By Kenneth Odili
For the South East of Nigeria, there is hope. This is a zone that has suffered much neglect and marginalization in the hands of various administrations of the Nigerian State. Although General Yakubu Gowon mouthed “No victor, no vanquished” at the end of the 30-month fratricidal civil war, the “the vanquished” mentality with which the region is regarded seems to have been unconscionably overstretched for too many years.
Nonetheless, some critics blame the past leaderships of the five South Eastern states for the underdevelopment of the geopolitical zone. They are of the view that although marginalization of the zone is conspicuously real, nothing stops the governors from charting the course of development for their various states, leveraging alternative financial models -besides FAAC handouts from Abuja. All it would take is creative thinking, financial discipline, and commitment to selfless public service.
Nothing demonstrates this like the evil sit-at-home, an avoidable pestilence birthed by unresponsive, and some say, irresponsible leadership, that left a lot of gaps that all manner of “freedom fighters” filled to the chagrin of the region’s economy and social life with attendant wastage of lives and property.
But the coming on board of Peter Ndubuisi Mbah of Enugu State is beginning to change the narrative and catalyse the echoes of development and economic growth across the region. Governor Mbah came with his tall ambition to exponentially grow the economy of Enugu State from $4.4 billion GDP to $30 billion in four to eight years via a private-sector driven Enugu economy. This he would do by making Enugu State the choice destination for investment. He would build infrastructure, and create a business-friendly environment for investments, besides the restoration of adequate security in the state, having killed the Monday sit-at-home monster that ravaged the region.
Within four months of his administration, Mbah convened Investment and Economic Growth Roundtable where development banks like World Bank, African Development Bank (AFDB), African-Export-Import Bank (AfrExim Bank), and other development partners and investors gathered. Mbah transformed the state’s revenue collection process, and plugged revenue leakages, running into billions of naira, by means of e-ticketing. By so doing, he revved up the monthly IGR of the state from N2 billion to N4.5 billion in less than three months. All this would aid his development agenda such as the building of infrastructure: yearly construction of 1,250 kilometres of roads, 260 smart model schools, 260 Type-2 primary healthcare centres, provision of pipe-borne water to Enugu, moving agriculture from pipeline to platform, and provision of 24/7 electricity of which he quickly had the Enugu State Electricity Bill drafted, passed by the State Assembly, and signed into law.
But Mbah took it a notch higher when on 5th December, 2023, he presented the Enugu State 2024 Budget, tagged “Budget of Disruptive Economic Growth”, to the state assembly. The budget size, which is N521.5, is audacious on its own, especially for a largely civil service state that is neither one of the high oil-revenue earning states like Rivers, Delta, Bayelsa, Abia, and Imo, nor boasts of an Aba, Onitsha, and Nnewi of its own yet. The budget is structured in such a way that capital expenditure got 80% of the budget sum, that is, N414.3 billion, while recurrent expenditure got 20%- N107.2 billion. Economic sector got N207.8 billion, while the social sector got N182.9 billion. Road infrastructure got N82.5 billion, water N28.9 billion, agriculture N25.1 billion, and health N21.7 billion. Security and job creation were also prioritised.
In specifics, education alone took 73.6% of the sum allotted to the social sector and also got an unprecedented 33.3% of the entire budget sum to power his educational transformation agenda.
A good look at this budget shows that Enugu is headed for humongous infrastructural development that would transform the socioeconomic life of the Enugu citizenry. Importantly, at N70 billion, this budget is merely 19% debt-financed, while the remaining 71% will be financed from revenue streams to the state, especially from the state’s IGR. This is good news for the region.
Going by the budgets of the other South East states, it is obvious that Mbah’s posture of economic transformation has rubbed off on them. For instance, the Abia State budget of 2024 tagged “Budget of New Beginning” totals N567.2 billion. According to the governor of Abia, Dr Alex Otti, the budget targets the expansion of public infrastructure ‘in line with our new development targets, sealing up access and quality delivery in the social sector, with a special focus on education and health.’ Education got 20% while health got 15% of a budget outlay of which recurrent expenditure is 16% and capital expenditure 84%. The budget is, however, 71% debt-financed, and unlike Enugu’s that is 19% debt-enabled. Nonetheless, borrowing to finance capital projects is not wrong, but then Abia would do better to rev up alternative financial models like Mbah has creatively done, because every borrowed fund would be repaid.
Even Imo State is not left out, as Governor Hope Uzodinma tagged the Imo Budget for the fiscal year 2024 “Budget of Wealth Expansion” which according to the governor would fast-track the state’s economic growth. One interesting thing about Imo budget presented on 11th December is that it also reflects excess of capital expenditure over recurrent expenditure in the ratio of 83/17. Out of the total budget sum of N592.1 billion, capital expenditure got N491.2 billion (83%) while recurrent expenditure got N100.9 billion (17%).
Ebonyi State also is next in line for economic transformation as Governor Francis Nwifuru presented the state’s 2024 budget tagged “Budget of Innovation and Progress” to the Ebonyi State House of Assembly on 7th December. The entire budget sum of N202.1 billion was presented out of which N132.8 billion (66%) and N69.2 billion (34%) is recurrent. The social services sector got 28.78% of the budget, while 26.49% went to the economic sector. 49.49% went to the administrative sector. Of interest to this budget is the fact that capital expenditure is in excess of recurrent expenditure by 32%, meaning capital projects occupy a prime place in the heart of the administration.
Meanwhile, Governor Chukwuma Charles Soludo of Anambra State’s budget presentation shows that of the total budget sum of N410 billion in the 2024 fiscal year, N313.9 billion (77%) goes to capital expenditure, while N96.26 billion (33%) goes to recurrent expenditure. Soludo said the idea was to change “gears towards the promised transformation agenda for a liveable and prosperous smart mega city.”
It can clearly be seen that the South East states are poised to transform their sub-national economies by bringing development to bear on governance. One thing is also clear: the gale of Mbah’s message of economic growth is sweeping across the South East region in practical terms. It could also be said that the South East governors are now more synergised in their leadership direction, unlike previously when the South East Governor’s Forum was a choir of discordant tunes.
Leadership is all about influencing decisions, whether it is by the way of Mbah’s message of disruptive cum exponential economic growth and radical paradigm shift in terms of recurrent and capital expenditures ratios as well as massive allocation to education or peer synergy as the South East governors are now showing.
This synergy and healthy competition is very imperative if the region must better its economic fortunes, seeing, for instance, that the total budget of Lagos State for 2024 fiscal year is N2.2 trillion while the five South East states could only muster N2.3 trillion. In fact, Lagos is one of the leading economies in Africa. Instructively, Igbo enterprises are also part of what makes Lagos thick. It means that with more synergy and strategic thinking as well as with regional economy-enabling joint infrastructural campaigns like seaport, railway, etc., coupled with joint security effort, the region could not only attract massive foreign investments, but also lure Igbo businesses back home, in the spirit of “akuruouno”, as Mbah advocates. And for a start, as a low-hanging fruit, the governors could encourage Igbo businesses to change their registered headquarters to Igbo states for more VAT accruals to those states and the region.
Meanwhile, the governors have only read out their policy documents, being the budget estimates. There is yet another step to be taken. And that is the implementation of the budgets, which when done right, would make impacts in the socio-economic life of the region. Impressively, Enugu has inbuilt mechanism for self-implementation, as Mbah had taken care over the last six months to build institutions and is migrating the 112 MDAs to e-platforms for automated operations. This is also worthy of emulation by the other states in the zone.
But all said, it is not out of place to say that for the South East region, a new dawn beckons and it is a real proof of how contagious a good example can be.
