A former Commissioner for Information in Anambra State, Sir Paul Nwosu, believes it is wrong for the governments and people of the Southeast geopolitical zone of Nigeria to depend on the national government to determine the pace of the region’s socio-economic growth.
Nwosu thinks that if the various state governments and powerhouses in the region collaborate to craft and implement an economic blueprint for the Southeast’s growth, the region could become the Dubai and Singapore of Africa.
Sir Nwosu, the editor-in-chief of Anambra Times, whose platform is convening a roundtable for Igbo Stakeholders on Southeast development on June 19, 2025, in Awka, expressed this view in an exclusive chat with TNC correspondents in Awka.
He expressed his belief that the time is right for a roundtable to accentuate the region’s potential, observing that subsequent state governments have gone cap-in-hand to Abuja, begging for handouts when the region can do better, considering its abundant human and material potential.
According to him, the region should stop waiting for the centre to determine its growth and development pace.
“Southeast can become the Dubai of Nigeria and Africa. What people don’t know is that Dubai is just an emirate in a country, but because of their leaders’ ingenuity and resourcefulness, they were able to turn a desert only five decades ago, into a thriving tourist and commercial centre.
“That was what regional governments and the kind of federation we had in the first republic were all about- regions developing at their own pace.
“That was why when some people were still living under the trees, somebody somewhere built the first skyscraper and set up a television station in the 1950s.
“So, this whole idea of bunch-up mentality is not helping the country. It is like a family that has a child that is slightly retarded, and you hold others down until that particular child starts to develop before you allow others to develop.
“That is what the brand is trying to engender, a conversation that would ignite Southeast’s socio-economic development at a pace dictated by us,” Nwosu said.
The social affairs analyst regretted that the Southeast has lost so many things as a result of its dependence on the government at the centre, adding that countries that had come to learn from the region are now far ahead of even Nigeria.
“Before the civil war, under the erstwhile Premier of the Eastern Region, M.I Okpala, during the late 1950s and the early 1960s, the Eastern Region, which encompasses part of the Southeast zone, was adjudged as the fastest developing region in the world.
“That was when Malaysia came to pick palm nuts to plant in their country. But today, we go there to import oil-based products.
“So, you can imagine that there was no civil war, and the Southeast region had continued on that trajectory. By now, we would have been one of the best developed.
“Then, the Saudi Royal Family was coming here for medical treatment and a check-up. The Asian countries that are now the Asian tigers were coming here to pick palm nuts. Now, they have cross-bred these things, and are exporting oil, soap, butter, and other products from oil. Meanwhile, we are bulldozing our palm plantations from where these people came to pick these palm species,” he said.
On the recent creation of the Southeast Development Commission, SEDC, by the Federal Government, Sir Nwosu posited that development commissions are not peculiar to the Southeast.
According to him, such commissions are still Federal Government structures to help fast-track development in the regions, but regional cooperation among governments in that particular region would add great impetus to its growth and development.
He explained, “The development commissions and their budgets are tied to the budget and blueprint of the federal government.
“But, where the governments in a region, who understand the peculiar aspirations and needs of their people, come together, they will be able to better develop that area, while the development commission will come as an addendum.
“This is a region that has a philosophy of ‘Igwebuike.’ So, why don’t we mine the Igbo philosophy of ‘Igwebuike’, which places emphasis on the collective powers of the people?
“I agree that it will be difficult, because the respective governments in the states of the Southeast belong to various political parties with specific ideologies and philosophies.
“But, these governments should be able to set aside their political ideologies and pursue a collective agenda for the growth and development of their region and the welfare of the people. There are areas where some states will have a comparative advantage over the other, and the states should be able to devise how to support one another and move ahead.
“Take, for instance, the issue of the blue line that the Southeast is lamenting that they were excluded from the National Railway masterplan. What stops the states of the Southeast from getting experts to chart a rail connectivity among the states and get a bank like the African Development Bank to fund the project, while the states accommodate counterpart funds for the project in their annual budgets?
“By the time the Federal Government realizes how far the region has come, it will be a question of now looping their own into ours, to see how they can freeload from the excess productivity of the region’s success story in the blue line initiative.
“In security, the individual successes of the respective states do not make the problem go away, because when Anambra State for instance, chases the criminals away, they go to Enugu. If Enugu intensifies the heat on them, they will go to Imo and before you know it, they would return back to Anambra.
“But if there is a synergy among the states of the region and they all are implementing a unified security approach, the criminals will know that the region is unconducive for them and leave,” Sir Nwosu noted.
