As a New Enugu Rises

by Peter Mbah

My dear Ndi Nkanu and Ndi Enugu East Zone,
Today is personal. I stand before you as Governor of Enugu State – yes. But today, I also stand before you as your son.
There are moments in public life when politics becomes secondary to something deeper. We gather as a people, elders come, young people raise their voices, and you realise that what is happening is not just an event. It is a shared moment. It is family speaking to itself.

Many of our respected elders insisted they must be here – their age or physical difficulty regardless. Some came in a wheelchair. I am deeply touched and humbled by this show of love and affection. When elders come, they are not merely attending a rally. They are bearing witness. Seeing our revered elders here is truly heartwarming. Thank you for your wise counsel and inspiring leadership.
Last week, we held a solemn celebration of my administration’s third-year anniversary. This event today feels much like an icing on the cake. But, I’m not here to reel out our scorecard. Yet, an occasion such as this is an opportunity for introspection.

Ndi Nkanu and Ndi Enugu East, four years ago, you did something  that defined an era. You did not simply present a candidate. You presented a vision to the state. Enugu had grown accustomed to managing its limitations, and you dared to imagine something different.
In the build-up to the election of 2023, you went from community to community carrying a bold message – that Enugu could be more than it had become.

This required courage. Indeed, hope always requires courage. It is easy to place your faith in what already exists. It is much harder to place your faith in something that has not yet taken shape.
At that time, there were no Smart Green Schools to point to. No Enugu Air. No International Conference Centre. No Presidential Hotel. No International Hospital. No transport terminals. No CNG Buses. The list goes on.
No visible proof that a different future was on its way. And because you were willing to take that leap of faith, something remarkable happened: An entire state began to rediscover its confidence. People started lifting their hearts again. Our young ones began imagining a future beyond survival. Communities that had waited years for change started seeing evidence with their own eyes.

When I came into office, I signed a Citizens’ Charter. This was a promise between government and the people. It set clear goals for what government would deliver – better schools, better healthcare, greater security, economic opportunity and a total elimination of poverty – and we made those commitments public so that citizens could hold us accountable.
Our people are our greatest asset. The challenge has never been a lack of talent, intelligence or determination. The challenge has been creating the conditions in which those gifts can flourish.

Across our communities, for example, too many children still grow up carrying burdens that belong to adults. No child should have to choose between helping their family survive today and building a future tomorrow. No community should watch talent go unrealised because opportunity never arrived.

We are here to invest in education, healthcare, infrastructure and jobs. Not as projects in themselves, but because our responsibility is to help our people live fuller, safer and more hopeful lives.
There is something I want us to understand clearly today. The Enugu we knew three or four years ago is gone. That old idea of Enugu as a state waiting only for salary week, a state whose economy rose and fell with public sector payments, a state where young people looked outward because they could not see enough possibility at home – that story is changing. And because the story is changing, our hearts and minds must change with it. A people can live so long inside limitation that they begin to mistake it for reality; that this is how things are; and how things have always been. That mindset is a dangerous inheritance. It makes poverty feel permanent and disorder feel normal.

But Ndi Nkanu, look around you. Ndi Enugu East Senatorial District, we are no longer talking about possibility as theory. We are seeing evidence with our own eyes: Smart Green Schools in every ward; Healthcare moving closer to families; Roads connecting communities; Water returning where people waited too long; Modern transport terminals served by air-conditioned buses with Wi-Fi; Enugu Air opening new pathways to the world; Investors arriving; Conferences coming; Businesses taking a fresh look at Enugu.

A few days from now, we will break ground to build a 660MW coal-fired power plant that moves us closer to a future where our people no longer plan their lives around darkness. In a literal sense, the lights will go on in Enugu – permanently.
For many years, our people dreamed of leaving. Those in the rural areas dreamed of reaching the city. Those in the city dreamed of Lagos, those in Lagos dreamed of Europe, America – anywhere that seemed to offer more opportunity. And I understand that dream. I have lived it. When people do not have security and basic amenities and means to provide, ‘Japa’ becomes a form of survival. But I don’t want that for our children. I want to bring opportunity home. Which is why we are bringing the world to Enugu.

The conference centre, the airports, the transport terminals, the roads, the schools, the buses, the investments in power and healthcare, the moribund factories revived – these are not isolated projects. Together, they form an ecosystem. They create the conditions in which businesses can grow, jobs can be created, families can prosper and communities can thrive.
I must also acknowledge His Excellency President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, for the courage of his reforms under the Renewed Hope Agenda. By taking difficult decisions and freeing up resources that had long been trapped in an unsustainable subsidy system, he has given the states greater agency, both in the responsibility and the resources to act.

Gone is the temptation to accept a state handout and focus only on immediate relief. Yes, there is always pressure to spend everything today and leave tomorrow to take care of itself. But lasting prosperity is built differently. Any farmer understands this. Before there can be a harvest, there must be investment in the soil. There must be planting before cultivation and then patience.
We are still at the planting stage – and we must hold our nerve. President Tinubu has created the conditions for it. He understands that states must be given greater agency, and that regions once distant from the centre must be brought into closer partnership.
Through support for aviation, transport and road infrastructure, energy, regional development and economic reform, the Federal Government has become a willing partner in Enugu’s transformation.

Our responsibility has thus been simplified: To make good use of that opportunity. Some people may still want to reduce this gathering to a narrow question. They may say this needs to be about Nkanu alone.
I understand why people speak that way. Every clan wants to feel seen. Every community wants to know that its son remembers home. Every zone wants to know that it has not been forgotten.
So, let me say this plainly: I know where I come from. I know my people. Before I became Governor, I had already invested personally in communities here. I had built hospitals, funded universities, and invested in roads. I had begun planning larger educational projects because I wanted to see more light in this place.

But the moment I took the oath of office, my circle of responsibility became the entire state. The child in Nsukka, who goes to school hungry,  is also my child. The mother in Udi who needs healthcare is also my responsibility. The farmer in Awgu who needs a good road to the market is also part of my duty of care. And closer to home, a young person in Nkanu who dreams of technology and enterprise must see that the whole state is being arranged to support that dream.

 Our ancestors understood this better than many of us do today. Which is why we commonly say: Igwe bu ike (There is strength in numbers, Otu osisi anaghi eme ohia (One tree does not make a forest), and Aka nri kwoo aka ekpe, aka ekpe akwoo aka nri (The right hand washes the left, and the left hand washes the right and they are both clean).
Nkanu rises when Enugu rises. Enugu rises when the South East rises. The South East rises when Nigeria finds its strength. And Nigeria’s strength will help Africa take her rightful place in the world. That is why provincial thinking cannot carry the future we are building. It is too small for the times we are living in.

What we are building, both here in Enugu and across Nigeria, is still young. Like any child taking its first steps, it requires protection. We are living through a period of profound change, and moments of national heartbreak will inevitably arise. We see the pain caused by terrorism, insecurity and the suffering they inflict on families and communities.
But we must be careful not to allow fear, panic, rancour or division to become a second victory for those who seek to destabilise us. It is precisely at moments like these that a nation must draw closer together.
This is not the time for finger-pointing, political opportunism or tearing down those charged with the responsibility of improving the situation. This is the time for steadiness, unity and resolve.

The Nigeria we are building will not emerge overnight. Like any worthwhile harvest, it demands patience, discipline and the confidence to stay the course even when the work is difficult. Our responsibility now is to protect what has been planted, and give it every chance to grow.
Some threats come from outside. Others begin closer to home. The first is poverty of imagination – that voice in your head that says nothing can truly change; that tells you to settle for less because disappointment is familiar.

The second is small politics. The politics of bickering, ego, bitterness, and personal ambition dressed up as public concern.
Another danger is provincial thinking: the idea that one part of the state can prosper while the rest remains weak. That thinking may sound attractive in the moment, but in development it is a dead end.

Then there is complacency. We have seen progress. People are beginning to breathe easier. The state is gaining confidence.
But history is full of people who grasped at the prize too soon; people who won the battle but then lost the war.
Seven months from now, in January, we will face another election. This is not the moment to drift. A people who are building something precious must remain alert.

Political cowboys will surface. Some will bring noise; some will bring anger; some will bring division. We will bring results. Our answer must be clarity. Our answer must be unity. Our answer must be the work.
We have won important battles, but the larger war against poverty and insecurity, is far from over.
Three years ago, many people were watching to see whether this journey would survive the first contact with reality. Today, the evidence is around us. The question is no longer whether change is possible. The question is whether we have the discipline to protect it.
Ndi Enugu, we are at a rare moment in the history of our beloved state. Tomorrow Is Here must not remain the slogan of one administration. It has to become the culture of a people. It must live in how communities protect public assets; in how young people think about opportunity; in how leaders approach duty and service; in how citizens refuse to be distracted by those who seek power without purpose.

Ndi Nkanu, you did not send your son to Lion Building so that he would think small. You asked for a chance to show what leadership from this zone could offer the whole state.
That is what we have tried to do. And by the grace of God. What we are beginning – we will finish. And amid all the grand plans and big ambitions, let us remember what this is really about.
Behind every reform is a simple hope: that a child can go to learn on a full stomach, return home safely to their family, and see a future here in Enugu.

If I leave office and that condition remains unresolved in Enugu State, then I will have failed. No number of roads, buildings or speeches can equate to lifting the dignity of ordinary people. We raise the profile of the state so we can attract investment. We attract investment so we can grow the economy. We grow the economy so we can fund schools, healthcare, water, power, jobs and opportunities. We create opportunity so we can put food on the table and live well.

My dear people, the choice before us is clear. We can continue building a state that thinks boldly and includes everyone. We can prove that politics can still be guided by principles over personality. We can show that development does not have to be only about prestige projects.
 They are investments in people, made possible by a national vision that gives states the resources and the responsibility to shape their own future.

Or shall we allow small thinking to creep back in, dressed in familiar language, whispering to us that the future should be reduced to faction, resentment and narrow interest?
I know the choice Ndi Nkanu will make. I know the choice Ndi Enugu will make. Because you have seen enough now to know the difference between noise and work.

So today, I thank you for standing with me again; for standing with this project. Speak for it in your communities. Defend it in your meetings. Explain it to those who have not yet understood the scale of what is happening. Bring more people into the fold. Let us think like builders, not spectators. Let us carry ourselves like a people who know that history is watching.

A new Enugu is being born. It is rising from Nkanu to Nsukka, from Udi to Awgu, from our villages to our cities, from this state into the South East, from the South East into Nigeria, and from Nigeria into the wider world. That is the journey before us.
If we stay united, disciplined and faithful to the work, generations after us will look back and say: This was the moment our people refused limitation. This was when Enugu changed direction. This was when Tomorrow truly came home.

God bless Ndi Nkanu.
God bless Enugu State.
God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Thank you.

•Being a speech delivered by Governor Mbah at the Ofu Obi Mega Rally organised by Enugu East Senatorial Zone to endorse him and President Tinubu for a second term in office