OPINION: Enugu and the South-East

By Valentine Obienyem

Even the most ardent critics of the East – particularly some lawyers from the South-West who, cocooned in their own region, often imagine other parts of the country as tucked away from civilisation – had to bow to reality after attending the Bar Conference in Enugu. It is not for nothing that a man like Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu left the comfort of his seaside home in Ikoyi for Enugu when he sought peace of mind and a quiet, liveable homeland. Ojukwu must have exclaimed like the Moroccan traveller, Ibn Battuta, who, after journeying through foreign lands, remarked upon returning to Morocco that he had “come back to civilisation.”

I have always maintained – and it remains true – that apart from Lagos, which  was jointly developed and is still being developed  by all of us, the rest of Nigeria tells a different story. In many respects, Eastern capitals and towns are far ahead of their Western counterparts.

Check out this:

Awka versus Osogbo.

Owerri versus Abeokuta.

Abakaliki versus Akure.

Enugu versus Ibadan.

Umuahia versus Ado-Ekiti.

Beyond the capitals, the South-East also boasts iconic towns such as Aba and Onitsha, which, in terms of commerce and population density, are beyond compare. Some of our states have contiguous towns that overlap with one another to the extent that they can rightly be described as a megalopolis.

Clearly, the Eastern states are forging ahead. Even at the village level, some communities in the East compare favourably with parts of Europe in terms of calmness, natural beauty, and ambience, while many in the West still resemble scenes from the Stone Age.