Today, as I conclude this six-week region-by-region analysis of the 2025 Phillips Consulting State Performance Index (pSPI), attention turns to the South East. Long hailed as the crucible of Nigerian commerce and enterprise, the region prides itself on ingenuity and resilience. Its markets, from Onitsha to Aba, have for decades thrummed with entrepreneurial energy, and its diaspora has played decisive roles in the nation’s professional and industrial sectors. Yet the latest pSPI offers a sobering portrait. Abia ranks 10th, Ebonyi 13th, Enugu 20th, Imo 31st, and Anambra 34th. A zone that once carried the reputation of being Nigeria’s workshop now sits uncomfortably with middling and even poor governance outcomes.
The South East’s trajectory resembles that of Renaissance Italy, where once-proud city-states like Florence, Venice, and Milan dazzled with commerce, art, and intellectual brilliance, yet eventually fell behind because they lacked unity and strategic foresight. Wealth and energy were present, but fragmented politics and shortsighted governance left them vulnerable when the Atlantic economies rose to prominence. The South East faces a comparable dilemma today: entrepreneurial drive abounds, but institutional weakness and political 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 commercial dynamism of Aba to inch ahead of its neighbours. The Ariaria market, sometimes described as the “China of Africa,” is gradually being formalised with electrification projects, modest credit schemes, and small infrastructure upgrades. While these initiatives are far from transformative, they are steps toward reining in the disorder of informality. Citizens notice these efforts, which explains Abia’s relatively high perception score. Abia today evokes the Dutch provinces of the 17th century: small, pragmatic, and commercially focused, thriving less on grandeur than on discipline.
Ebonyi, placed 13th, has surprised many. Once derided as the poor cousin of the South East, it has built new road networks, invested in agriculture, and expanded access to services. Its progress, though uneven, recalls the Prussian model before German unification: disciplined and infrastructurally ambitious, but still lacking the broader intellectual and economic ecosystem to rival its peers. Ebonyi’s task now is to pivot from raw physical infrastructure toward deeper institutional and human capital investments. Without that, its gains risk being cosmetic rather than catalytic.
Both states, however, face an existential challenge. Their progress occurs in isolation, without a regional framework to amplify their strengths. Like Dutch cities that thrived in trade but ultimately lacked the territorial heft of emerging nation-states, Abia and Ebonyi may find their gains fragile unless tied to a broader South East development strategy.
Enugu: A Fading Aristocrat
Enugu’s 20th-place ranking captures a state resting on past glory. Once the capital of Eastern Nigeria, the coal city represented modernity and sophistication. Universities flourished, the civil service was professional, and infrastructure carried the air of a planned city. Today, much of that aura has dissipated. Governance feels timid, infrastructure projects lack coherence, and citizen perception is middling. Enugu resembles Vienna after the Austro-Hungarian collapse – elegant and cultured, yet struggling to define a role in a changed political economy.
Railways that once connected Enugu to the wider region lie abandoned. Coal, once its economic lifeblood, has been supplanted by oil elsewhere, yet no comparable replacement has been found. Political elites cling to the city’s symbolism but fail to chart a bold new direction. History offers a warning: Toledo in Spain once served as the centre of imperial governance, but as Madrid rose, it declined into obscurity, remembered more for past splendour than present relevance. Enugu risks a similar fate unless it reinvents itself through knowledge industries, green energy, or regional trade integration.
Imo and Anambra: Decline Amid Noise
The lowest performers, Imo and Anambra, expose the South East’s deeper malaise. Imo, ranked 31st, should be among the region’s leaders. With oil revenue and a vibrant population, it has the means to chart a different course. Yet governance is weighed down by inconsistency, political volatility, and weak public institutions. Ribbon-cuttings often substitute for sustainable infrastructure, and citizen perception reflects frustration. Imo today recalls the Habsburg domains in their declining years: grand in ceremony, hollow in administrative competence.
Anambra’s case is even more disheartening. Once celebrated as the entrepreneurial heart of the South East, home to Nnewi’s industrial clusters and Onitsha’s sprawling markets, it now languishes at 34th. The gap between rhetoric and reality is vast. Leaders project the language of technocracy, but governance outcomes betray inertia. Roads deteriorate, healthcare falters, and public trust evaporates. The situation mirrors the later Roman Republic, when eloquent senators debated in marble halls while ordinary citizens endured corruption and decay. Anambra’s entrepreneurs continue to thrive in spite of governance, not because of it – a model that is unsustainable in the long run.
Both states show how potential, if mismanaged, becomes a burden. Like Athens after the Peloponnesian War, brilliance without disciplined governance eventually collapses under its own contradictions.
The Political Economy of Fragmentation
The South East’s greatest weakness is political fragmentation. Unlike the South West, which experiments with regional cooperation, the South East has been unable to forge a common front. Each state behaves as an island, chasing piecemeal projects and leaving regional infrastructure dreams unrealised. The idea of an economic corridor linking Aba, Onitsha, Enugu, and Nnewi remain aspirational, not operational. Without scale, the region cannot leverage its entrepreneurial energy into industrial transformation.
The historical analogy is instructive. The Italian city-states, brilliant in art and trade, failed to unite when the Atlantic shifted global commerce westward. Genoa, Florence, and Venice became cultural treasures but economic backwaters compared to the rising powers of Spain, Portugal, and later Britain. The South East risks the same fate: admired for enterprise, yet irrelevant in the national economy if it cannot cooperate.
The pSPI’s dual lens – hard data and citizen perception – exposes this fragmentation starkly. Even where states spend, citizens feel alienated. When schools lack teachers, hospitals run short of medicines, and roads collapse weeks after completion, perception scores fall. Governance is not judged by budgetary allocations but by lived experience. The South East cannot afford to ignore this reality.
The region requires leaders who see governance as stewardship, not patronage. It must invest first in everyday services – education, healthcare, urban management – that restore citizen trust. It must adopt regional planning for transport, power, and industrial parks; and it must embrace institutional discipline that outlives electoral cycles.
Choosing Between Promise and Peril
The South East today stands at a crossroads. Abia and Ebonyi hint at possibility, but Enugu drifts, while Imo and Anambra decline. The entrepreneurial base of the region is formidable; its diaspora networks provide capital and knowledge; its people remain industrious. Yet these assets are undermined by weak governance and lack of regional unity.
If leaders choose candour, discipline, and cooperation, the South East can reinvent itself as the true workshop of Nigeria, integrating its markets with ports, reviving its industries, and building on its cultural capital. If not, it may become a cautionary tale – a place of great potential remembered more for what it could have been than for what it achieved. History is rarely kind to regions that fail to heed such warnings.
