We have noted that the Awka Declaration has within its prescriptions an opportunity for the South East to take its own medicine. Commence the process of registering persons who have spent a minimum of 10 years in states other than their ancestral roots within the South East as citizens of where they reside. It strengthens the case for national adoption of the recommendation of citizenship by residency canvassed by Ohanaeze Ndigbo.
Distinguished economist and thought leader Charles Soludo set a new benchmark with his characterisation of the Igbo as a global race. His 2017 Awka Exposition used the term race as a positive social and cultural construct for a people. Many possibilities arise from that descriptor and the mindset that it should engender.
South East states should pursue regional economic integration.
The South East should do all that is necessary to position and establish as the Start-Up Region of Nigeria, with Anambra as a lodestar. From Onitsha through Nnewi, to Awka and Aba, this can quickly happen if the Governors focus on providing enablers in policy, infrastructure, integration and linkages. As the National Competitiveness Council of Nigeria noted in its recent report, infrastructure is fundamental to enabling growth and development.
How productive are the South East states with their endowments and the factors of production they can provide or attract? It is about competitiveness, innovation and productivity. It is about managing the micro-economic factors that each state controls withinthebroadermacroeconomic environment of the country. States through their policies and actions influence the operations, innovativeness and expansive capacity of businesses in their domains. As it stands, the statistics are promising. Three of the five states of the region fall within the Top Ten in the sub-national competitiveness rankings released in November 2017 by the National Competitiveness Council of Nigeria.The key drivers of competitiveness are human capital, infrastructure, institutions and economy.
Human capital looks at education, healthcare, and ability to attract external human capital. The scores see Enugu leading at number 3nationally. Anambra places 4th, Abia 8, Ebonyi 11 and Imo 21. The overall scores on the sub-national scale see Abia at 3, Enugu, 8; Ebonyi, 10; Anambra, 1 and 1mo, 28.
Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) are critical to enable the South Easttoovercome the disadvantages of policy and geography over the years. The states must develop and integrate a strategic map on developing capacities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Start with increasing the number of science and technology institutions at the secondary school level.
Power is next. In this age, power is a critical enabler. The South East should be articulating a plan to pluck the low-hanging fruit in the new policy direction of the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission on mini-grids that says groups can work on independent power projects up to !MW capacity (NERC Minigrid regulation2016). Power must be to the South East what acquisition of western education was in the 1920s through to independence. The region entered an uncommon race in pursuit of the golden fleece. Communities taxed and tasked themselves to build schools, grant scholarships and do whatever was needful to produce the educated workforce for the new economy.
The need has arisen again, this time in developing capacity in power generation. STEM is impossible without power. Focus on ICT is impossible without power. Communities and groups must mobilise to take advantage of the new policy environment to #PowertheSouthEast or #LightUpTheSouthEast.
Technology is key. ICT is the engine of developments today and in the foreseeable future. Ndigboare invested in the ICT space, but mainly from the retail end. We have a large body of persons in the Computer Villages across Nigeria and West Africa. Can they be made more productive and innovative? Even so, Ndigbo always saw the imperative of ICT. UkpabiAsika’s government invested in computers in the salad days of the technology. Prof Mobisson dreamt with Jim Nwobodo about computerising processes in the East, hence the establishment of the Anambra State University of Science and Technology, now ESUT.
What is in place to make Akulueno more than an emotional appeal? Those to whom Governors and leaders direct the call work with verifiable indices as entrepreneurs. They want to be able to see policies and procedures that would make investment sense.
There should now be closer collaboration between the merchant class and the educated class in the South East. When our firms, largely medium and small scale, collaborate with scientists, engineers, mathematicians and liberal arts scholars in the many universities in the East they would identify and solve significant problems. The synergy of the Big Corporates and SMEs with the academia could unleash Ogbunigwe Version2 or the reinvention of science and technology in Eastern Nigeria.
Coordination and collaboration between the homeland and the Diaspora, both local and international. The South East has the situation of local Diaspora, being those within Nigeria, and global Diaspora. Who will play the role of the Igbo State Union of old, a non-government body with the moral and organisational capacity and credibility to craft all of these thoughts into hymns and produce hymn books from which the entire Igbo nation can sing in unison? Let the ideation continue.
