experience to bear on governance of the state. Tinubu even went further to say that given Mbah’s performance, Nigerians should push to recruit more private sector players into the governance space.
During the campaign, Mbah promised to resuscitate the state’s water corporation. One year plus in office, Enugu State Water Board has been revived and made to live to its responsibility again of providing water to the people of Enugu State. In the last few months, residents in several parts of the state have started accessing treated water from their taps, while all hands are on deck to get clean water pumped to every nook and cranny of the state in the nearest future. Only recently, the state attracted a $100 million Austrian investment in the downstream subsector to boost reticulation effort and ensure that water gets to the last mile and new areas.
When a governor sees himself not as political alpha and omega of the state, but as a chief executive officer recruited by shareholders (electorates) to revive a struggling business (state) to assume its rightful potential and make the company begin to compete strongly with its rivals, the result is what you see in Enugu State of today—tremendous progress – but it comes with a price of being unpopular, controversial and misunderstood, albeit initially.
The first test of the new leadership is to take tough decisions irrespective of how controversial it might be, especially when its long-term benefits outweighs temporary pains of discomfort created by the inevitable change. Governor Mbah understood it perfectly. He was not discouraged nor deterred by myriad of criticisms that greeted demolition of structures that paved way for the construction of the bus terminals at the strategic points in the state.
Some people went as far as politicising it with a touch of bigotry. Yet Governor Mbah did not give in. He remains adamant on restoring lost glory of the state via revisiting its master plan. He was castigated with unprintable names as insensitive to the plight of the masses, yet he held unto the vision and mission to reposition the state and make her haven of tourism attraction and investors destinations.
As the picture of his vision has begins to crystalise, his hitherto critics are beginning to believe in his capacity to make right decisions, not only for today, but for the sake of tomorrow because “Tomorrow is Here”. The official visit of the President Tinubu to the state and encomium he poured on Governor Mbah says a lot about his governing ability and highlighted the governor’s style of politics of development and not politics of attrition. It is a most statesmanlike and bipartisan stamp on his achievements and leadership in less than two years.
- Nwobodo writes from Abuja
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