Peter Mbah and the Road to Awhum

By Olusegun Adeniyi

On Monday morning, I received two videos that left me thinking about the state of leadership in our country. The first came from a local government area in one of the Northeast states. The council chairman had reportedly died, and his deputy was being sworn in to complete the tenure. What should have been a routine constitutional exercise turned into an uncomfortable spectacle. Here was a man about to assume responsibility for an entire local government, yet he appeared unable to repeat the words of the oath being administered to him. It was an awkward moment, but the more important question was not how the man performed before the camera; it was how he emerged as the person expected to inherit such a critical leadership position in the first place. The second video came from the South-east. It showed the deplorable condition of the road leading to Awhum Waterfall in Enugu State, a natural attraction whose beauty ought to make it a source of pride for the community and our country.

I decided to forward the two videos directly to the governors of the respective states. I do that quite often based on my conviction that to whom you can whisper, you don’t always need to shout. Only one of the two governors responded: Peter Mbah of Enugu State. I will not name the other governor who had not responded as at the time of sending in this column last night. The point is not to embarrass or turn a private exchange into a contest between political officeholders. It is to examine what these encounters tell us about leadership.

To be fair, governors receive enormous volumes of messages, and no reasonable person should expect them to personally respond to everyone. It is also possible that the other governor acted on the information without replying to me. He could also have decided that he was helpless about the situation depicted in the video. But the question remains: in a political culture where citizens often struggle to get the attention of those who govern them, what should we make of a leader who responds when a problem is brought to his attention? Mbah called me about two hours after receiving the video message. He said he agreed with the complainants. “You cannot talk about tourism with a road like that so they are quite correct,” Mbah said. “But what they do not know is that the road will soon be constructed. You can see that it has been cleared.”

In public service, accountability begins with acknowledging a problem and indicating that something was being done about it. But let me also add a qualification. A response is not a completed road, and a promise is not a project delivered. To that extent, Mbah’s assurance must be tested against what happens on the ground. Nevertheless, there is value in his willingness to engage with information that may help government do its job. The larger issue here is that public officials must remain ever attentive to issues of concern to the ordinary people. From Abuja to many of the 36 states, we don’t often see that. In recent months, Nigerians have been groaning under the yoke of skyrocketing prices of goods and services that are priced beyond them. It doesn’t appear as if anybody is listening.

On Monday, the 2026 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) confirmed the level of deprivation in our country: an additional 17.9 million Nigerians slipped into poverty between 2021 and 2024. Meanwhile, only God knows how many more millions may have slipped even further in the last two years. With the multidimensional poverty rate increasing to 38.7 percent in 2024 from 33 percent in 2021, Nigeria recorded the largest increase among the five countries that experienced a rise over their latest measurement periods. We performed even worse than Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Guinea and Kyrgyzstan! Amid all these, the only response we have received from the federal government is a meaningless 30-day ‘fuel discount’ from the NNPC that appears more like an attempt to trivialize a serious problem.

To worsen matters, we have become too familiar with the futility of voice. And the government, especially this government, seems to capitalize on that to take Nigerians for granted. Yet, in a functioning democracy, citizens must have reason to believe that speaking up is worthwhile because when the ordinary channels for expressing dissatisfaction repeatedly fail, disillusionment accumulates. And when that happens for a long time, there are usually consequences. So, in the context of this intervention, a message to a governor is not only a modest form of civic engagement, but also an opportunity to see whether the connection between citizens and the state is still functioning.

Now, the two videos raise different questions, and it is important not to confuse them. Let me begin with the Northeast video. On 11 July 2024, the Supreme Court delivered its landmark judgment on local government financial autonomy, directing that allocations from the Federation Account be paid directly to each of the 774 local government areas in the country and rejecting the use of caretaker committees in place of democratically elected councils. The judgment addressed a longstanding distortion in our federal arrangement: the control exercised by governors over institutions constitutionally recognised as the third tier of government.

The reasoning behind local government autonomy is compelling. Local governments are closest to the people, and resources intended for grassroots development should serve that purpose. But financial autonomy, important as it is, cannot by itself guarantee good governance. The quality of the leaders entrusted with those resources matters just as much. This is where our local government elections deserve closer scrutiny. I have written on this many times, including Democracy and the Grassroots – THISDAYLIVE. When the political process offers little meaningful competition, accountability can begin to flow upwards to the governor and the party structure, not downwards to the people who should be the ultimate beneficiaries of local government.

In such circumstances, the question of who becomes a council chairman or deputy chairman risks being settled within the political machinery as against a serious assessment of the candidate’s preparedness for public service. That is a problem because a deputy is not an ornament on an electoral ticket. The office exists partly to provide continuity when the principal can no longer serve. A deputy governor, vice-president or vice-chairman may be called upon to assume the responsibilities of leadership at a moment of crisis. The person must therefore be prepared for that eventuality. The lesson is not that every transition will be seamless or that the ability to recite an oath is a complete measure of competence. It is that institutions must be prepared to function when circumstances demand it. The death of an officeholder is never something an institution can schedule, but it must be prepared for the possibility.

I take no pleasure in the video from the Northeast. Nerves can betray anyone, and fluency in English is not a reliable measure of intelligence, integrity, or the ability to serve a community. Some of our most effective grassroots leaders communicate far more comfortably in their indigenous languages. It would therefore be unfair to reduce a person’s entire capacity for leadership to an awkward moment before a camera. But the video should prompt a more serious question: what process produced this man as the person next in line, and what had been done to prepare him for the responsibilities of that office? That is a question for the political party, the electoral system and the institutions concerned. It is not an invitation to ridicule an individual.

Now to Awhum. In the video, approximately five motorbikers shared their terrible experience on the road. “The natural wonders need more than admiration; they need proper care and investment,” they said while adding that the story of Awhun is similar to that of other neglected tourism sites in Nigeria. As an aside, the late Chief Ojo Maduekwe–who served as Minister of Culture and Tourism between 1999 and 2000 under President Olusegun Obasanjo–once told me a story of an experience shared with him by a group of foreign tourists traveling across West Africa. On arriving Seme border, they were asked for their purpose of seeking to enter Nigeria and the visitors told the border control and immigration officers that they were tourists. “Please tell us your real reason. This is not Kenya. There is nothing like tourism in Nigeria,” the visitors were reportedly told. In a way, those border control officials sounded truer than they probably intended!

The potential for tourism in Nigeria is huge because there is an abundance of natural attractions across the country. Each of these natural attractions, properly developed, can sustain a local economy by creating opportunities for tour guides, transport operators, accommodation providers, food vendors and other small businesses. But tourism is an ecosystem. A waterfall does not become an economic asset simply because it is beautiful or because a government includes it in a brochure. Visitors need accessible roads, adequate facilities, safety, sanitation and reliable information. The people who live around the attraction must also have a stake in whatever economic activity it generates.

Enugu State has announced ambitious tourism plans. In May 2025, the state government unveiled a tourism development programme reportedly valued at about N30 billion, with N13.8 billion approved for the first phase. Awhum was among the attractions identified for development, including proposals for a canopy walkway and boardwalk. In July 2026, the State Executive Council reportedly approved an Okpatu–Awhum cable car project. These are significant ambitions but the test of a tourism programme is not the number of projects announced. It is whether the investments make the destination more accessible, improve the experience of visitors and create lasting value for the surrounding community.

A cable car may become an attraction in its own right, but visitors will still need to travel to the area. Residents, traders and service providers will depend on the road as part of the everyday infrastructure of a living community. If the road is improved, the people will experience the difference. If it remains in its present condition, the governor’s response will count for little beyond the courtesy of acknowledging a message. Therefore, while Mbah may have demonstrated a willingness to engage, the verdict remains open. The road to Awhum will provide part of the answer. The ball is now squarely in his court. I am aware that Mbah has delivered on many promises in Enugu State. I hope he also delivers on the construction of a proper road to Awhum.

On Anthony Kila

In a column last year titled, Parade of ‘Oluwole’ Certificates – THISDAYLIVE, I wrote about how many of our sacrosanct institutions in Nigeria have been invaded by a national culture of fraud: “In religion, charlatans have crowned themselves Pastors, Bishops, Imams, General Overseers etc. In the hospitals, patients are at the mercy of fake doctors and pharmacists whose prescriptions are often fatal. In the construction industry, quacks have taken over, causing buildings to collapse after mere drizzle. In academia, there is an epidemic of ‘professors’ who disseminate ignorance to unsuspecting students.”

Despite the foregoing, I must confess being shocked by the revelations about the academic credentials being paraded by Mr Anthony Kila. Although I have never had the opportunity of a personal interaction with him, Kila is someone I admired from distance based on his public engagements. On Tuesday, I saw a post on an X handle, @DailyJusticeAct, which summed up the unfortunate saga for me: “Kila’s fall is not merely shocking it is quietly devastating. For years, his calm voice, measured eloquence and careful articulation lent weight to every argument. Many of us leaned in, persuaded not only by what he said but by the quiet authority with which he said it. Now the allegations of forged credentials, stretched across degrees, titles, and institutions, leave that trust fractured. His performance was compelling but the foundation, if the reports hold, was not. Deception of this scale is never just personal it is a public wound.”

As I stated in the column under reference, forging academic credentials are mere symptoms of the crisis of values that bedevil our country today. But it is nonetheless very depressing when someone you hold in high esteem turns out to be no more than an imposter.

A Tragic Sisters’ Act

In his work on human behaviour and resilience, Dr. Alex Lickerman, a former assistant professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago, referenced the tragic case involving a six-year-old girl named Jacqueline Johnson who stepped in front of a moving train after leaving a suicide note saying that she “wanted to be with her mother” who had just died from a terminal illness. “This is the power of the human mind,” Lickerman wrote. “A girl in kindergarten thinks of the past and imagines a future that is so bleak, so devoid of meaningful moments without her mom, that she takes her own life,”

There is a way in which that tragedy resembles that of three British sisters of Nigerian descent (Jane Adetoro, 36, Christina Walters, 32, and Rebecca Walters, 31) who in May this year drowned in the sea off Brighton, United Kingdom. Last Thursday, a coronal inquest into their deaths revealed that in the days before the tragedy, the sisters made a trip together to Birmingham to visit the former home of their mother, Janice Adetoro, who died by drowning in 2010. In the postmortem conducted after their bodies were found, there was no evidence of drugs or alcohol or that they had been subjected to violence, according to the inquest. But references to water and suicide were found on the laptop of one of them. Penelope Schofield told the court: “These three sisters lived very secluded lives; they were incredibly private. We don’t know why they took this course of action…It is not for the court to speculate and sadly these reasons may never be known.”

Since some wounds are invisible to the eye, we can only rely on the wisdom of David O. McKay that “the most important of life’s battles is the one we fight daily in the silent chambers of the soul.” The distraught father of the ladies, Joseph Jacobson, said in a written statement: “There are no words that can adequately express the pain of losing a child. To lose all three of my precious daughters, Jane, Christina and Rebecca, is a heartbreak beyond anything I could ever have imagined.”

May God continue to comfort him and other members of the family.

• You can follow me on my X handle, @Olusegunverdict and on www.olusegunadeniyi.com