Enugu State Governor Peter Mbah warned on Wednesday that the South-East can no longer afford to function as five separate states and urged the region to rethink itself as a single economic bloc and common market.
Speaking during the Vice President Kashim Shettima’s opening of the South-East Vision 2025 Regional Stakeholder Forum at the International Conference Centre, Enugu, Mbah noted that regional development did not occur in isolation, commending President Bola Tinubu for establishing the South East Development Commission as a catalyst for coordinated growth.
“I invite you to a bold re-imagining of the South-East as a single economic bloc. For too long, we have looked at our five states as individual islands, but the era of the solitary path is over,” Mbah said.
He proposed the creation of a South-East Common Market, describing it as a borderless unification of commerce, talent, and industry across the region. “Today, I propose the birth of the South-East Common Market, a bold, borderless unification of our commerce, our talent, and our industrial grit,” he remarked.
Mbah claimed that integrating the five state economies would transform the region into a major economic force. “By fusing our five distinct economies into one powerhouse, we are no longer just negotiating for a seat at the table; we are building the table ourselves,” he explained.
He described the initiative as more than a policy shift, stressing that it would unlock collective prosperity. “This is more than a policy shift; it is the awakening of an economic giant, transforming the South-East into a single, seamless theatre of enterprise where our shared heritage fuels our collective prosperity,” Mbah said.
Speaking at the forum themed Charting a Shared Path to Sustainable Prosperity for South-East Nigeria, the governor said global prosperity now favored regions that could integrate markets, organize at scale, and build strong systems.
He described the South-East Vision 2050 as a framework to address challenges beyond the capacity of individual states but warned that the plan must be backed by immediate action.
He called for a region-wide feasibility and project preparation phase to be jointly funded and governed by the South-East states. “Second, we must begin with logistics and connectivity, because economies do not integrate on paper; they integrate through movement,” Mbah said.
He stressed the need for deliberately designed interstate logistics corridors, including road, rail, and multi-modal systems, to ease the movement of goods and people across state lines. “These are not prestige projects. They are productivity infrastructure, and they must be planned and contracted as regional assets, not state trophies,” he said.
The governor also urged the region to treat security as shared infrastructure, noting that criminal networks operate beyond state boundaries.
“We must commit to enhanced cross-regional security coordination, shared intelligence, interoperable communication, and a centralized information and response hub that allows state security architectures and federal agencies to act as one system,” Mbah said.
He also called for alignment of investment rules, regulatory processes, and dispute resolution mechanisms to present a unified face to investors and citizens.
Meanwhile, Mbah lamented that despite a shared identity and long-standing culture of cooperation, the South-East still suffered from fragmentation. “That fragmentation is no longer a historical footnote. It has become a present-day constraint. The world we are operating in now is unforgiving of disconnection and lack of unity,” he said.
