When you look closely at those infographics, data said to be from the DMO, though unverified, you can’t help but wonder what exactly some people in this government think they’re celebrating.
It feels like watching the parable of the talents play out in real time: the servant who buried his gift in the ground still had it taken away and handed to those who invested and produced results. That lesson is loud, especially about governance in Ebonyi under Umahi’s protege.
Yet here we are, with a government straining to find something, anything to point at, even if it’s just “at least we didn’t borrow like our neighbour in Enugu.”
But numbers don’t lie. And in those numbers, a few outliers stand tall.
Abia leads that list for me. After nearly 24 years of stagnation and mismanagement, Abia has risen both economically and symbolically. It has become a spark for Igbo renaissance, the kind of hope Ndi Anambra once held through APGA but lost through years of misdirection. Today, that hope lives again under Labour Party in Abia, carried by a government that seems to understand what purposeful leadership looks like.
Anambra and Imo follow, each with their own stories of resilience. And then there is Enugu; existing almost in a category of its own. The state’s debt profile is overshadowed by the simple fact that the six aircraft it purchased could, on their own, wipe out the entire figure. That is what it means to have assets, to have vision, to have something tangible to show for the numbers on paper. Enugu deserves its flowers, when we take a holistic view into their financials.
But the real lesson in that debt profile is this: development is not magic. It requires the capacity to craft bankable proposals, to engage international partners, to secure meaningful financing. That is not something you achieve with “native intelligence” alone.
Which brings me to Ebonyi. It is painful to watch a state once full of promise now struggling under a leadership team that seems unprepared for the intellectual and administrative demands of modern governance.
When I saw the cabinet assembled at the beginning, I saw a group driven by appetite, not vision. Timid people ready to feast without asking where the food would come from. Governance is not calling your local bank manager to Nwofe for a quick facility. It requires rigour, exposure, competence, and the ability to think beyond the next political meal. Borrowing for productivity is a major plus. I would have borrowed for production as Ebonyi State governor.
So when I hear celebrations about a “low debt profile,” I ask: low debt for what? What exactly is on the ground? What investments? What assets? What future? A low debt profile without development is not an achievement. It is an indictment and a signal that the government is both clueless and incompetent. So I ask…who in this government can craft a bankable project funding proposal that can pass beyond Ezzangbo junction of the state. We play too much indeed.
Under the current leadership, Ebonyi is not just struggling. It is bleeding quietly, painfully, under the weight of a legacy of hope that was neither promised nor delivered.