As the days are drawing closer for the governorship and states House of Assembly elections, Enugu State where two out of the three major candidates for the governorship position broke out of Peoples Democratic Party to join Labour Party and APGA may not affect the main party much because of the capacity of the candidate Peter Mbah.
This is because despite some civill servants who are seriously crying for their gratuity and pension the past administration failed to address and are jittery, majority of people from the business sector are endorsing Mbah because of where he is coming from as a core business man who out of the other contenders have some physical business in the state, employ people.
Among the groups that endorsed Peter Mbah for the governor of Enugu for the 2023 is the Enugu Investors Forum, EIF, in collaboration with the Enugu Concerned Citizens Initiative, ECCI.
The group which spoke to BusinessDay in Enugu recently said that Mbah was endorsed because of their belief in his pedigree in the private sector and a man who speaks the same language with them as investors.
The President of the Enugu Investors Forum who also is the publisher of Ikeaumba Magazine, Ayobanna Ikeanumba, told our reporter that the decision to endorse Mbah was reached after an unbiased examination and evaluation of the track records, manifestos and physical investments of all the governorship candidates in the race for the Lion Building Enugu.
According to him, their members are all over the world and are made up of people with tangible businesses is Enugu State both indigene and non indigene, promised that once Mbah wins as a Governor their members would immediately build 10,000 affordable housing units in Enugu within the first one year.
The group believed that with Mbah’s background as a business man from the private sector, his administration would open the doors for investors and create an enabling environment for business to grow in the state.
The president explained how Mbah was chosen, saying that the group did a critical analysis of the other governorship candidates and discovered that none of them has any tangible investment that any man could point at in Enugu.
He said that it was during the evaluation carried out without any bias that the forum and ECCI, came to the conclusion that Peter Mbah is the most credible, capable and qualified candidate coming from the side of investors
“We have reviewed other candidates but we found it difficult to pinpoint tangible investments they have made but we could not see any,” he said.
The state had a lot of setback in the last administration because the leadership did not fully come from the private sector, most states that did well did so because they have leaders that have proven integrity in the private sector.
“Over the last seven months, we have been apprehensive over government and investors relationship in Enugu but today we have settled that if Mbah becomes the governor of Enugu state the slow entry of investors into the town would stop and Enugu state would be at peace with investors and thier investments,” Ikeaumba said.
Earlier, the Director General of Enugu Concerns Citizens Initiative ECCI, Aurthur Edeh said the dinner was to bring like minds together to thinker about a sustainable economic evolution of Enugu State a partnership of potential synergy bringing the government and private sectors together in other to creating of wealth for our people making Enugu state and industrial hub where business thrives.
Enugu concerns Citizens initiative ECCI as an organisation has its aim and abjectives basically on creating wealth both for it’s members and the general public with membership base in all the 17 local government areas and it’s communities with members from various works of lives and industries
He said that Enugu is a green field where both local and international organisations can cultivate effectively but the government of course has to create the enabling environment that would make it accessable for investment.
“This of course is our interest as concerned citizens to ensure in the fourth coming election that we elect a more competent experience and intelligent leader who has the capacity to provide the environment that would help to facilitate economic development, evolution and empowerment for the Enugu people,” the DG said.
Also, a practising Lawyer in Enugu State, Peter Aja in an exclusive interview with BusinessDay, said that the people of Enugu State should now settle for capacity not party, he listed some virtues of the PDP governorship candidate which are not hyped.
He said before now Mbah had done a lot of developments, mostly in the rural areas that are not being used for campaigns and “I am sure many politicians would have used them to seek votes. But, Mbah never referred to them and that is the kind of person Enugu needs.
“Listening to his manifesto will always convince anyone that he has solutions to the challenges of Enugu state.”
Aja further said that Mbah’s antecedents and character made him unique, and urged Ndi Enugu not to allow the opportunity to elude them.
“Mbah is the reason why many are going to school today. He provides scholarships. He is why his community has access roads and even built hospitals for his community and others,” he said..
“It is on record that Peter Mbah’s contributions in rural development, as well as human capital development even as an entrepreneur, have not been in the public domain,” Ajah said.
