By Tunde Olusunle
We were received by festive drumming, music, and dancing when our flight from Abuja touched down Enugu before noon on Wednesday, September 23, 2026, as we arrived for the Guild’s conference For a moment, some of our colleagues thought the Enugu State Government had put up the spectacle to welcome us to the city. Governor Mbah was launching the international operations of the state-owned Enugu Air, which joined the nation’s aviation industry in the middle of last year. Many Nigerians, probably in hundreds of thousands, he explained to me, are resident in Cameroon, because of the geographical and sociocultural contiguity of both countries. Enugu Air he said, reckoned it was strategic to inaugurate an Enugu to Douala service, to foster regional socioeconomic collaboration between Nigeria and Central Africa.
Said Mbah: “By December, Enugu Air will begin a direct service to Gatwick Airport, London. We’ve finalised the lease agreement for a wide-bodied aircraft to service the route.” My mind immediately went to the brand new, modern airport terminal building which is being developed within the precincts of the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu, by the Mbah government, which will most probably be dedicated to international operations. Effectively, therefore, Enugu Air will break the monopoly of Ethiopian Airlines, which had hitherto, serviced the route. “We are pulling all the stops for the actualisation of our vision for a $30 billion economy in Enugu State, within eight years beginning from when we assumed office. We don’t operate on impulse. Everything we’re doing here has been planned.” On the domestic front, the Mbah regime has activated air travel in and out of Enugu, such that besides the state-owned Enugu Air, the Akanu Ibiam International Airport is also served by Air Peace; United Nigeria Airlines and Ibom Air.
The Mbah government is pursuing an ambitious, holistic, all-inclusive tourism development package that offers a variety of options for voyagers and inquisitors, akin to the visionary exploits of former Governor Donald Duke of Cross River State, between 1999 and 2007. Fifteen monuments and sites are being simultaneously developed even as the state prepares to be able to host six million visitors by 2027. Last May, the administration committed the sum of N30Billion to a range of iconic touristic projects. These include a breathtaking canopy walkway, which will begin from Ugwuto, slope over 500 metres, and terminate at the site of the ancient Nsude pyramids. It is intended to be the longest in Nigeria and will have gazebos, a lighthouse, an observatory, and a restaurant on the hilltop at about 530 metres above sea level.
The Ovu Lake in Ndibinagu Obodo-Uvuru, Nkanu East, and the Atakwu waterpark in Akegbe-Ugwu, Nkanu West, are also in the developmental scheme. A golf course and a resort are being developed in Ovu Lake, while the Akwuke beach and Atakwu waterpark will feature experience centres and food courts among other attractions. A cable car that will run from Okpatu to Ahwum is equally in the works. Ahwum hosts an alluring and mystical waterfall, which is said to possess healing powers, like the Osun Oshogbo grove in Osun State. Elsewhere, the Ngwo Pine Forest is being enhanced with flowers, rotundas, and a 300 metre zipline, the very first in Nigeria. Also being built is a 50-metre cross atop a 15-storey building, designed to be the tallest cross in Africa, a potential pilgrimage centre for Christian faithful.
Even as Governor Mbah pursues the delivery of a primary healthcare centre to each of the 260 political wards in Enugu State to bring medical care close to the people, his government has also completed the multistorey Enugu International Hospital, which overlooks the reawakened Presidential Hotel in the heart of the state capital. The world-class, 300-bed, multi-specialist facility, which was flagged off in November 2024, is conceived as a “quaternary care centre” positioning Enugu as the one-stop medical destination in the South-East and beyond. Envisioned to provide international standard medical treatment to a wide gamut of conditions, the type sought by Nigerians in India, Egypt, and South Africa, it also aims to help conserve the quantum foreign exchange lost to such foreign quests. It is also intended to help mitigate the brain drain syndrome, the japa trend which has seen Nigeria lose sizeable proportions of its highly skilled professionals and graduates to better-paying countries.
The restless Mbah is equally as passionate about the development of the agricultural sector in the state, both for local food sufficiency and for economic purposes. His administration is constructing modern farm estates in each of the 260 wards in the state for intentional youth engagement and the promotion of large-scale agriculture. The Enugu State Government has also partnered with the South East Development Commission, (SEDC), to flag off a 200-hectare agro-development project. Last July, 63,000 registered smallholder farmers received free agricultural inputs, including fertilisers, agrochemicals, palm seedlings, improved rice, maize, tomato and pepper seeds, as well as cassava stems. Greenhouse farms are also being popularised for the optimisation of land and water and to maximise crop yields. The hitherto moribund Sunrise Flour Mills and the United Palm Products Ltd have also been resuscitated.
“We have specific timelines for each of the projects we’re embarking on,” Governor Mbah tells me. “Some of them will be ready for the yuletide as our people come home for the festivities; some would have been completed by the first quarter of 2027, and so on.” Continuing, he said: “Since the Guild has followed the gestation of some of these projects, especially in the last two years, it’s only logical that they see how they evolve. This explains our invitation to the Guild to host its forthcoming Biennial Convention here like you did last year. Golfers among you will play in the scenic Ovu Lake, for instance; venturers can explore a more mature zipline; you will have a better appreciation of what we’ve made of Awgu; we’re building five more bus terminals including one in “9th Mile” in Udi local government area, after the five we commissioned last year.”
Listening to Mbah’s informed elocution, distilling his passion, his pragmatic approach to governance, especially with the hindsight of the tangible, measurable developments one has gleaned on ground, you’re compelled to recommend the introduction of a “peer review mechanism” in our governance system which enables those operating the levers, learn from themselves. Unlike many who were herded into Government House by specific interests for specific purposes, including helping to bury the fossils of the excesses and misdeeds of their benefactors, you have in Mbah an genuinely purposeful, concretely altruistic, demonstrably exemplary, effortlessly selfless servant of the people who is intentionally making his time, energy and vision available for the development of his constituents and the nation at large. He should be a much sought-after resource person guiding those whose pretences to leadership is only circumscribed by the voluptuousness of their billowing robes; the irritating bunch hovering around them in the name of motley aides; the obscene lengths of their motorcades, and the nuisance value of their bleating sirens.
I look at my wristwatch, believing Mbah should need a glass of water or a cup of coffee by now. It’s been a rich, mutually rewarding, and convivial engagement with Governor Peter Mbah. He catches my eyes. The diplomat in him tells me, “I know it’s been a long day, and we’ve kept you here beyond your schedule. Kindly plead with madam that we’re keeping you for two more days. We want you to go around by yourself to verify the things we talked about. Draw up your personal itinerary and move around by yourself.” Mbah, the complete gentleman, gets up to see me off to the door of his office. “Please, get cracking on Volume Two like we discussed. We want it out as quickly as possible.” Again, he gives me a brotherly handshake and a smile, as Ozurumba Afigbo, and I exit his office into the elevator.
Talking about the reality of the “nowness” of tomorrow in Enugu State.
– Tunde Olusunle, PhD, Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors (FANA), is also a Fellow of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, (FNGE)
Views: 29
