South East: Fragmented Vision, Fading Promise

Today, arsenic I reason this six-week region-by-region investigation of the 2025 Phillips Consulting State Performance Index (pSPI), attraction turns to the South East. Long hailed arsenic the crucible of Nigerian commerce and enterprise, the portion prides itself connected ingenuity and resilience. Its markets, from Onitsha to Aba, person for decades thrummed with entrepreneurial energy, and its diaspora has played decisive roles successful the nation’s nonrecreational and concern sectors. Yet the latest pSPI offers a sobering portrait. Abia ranks 10th, Ebonyi 13th, Enugu 20th, Imo 31st, and Anambra 34th. A portion that erstwhile carried the estimation of being Nigeria’s store present sits uncomfortably with middling and adjacent mediocre governance outcomes.

The South East’s trajectory resembles that of Renaissance Italy, wherever once-proud city-states similar Florence, Venice, and Milan dazzled with commerce, art, and intelligence brilliance, yet yet fell down due to the fact that they lacked unity and strategical foresight. Wealth and vigor were present, but fragmented authorities and shortsighted governance near them susceptible erstwhile the Atlantic economies roseate to prominence. The South East faces a comparable dilemma today: entrepreneurial thrust abounds, but organization weakness and governmental fragmentation squander it.

Abia and Ebonyi: Flickers of Purpose

Among the South East states, Abia offers the brightest glimmer of promise. Ranked 10th, it has leveraged the commercialized dynamism of Aba to inch up of its neighbours. The Ariaria market, sometimes described arsenic the “China of Africa,” is gradually being formalised with electrification projects, humble recognition schemes, and tiny infrastructure upgrades. While these initiatives are acold from transformative, they are steps toward reining successful the upset of informality. Citizens announcement these efforts, which explains Abia’s comparatively precocious cognition score. Abia contiguous evokes the Dutch provinces of the 17th century: small, pragmatic, and commercially focused, thriving little connected grandeur than connected discipline.

Ebonyi, placed 13th, has amazed many. Once derided arsenic the mediocre relative of the South East, it has built caller roadworthy networks, invested successful agriculture, and expanded entree to services. Its progress, though uneven, recalls the Prussian exemplary earlier German unification: disciplined and infrastructurally ambitious, but inactive lacking the broader intelligence and economical ecosystem to rival its peers. Ebonyi’s task present is to pivot from earthy carnal infrastructure toward deeper organization and quality superior investments. Without that, its gains hazard being cosmetic alternatively than catalytic.

Both states, however, look an existential challenge. Their advancement occurs successful isolation, without a determination model to amplify their strengths. Like Dutch cities that thrived successful commercialized but yet lacked the territorial heft of emerging nation-states, Abia and Ebonyi whitethorn find their gains fragile unless tied to a broader South East improvement strategy.

Enugu: A Fading Aristocrat

Enugu’s 20th-place ranking captures a authorities resting connected past glory. Once the superior of Eastern Nigeria, the ember metropolis represented modernity and sophistication. Universities flourished, the civilian work was professional, and infrastructure carried the aerial of a planned city. Today, overmuch of that aura has dissipated. Governance feels timid, infrastructure projects deficiency coherence, and national cognition is middling. Enugu resembles Vienna aft the Austro-Hungarian illness – elegant and cultured, yet struggling to specify a relation successful a changed governmental economy.

Railways that erstwhile connected Enugu to the wider portion prevarication abandoned. Coal, erstwhile its economical lifeblood, has been supplanted by lipid elsewhere, yet nary comparable replacement has been found. Political elites cling to the city’s symbolism but neglect to illustration a bold caller direction. History offers a warning: Toledo successful Spain erstwhile served arsenic the centre of imperial governance, but arsenic Madrid rose, it declined into obscurity, remembered much for past splendour than contiguous relevance. Enugu risks a akin destiny unless it reinvents itself done cognition industries, greenish energy, oregon determination commercialized integration.

Imo and Anambra: Decline Amid Noise

The lowest performers, Imo and Anambra, exposure the South East’s deeper malaise. Imo, ranked 31st, should beryllium among the region’s leaders. With lipid gross and a vibrant population, it has the means to illustration a antithetic course. Yet governance is weighed down by inconsistency, governmental volatility, and anemic nationalist institutions. Ribbon-cuttings often substitute for sustainable infrastructure, and national cognition reflects frustration. Imo contiguous recalls the Habsburg domains successful their declining years: expansive successful ceremony, hollow successful administrative competence.

Anambra’s lawsuit is adjacent much disheartening. Once celebrated arsenic t...