Peter Mbah has raised the bar. The era of wishy-washy manifesto is no more. I was told that after Mbah’s presentations, some of the opposition candidates are going back to the drawing-board to re-work their manifestoes. But you just cannot give what you don’t have.
There is a case that is particularly funny. One opposition candidate was said to have prepared his manifesto with elaborate plans on how he will buy long buses, and recruit students to work as bus part-time bus conductors. Also, included in his plan is the purchase of compactors for waste disposal. After Mbah’s presentation went viral, he quickly retrieved his own from print, and started work afresh. Imagine! Long buses and compactor!
Peter Mbah has gone beyond modernity; his ideas are post-modern. His design for transport networks in Enugu State include: dual carriage ways, trams, bicycle lane, pedestrian lane, traffic light, street lights, and inland waterways. What is more, the era of waste disposal is gone. Nothing is waste anymore. His plans on renewable energy is top-notch. So, refuse dump sites will be no more. Instead the wastes will be utilised for electricity generation and other forms of energy.
When Mbah mounted the podium on October 13, 2022 at Godfrey Okoye University Law Auditorium, those who know the PINNACLE CEO had great expectations. And he did not disappoint. In a space of two hours, he crystallised a new Enugu, a mega city, magnificent and sprawling with business. He summed up thus: ‘Our hope is to bring the things we see in the West to Enugu’.
The first place I saw a tram was in the city of Manchester. I was at a bus a station. Lo and behold! This piece of machine was hurtling towards me. I quickly picked up my back-pack to dive away. I thought a train had missed its tracks and was wreaking havoc in the city. In a split second, it had meandered past, snaking its way through the city. It was a tram! I shook my head and murmured ndi ocha.
Peter Ndubuisi Mbah is a man on another realm. Comparing him with opposition candidates in this State is like comparing a first-class Engineer with a road-side vulcaniser. With him, we are all beginning to see Enugu anew – in literary studies it is called defamiliarisation. He has clothed our Enugu in a new dress. We all thought we are familiar with Enugu, but Peter Mbah has given Enugu a new dress.
Dual carriage ways, trams, bicycle lanes, pedestrian lanes, traffic light, street lights, and inland waterways – indeed a new Enugu is here. If we have bicycle lanes and pedestrian lanes in our city, accidents will reduce by more than eighty percent. This is not an exaggeration! In Western societies, bicycles are more valued than cars. With bicycles, it easier to loop around the city. White chaps steal bicycles all the time, but nobody will take a second look at your car even if you left the doors open overnight with the engine running.
It is rare to hear horns hooting in those developed places. Initially, I thought that horns are proscribed. But the fact is that horns are rarely useful. Pedestrians are on their lanes, cyclists are on their lanes; some lanes are designated to buses so you wouldn’t see cars in those areas etc. The consequence is a sense of order, neatness and decency that I continue to miss several years after I left. We have all prayed and hoped for a time when we can have such infrastructures. Peter Mbah is here.
Few persons would have believed that Enugu is a coastal State. Peter Mbah said it, and we investigated and discovered it is true. Every Igbo man hates to hear that we are landlocked. It is an age-old belief that is as depressing as it is incapacitating. Mbah has proved it wrong. We have navigable rivers that link us to States like Kogi, Benue and Anambra. We are actually a coastal State. He intends to harness these inland water ways for transportation of goods to States beyond the South-East.
Nobody can give what he or she does not have. It is impossible for any other candidate to have the kind of robust and comprehensive transport networks that Peter Mbah is offering us on a platter. Indeed exposure is important. You cannot talk about tram and bicycle lane, and pedestrian land when you have not seen it. Basically, our minds are as capacious as our experience.
Folks, make we follow who know road. We have an opportunity to use our PVCs to lift ourselves out of the dungeon of poverty and economic bondage. Peter Mbah and Ifeanyi Ossai have the capacity as well as the competence and character.
Long live Enugu State!
May God bless, protect and guide the Mbah/Ossai 2023 project.
