By Dr. Ebuka Onyekwelu
Between Thursday and Friday, Imo State Governor, Senator Hope Uzodinma, hosted an Economic Summit attended by national, regional, and global figures to the surprise of many. More than 24 hours after, the Imo State Economic Summit continued to generate diverse opinions, with some insisting that it was a waste and others saying it was a necessary convergence that served its purpose.
But what really is the issue in question? The major issue is that a state like Imo needs national, regional, and global attention by whatever good means so that it can showcase Nigeria, Africa, and the world its comparative advantage and why it matters in the scheme of things. It is this attention that the state can then leverage to pursue its clearly defined purposes, which then births prosperity for the state and the people. To this end, a summit, preferably an economic summit, is a very direct way of getting that needed attention. The natural follow-up with the summit is whether the expected guests will come, because if they fail to show up, the entire purpose is totally defeated. In the case of Imo, the Economic Summit didn’t look like it failed to attract suitable guests.
First of all, let us figure out where Imo State is located on the map of Africa. We are not talking of an economic summit in the Nigerian metropolis of Lagos, Abuja, or city satellite appendages like Ogun, Kano, Kaduna, or Portharcourt. This is an economic summit in a pariah state of Imo, Southeast Nigeria, with no concrete national, regional, or global feasibility that raises the potential attendees’ interest. Therefore, it is a serious error to imagine that it was easy to gather the guests at the Imo Summit simply because the governor expended resources. For context, this is what the founding father and former President of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, said during their quest for attention. “We had established the Economic Development Board – EDB, in August 1961. For the first few months, the EDB has experts from the UNDP and the International Labour Office to help it. It was hard work to interest foreign investors in the opportunities in Singapore, to persuade them to send missions here to see for themselves. When Chin Bock first began visiting corporate offices, the CEOs did not even know where Singapore was…EDB officers would sometimes call 40 to 50 companies before getting one to visit Singapore…Winsemius (an influential Dutch economist) played a crucial role… we paid for his air tickets and hotel bills in Singapore.” In retrospect, President Yew recalled that “it was Singapore’s good fortune that he (Winsemius) enjoyed working with us.” Placed side by side, Singapore’s experience and the situation in Imo State of today must be judged far worse for obvious reasons. Singapore is a sovereign country, while Imo is a sub-national with several limitations. It stands to reason that Imo naturally had more hurdles attracting those it intended to attract to the summit to explore opportunities in the state.
In the end, the summit recorded an impressive attendance from national, regional, and global fronts. At the national level, Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, was in attendance. The Vice President of Nigeria, Alhaji Kashim Shettima, was in attendance. Nigeria’s coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, was in attendance. A leading ICT entrepreneur, Leo Stan Eke, was in attendance. No fewer than two serving Nigerian State Governors were also in attendance. On the regional front, the President of Liberia was in attendance. The Prime Minister of São Tomé was in attendance, and the first female Prime Minister of Mauritius was equally in attendance. On the global stage, British former Prime Minister Boris Johnson was in Owerri for the summit. Also, former Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki-moon, attended the summit. Arising from this roll call, if Governor Hope Uzodinma merely intended to just bring economically significant individuals from the national, regional, and global fronts to Imo state, he successfully pulled that stunt. If the intention was also to bring them to see for themselves what the state is offering in terms of investment opportunities for national, regional, and global investors, Governor Uzodinma delivered just that. Any further proof as evidence of a successful economic summit would be exposed to the light in time. The Summit’s outcome is not automated. The Singapore experience, which is a classical case for all third-world people in search of development, evidently demonstrates that the Imo Economic Summit was not only in line, but a successful venture. The first step was to interest potential investors or powerful and influential people to find time to visit. The Imo Summit created the opportunity for the visitation, and the event gathered the kind of guests the state needs to leap forward.
It is therefore uncharitable for anyone to claim that Governor Hope is wasting public resources on important global and regional figures. The reality of how the world works is that some individuals’ opinions are weightier than concrete on-the-ground experience. In the end, every serious government that desires economic prosperity must be deliberate about how certain important figures with national, regional, and global influence perceive it. The government’s job is to ensure that it sustains and leverages the attention it has gained through the structures it has or must now put in place.
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