Mbah at Work, Enugu Is Changing

Enugu’s transformation is being framed around Governor Peter Mbah’s slogan, “Tomorrow Is Here!”, and an ambition to grow the state’s economy from an estimated $4.4 billion to $30 billion.

The state’s identity reaches beyond its status as Nigeria’s Coal City. Enugu was created on Aug. 27, 1991, when the military government of General Ibrahim Babangida separated it from the old Anambra State. Its name comes from the Igbo expression “Énú Ụ́gwụ́”, meaning “top of the hill,” while its modern history was shaped by the discovery of coal at the Udi Hills in 1909.

Coal turned Enugu into an industrial center and gave it its enduring nickname. The completion of the Eastern Railway line to Port Harcourt in 1916 strengthened the connection between the coal-producing interior and the coast. Enugu later served as the capital of the former Eastern Region and, during the upheavals of 1967, the capital of the short-lived Republic of Biafra.

Since the state’s creation, successive military and civilian governments have contributed to its development. Chimaroke Nnamani served as the first elected governor of the Fourth Republic from 1999 to 2007. Sullivan Chime followed from 2007 to 2015, and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi served from 2015 to 2023. In 2023, the governorship passed to Peter Ndubuisi Mbah.

The article describes Enugu as having benefited from a degree of continuity across administrations, while portraying Mbah’s arrival as a distinct turn in the development debate. The slogan initially may have sounded like standard political rhetoric, it says, but the scale and ambition of the administration’s projects have given it a more concrete meaning. The $30 billion target, the article adds, demands more than roads and public buildings. It requires a fundamental restructuring of the relationship between the government and the economy.

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Tomorrow Is Here!