Emmanuel Ugwu-Nwogo in Enugu
So much has been happening in every sector of Enugu’s economy over the past three years. Development has been taking place at an unprecedented fast pace with modern infrastructures doting the landscape of the Coal City State.
That much was affirmed in the recently released 2026 Phillips Consulting State Performance Momentum Index where Enugu State was ranked as the fastest improving state among the 33 states assessed. The reputable consulting firm explained that the Momentum Index measures the rate at which states improved relative to the national average during the review period. Positive scores indicate above-average progress, while negative scores reflect slower-than-average improvement.
According to the Phillips Consulting State Performance Momentum Index, Enugu outperformed 32 other states across the country in governance and development. It recorded the highest Momentum Score of +1.15 to stay at the peak among the 33 states assessed, confining Jigawa and Abia to distant second and third with scores of +0.77 and 0.67, respectively.
To the residents of Enugu State and those that have visited the state in recent time, the top position occupied by the state did not come as a surprise. It is an apt reflection of the reality on ground. In fact, they needed no outside assessor to tell them what they see and feel on daily basis. The level of infrastructural development is unprecedented in the 35-year history of the state.
But the man turning the wheel of the holistic development is not seeing it as a big deal. Governor Peter Mbah thinks big and acts even bigger. In fact, he is already thinking beyond what he has achieved so far, saying that greater things lie ahead. He has very big dream for Enugu hence he reckons that what he has achieved so far is just a tip of the iceberg. When he mounted the podium on July 23, 2026 and delivered the 55th Convocation Lecture of the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN), he exuded the confidence of a man who came prepared for governance.
In the lecture entitled “Restoring the Dignity of Man: Enugu’s Quantum Leap in Human Development and Inclusive Prosperity Through Experiential Learning”, Mbah gave himself out as a master planner, revealing his ultimate dream for Enugu. He touched on what has been the major inhibitor of development in nations still struggling to find their feet: the “poverty of imagination”. Many political leaders parade this deficit not only in Nigeria, but in many other countries still floundering on the path of development. It is a common phenomenon in Nigeria’s governance space that many governors have manifested poverty of imagination.
Since the commencement of the present democratic dispensation in 1999 there has been instances of governors that found their ways to government houses and became clueless after. In most cases the clueless ones got power through the anointing of their godfathers. There was usually no vision, no blueprint or action plan, not even personal aspiration propelled them to the exalted office hence the colossal failures in governance that have occurred in many states. More often than not, unprepared visionless governors merely walked through government houses without adding values to the states they were elected to pilot their affairs.
But Mbah has demonstrated that, unlike those that found themselves on the seat of power unexpectedly, he came to Enugu’s Lion Building well prepared. He has demonstrated over and over that he came to governance to make a huge difference. Mbah came with a well laid out blueprint of the path he intended to take Enugu. He was brimming with ideas so much that his ideas and plans for the state sounded utopianistic during the electioneering for the 2023 general election.
Mbah recalled with a sense of triumph that people were skeptical and didn’t believe he could do the things he was promising in his manifesto during the campaigns. “When I stood before the people of Enugu in 2023, I did not offer a larger version of the status quo, or incremental improvement. Instead, I asked them to believe in a different future”.
But it was a tall order for Enugu people to connect to Mbah’s dreams given their lived experience.
So, it was a hard sell for him when “we committed ourselves to eradicate poverty, make Enugu the preferred destination for living, working, investing, business, tourism, and leisure, and grow our economy from approximately 4.4 billion dollars to 30 billion dollars”. To the less ambitious, it was outlandish for a governorship candidate to be speaking with such assurance without pointing to any concrete achievement in the public domain.
According to Mbah, after listening to his campaign promises “some believed that ambitions of this scale belonged before a commission on lunacy rather than in an election manifesto”. Yet, he remained resolute in his ideas, convinced that “the greatest danger was never thinking too big. It was thinking too small”. Mbah kept pushing with his ideas after he eventually became the governor and three years down the line Enugu has taken the Quantum Leap. In the convocation lecture, he explained that “the Quantum Leap is not a longer jump within the old development model”. Rather, “it is a different way of seeing, questioning, connecting, and acting. It is what I have called Disruptive Innovation”.
According to Mbah, Enugu’s Quantum Leap is therefore “a paradigm shift: from projects to systems; from inputs to human outcomes; from inherited assumptions to purposeful design; from isolated sectors to connected development; and from managing scarcity to activating possibility”. He tied this positive outcome to the inner workings of his mind, saying that “every paradigm shift begins in the imagination”. This is where he leaves no trace of doubt on the fact that he is flying on a higher altitude compared to the average state chief executive. Mbah argued that “before we can build differently, we must first believe differently – and confront the constraint that makes inherited limitations appear permanent – what we call the Poverty of Imagination”. It could be gleamed from his postulation that he loathes governance devoid of vision.
From Mbah’s own narratives, it was evident that Enugu’s Quantum Leap was not a product of the “Big Bang” theory of Cosmologists. It was carefully planned and being meticulously executed. This should be a lesson for those that suddenly find themselves in governorship positions due to the benevolence of godfathers. Mbah developed his ambition without external promptings. And so from the onset, he knew what he was coming to do as a governor and how he would go about it. To him, vision matters a lot for successful leadership as it sets the goal for aspiration and concretization of ideas. From his body language, Mbah loathes “poverty of imagination” as it keeps a society stagnant and condemned to motion without movement.
He said: By Poverty of Imagination, I mean the inability of individuals, institutions, and societies to conceive, design, and build possibilities beyond inherited constraints.
It is the condition in which yesterday’s limitations become today’s expectations and tomorrow’s assumptions; when what has not yet been achieved is treated as what cannot be achieved; and when past experience becomes the boundary of public ambition”.
Mbah went ahead to make a distinction between poverty of imagination and other variables, saying that it has nothing to do with poverty of intelligence, talent, determination, natural resources, or, in the first instance, money. To substantiate his claims, he gave an instance of a situation where a people may possess extraordinary intelligence, entrepreneurial energy, cultural resilience, and immense potential, yet remain poor. The resultant poverty, he stated, would be inevitable “if they cannot organize these endowments into institutions that create knowledge, protect health, enable productivity, reward innovation, and extend opportunity”.
Mbah subtly encouraged his fellow political leaders in Nigeria to dream big for the country and should not shy away from envisioning a bright future and how it could be achieved. “The future is built twice—first in the imagination, and then in law, budgets, concrete, technology, and practice,” he said. “If the first construction is timid, the second will be limited. Poverty of imagination begins when a condition becomes a conclusion”.
The examples he gave were thought-provoking: “A dilapidated classroom is a condition; the belief that rural children cannot receive world-class education is a conclusion. Inadequate electricity is a condition; the belief that industrialization must wait indefinitely is a conclusion.
“Poverty is a condition; the belief that it is the permanent destiny of a people is a conclusion. Conditions can be transformed. Conclusions close the future before the work begins”.
Mbah said that development should be holistic and not be measured only through physical infrastructure. He noted that even though “roads, buildings, industries, and public expenditure matter enormously, they are just means rather than ends”. According to him, “the true measure of development is the expansion of human capability—the capacity to live a long and healthy life, acquire meaningful knowledge, participate productively in society, solve problems creatively, and improve the lives of others”. Therefore, Mbah has no intention to leave behind a state with only functional physical infrastructure, he wants to take Enugu State beyond that level.
The Enugu Governor has his eyes already fixed on a bigger picture. Beyond infrastructure, he wants to leave a legacy of Enugu State in which its people rank among the high flyers globally with the capacity to contribute in solving global problems in every field of endeavour. He has set out to achieve this goal by transforming the educational system to be functional and relevant in the evolving tech and innovation-driven global environment. Mbah gives himself out as a man who thinks ahead of people’s expectations. He thinks big and acts even bigger.
Mbah found the theme of the convocation lecture very compelling given that “it speaks directly to the socio-economic imperatives of our age, when states are challenged not merely to pursue economic growth”. States, he stated are also challenged “to ensure that development restores human dignity, expands opportunity, equips citizens with practical competencies, and leaves no community behind”.
Mbah referenced the guiding philosophy of UNN as enunciated by its founder, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, pointing out its similarity with the mission of his administration. He said: “Every great university has a philosophy that transcends its physical structures. The University of Nigeria, Nsukka, gave itself an even more profound mission, which is as relevant today as it was at its founding: “To Restore the Dignity of Man.” Those six words, chosen by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe as the guiding purpose of this great university, answered one of the defining challenges of their time”.
Every great university has a philosophy that transcends its physical structures.
The University of Nigeria, Nsukka, gave itself an even more profound mission, which is as relevant today as it was at its founding: “To Restore the Dignity of Man.”
Those six words, chosen by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe as the guiding purpose of this great university, answered one of the defining challenges of their time. At that time the challenge of political independence and the burning desire to realise their full potentials stared the pre-colonial and post-colonial generations in the face.
According to Mbah, the interrogation of education in the post-independent era – whether it could do more than produce graduates, restore self-worth, and equip a people to think for themselves, shape their future, and take their rightful place in the world with confidence. However, such expectations remain valid today as they were 65 years ago when UNN was established. The only difference, Mbah noted is that the present realities has shaped the expected outcomes of education. “Artificial Intelligence, biotechnology, automation, climate change, demographic transformation, and the knowledge economy are shifting the foundations of prosperity,” he said. With these new realities, it has become imperative to tailor education to meet the present and future needs of the people.
His emphasis on human capital development through the Smart Green Schools initiative, resurgence of technical and vocational education in Enugu State lends credence to Mbah’s drive for human capital development. He believes that “the wealth of nations is increasingly determined less by what lies beneath their soil than by what has been cultivated within their citizens: ingenuity, creativity, adaptability, and capability”. The Enugu Governor therefore came up with a meaning to the restoration of the dignity of man in this twenty-first century.
He said: “I submit that dignity must be measured not simply by political freedom or constitutional rights, indispensable though they remain. It must also be measured by the capability of every citizen to learn continuously, think critically, create boldly, innovate confidently, and contribute meaningfully to society”. “True dignity,” he added, “exists when people possess not merely the freedom to aspire, but the capability to transform aspiration into achievement, potential into productivity, and possibility into shared prosperity”.
Though he has prioritised and invested heavily on the social sector, Mbah posits that the main challenge lies in attaining human development “in its fullest sense”. This, according to him, could be made possible through simultaneous transformation of education, healthcare, infrastructure, industrialization, or economic transformation considered as a nexus. “Education develops capability. Healthcare protects it. Infrastructure connects it to opportunity. Industry converts it into productivity and enterprise. Strong institutions sustain it. Together, they form an architecture in which dignity can flourish,” he said.
