First let me begin by giving my profound gratitude to the entire Management and Staff of Godfrey Okoye University and its other collaborators for this excellent forum – and the opportunity it offers for an enriching dialogue.
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My dear people of Enugu State, I want to begin today by asking you to remember something.
Think back to May 2023, when we first assumed office. Think about the condition of our state, the difficulties we faced, and the expectations we had gradually learned to live without.
I want us to be honest about that period, because unless we remember where we began, it becomes difficult to appreciate the distance we have travelled.
There was a time when Monday was no longer an ordinary working day in Enugu. Shops remained closed. Roads were deserted. Parents were afraid to send their children to school. People who depended on their daily earnings had to surrender an entire day’s income because others had decided they should remain indoors.
Consider what that meant for a woman selling food in the market. Her customers were at home, her produce was deteriorating, and the money she needed to support her family would not be earned that day.
Or the young man who had borrowed money to start a business, only to discover that one working day in every week had effectively been taken away from him.
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Our children who lost a whole academic year before their compulsory external exam paper fell on a Monday. That was the reality we inherited.
Our roads were in poor condition. Public services had deteriorated. Many schools were struggling to provide the kind of education our children deserved. Our health facilities needed substantial investment.
And Enugu, a city that had once been the natural centre of commercial, political and cultural life across the region, was gradually losing that position.
Businesses were looking elsewhere. Major events were moving to other cities. Our airport had barely two incoming flights a day. Perhaps the greatest danger was that we might begin to accept these conditions as normal. Because when people live with the same difficulties for long enough, their expectations begin to change. They stop asking what is possible and concentrate instead on getting through the day. I knew we could do better.
I had spent much of my working life building businesses, dealing with challenges and making decisions about the future. I understood that Enugu possessed enormous resources, but I also knew that those resources would achieve very little unless we created the conditions for people to use them.
Our greatest resource was already here: the people of Enugu. What was missing was a clear direction, the determination to pursue it, and a government prepared to take responsibility for the results.
When I presented my original Statement of Purpose, I set out an ambition that some people considered almost impossible. We proposed to grow Enugu’s economy from approximately $4.4 billion to at least $30 billion within eight years, making our state one of Nigeria’s three leading economies.
We also committed ourselves to the long-term ambition of eliminating poverty. Those were enormous goals. I knew that. But I wanted us to understand the scale of the change required.
An economy cannot grow substantially if businesses cannot operate safely, if electricity is unreliable, if roads are impassable, or if young people leave school without the skills they need.
These problems are connected. They have to be addressed together. So, we began by identifying the foundations of a functioning state: security, education, healthcare, infrastructure, productive industries and institutions capable of delivering results.
And we made some difficult choices. We committed an unusually large share of our resources to education because we recognised that the future of Enugu would depend upon the abilities of its children.
We began restoring security and normal economic activity. We invested in roads and transport, planned improvements to healthcare and set about attracting the businesses and industries that would create employment.
I also knew that government itself had to change. For too long, public announcements had been treated as achievements. A project could be celebrated at its commencement and then disappear from public attention.
If we promise a school, people should be able to visit it. If we announce a road, they should be able to travel on it. If we say that public services are improving, citizens should be able to tell us whether that is true.
This is why accountability, measurable performance and public participation were written into our original Statement of Purpose. We were asking the people of Enugu to place their confidence in a programme of substantial change. We therefore had an obligation to demonstrate, through our work, that their confidence was justified.
Today, I can stand before you and point to changes that have taken place across our state.
One of the earliest and most important was the restoration of normal activity on Mondays. I remember how deeply the sit-at-home restrictions had affected people’s lives. The fear was real, and the economic consequences were considerable.
Today, people are going about their business with a freedom that had been denied to them for far too long. A trader can plan a full working week. Children can attend school. Businesses can receive customers, move goods and keep their employees working.
It may seem strange that we should celebrate something as ordinary as being able to go to work on Monday. But anyone who lived through those years understands its importance.
Security gave us a foundation upon which other changes could begin.
We turned our attention to the condition of our roads and the movement of people around the state.
Road construction is often discussed in kilometres and contract values. Most people experience it rather differently. They know the road that used to damage their vehicles, the journey that took too long, or the difficulty of getting produce from a farm to a market.
These are the experiences that matter. We have undertaken substantial road development and begun introducing a more organised transport system, including new buses and terminals.
Our ambition is to make movement around Enugu safer, more comfortable and more dependable, while connecting communities to the opportunities being created across the state.
The same thinking informs our work in aviation. When we assumed office, Enugu had barely two incoming flights a day. In our recent review, we counted more than fifteen.
That change tells us something about the renewed interest in our state. Through Enugu Air and our wider aviation plans, we want to strengthen the connections between Enugu, the rest of Nigeria and international markets.
A businessperson should be able to reach customers and partners without unnecessary difficulty. Investors should be able to visit our state. People who have made their lives elsewhere should find it easier to return, visit family and participate in our economy.
Of course, improved air travel alone will not transform the life of someone living in a rural community. But a growing economy needs these connections, and our responsibility is to ensure that the opportunities they generate reach much further.
That brings me to education. I have always believed that the most important investment we can make is in the abilities of our children.
Consider the world into which a child entering school today will eventually graduate. Technology is already changing the way people work. Some occupations will disappear, others will be transformed, and entirely new industries will emerge. That child needs an education that prepares them to think independently, solve problems, communicate well and adapt to circumstances we cannot yet predict. This is the thinking behind our 260 Smart Green Schools, designed to bring a new standard of education to every ward in Enugu State. We want children in our rural communities to have access to the kind of learning opportunities that parents might once have believed were available only in the most privileged schools.
Imagine what that could mean for a family whose children are the first generation to receive such an education. A daughter might develop the skills to build an agricultural business using modern methods. A son might become an engineer, a software developer or a skilled technician. Another child might become a teacher or a healthcare professional and return to serve the community in which they grew up.
We cannot know exactly what each child will become. But we can give them a stronger foundation from which to choose. That is why education occupies such a central place in our development programme. And we must ensure that the economy grows alongside it. There would be little satisfaction in educating a generation of talented young people if they could find no opportunity to put their abilities to work.
Our plans for agriculture, industry, technology, energy and commerce are intended to create those opportunities.
Take agriculture: Enugu has fertile land, experienced farmers and communities with generations of knowledge about food production.
Yet many farmers still struggle with poor access to equipment, storage, processing facilities and markets. They work hard, take considerable risks and often receive too little of the final value of what they produce.
We want to build an agricultural economy in which more of that value remains here. Think of a farmer who grows cassava. If the crop can be processed locally, it creates work beyond the farm. Someone operates the equipment. Someone maintains it. Someone packages the finished product. Others transport and sell it.
The income generated by that activity can support families and create further businesses within the community. Now imagine similar opportunities developing around other crops and agricultural products across Enugu. That is the practical meaning of agricultural industrialisation.
Our plans for energy and industrial development follow the same logic. Reliable electricity can change the prospects of a small business. A tailor can work more efficiently. A food processor can preserve produce. A manufacturer can operate equipment without constantly depending on expensive alternative power.
We have set out major ambitions for increasing electricity generation and attracting industrial investment because these are essential to the kind of economy we want to build. Some of these undertakings are long-term. Their benefits will develop over several years, and we must be realistic about the work involved. But we cannot afford to postpone them.
I also want to speak about healthcare. For a parent with a sick child, the most important question is whether good medical attention is available when it is needed.
For an expectant mother, it is whether she can receive proper care during pregnancy and childbirth.
For an elderly person, it is whether treatment can be obtained without travelling an unreasonable distance or placing an impossible burden on the family.
These are the circumstances against which our healthcare investments must be judged.
We have been working to improve primary healthcare facilities and strengthen services across the state. We are also investing in the wider systems needed to make healthcare more effective.
There is still work ahead, particularly in ensuring that improvements reach every community. And I want to acknowledge that openly. I know that some people listening today are already experiencing the benefits of the changes we have made. Others are still waiting for a road to be completed, a facility to become fully operational, or a new economic opportunity to reach their community.