Two years after the exit of the clannish and clueless Fulanist, Muhammadu Buhari, I celebrate. His successor, Bola Tinubu, is the Yoruba face of that ugly All Progressives Congress, APC, coin. But Tinubu, for now, is not murderous, neither is he forcing other Nigerians to give up their ancestral lands for a new Yoruba “empire”. Also, to his credit, Tinubu has a sounder economic team and vision than Buhari who simply borrowed and printed money to fund his parasitic regime.

What I celebrate amidst this midterm ambience is that for the first time since the return of democracy in 1999, my home zone, the South-East, is generally being well governed. My special interest in the South-East goes beyond it being my home zone. This was the heartbeat of the fight for Nigerian independence. It later became the Biafra that tried and failed to break away from Nigeria. We were enticed back to Nigeria with promises of “No Victor, No Vanquished”, “Reconstruction, Reconciliation and Rehabilitation” and others. It turned out to be nothing but mere taqiyya, lies deliberately told to gain selfish advantage. Nigeria not only abandoned its theatre of war but also continued to levy the war through hostile, suppressive policies.

Igbophobia and South-East marginalisation are strongly sewn into the fabric of the Federal Government of Nigeria. This is why Biafra agitation is back. Some Igbo sons and daughters have sold themselves and become willing agents of the enemies of their own people. Between 1979 and 1983, the two Igbo governors of Imo and Anambra states – Dr Sam Mbakwe and to a lesser extent, Chief Jim Nwobodo, fought hard to rehabilitate the Igbo heartland but they, along with the rest of the democratically-elected governments at all levels, were kicked out by the military.

I celebrate because we now have able hands running the South-East states. Governor Chukwuma Soludo is resuming the rapid development of Anambra State from where Chris Ngige and Peter Obi left off. Infrastructure, especially roads and bridges, is the magic wand for any politician in Nigeria, most especially the South-East. Soludo has connected most parts of the state with quality road networks and actualised Awka as a befitting capital of Anambra State. He is also working hard on securing the people from demonic cultists wearing the garbs of traditionalists.

Hope Uzodimma of Imo State has a bad press and for good reasons. People have not forgotten that he was brought from fourth position to be given the governorship by a Supreme Court panel headed by a certain Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun. She went on to bag the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN.   However, I can attest that Uzodimma is the most focused of all governors of Imo State since 1999 in terms of systematic governance. He delivers quality amenities.

Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu is very strenuously hyped for his grandiloquent schemes such as the Ninth Mile Corner waterworks, roads and the Enugu Conference Centre. I have no personal evidence of these except what I see in the media. Mbah was often mentioned alongside Abia State’s Governor Alex Otti and Anambra’s Soludo until he recently “danced naked” in the public square.

Ebonyi? All I hear is that the name of the Governor over there is Francis Nwifuru.

I saved the best for the last. For the first time since Abia State was created it not only boasts good governance, it is also blest to have a leader reputed as the best governor right now: Governor Alex C. Otti. Of the five South-East Governors, only Alex Otti and Chukwuma Soludo were genuinely elected. Efforts to steal their mandates were effectively resisted. I am happy that I was at the table where the initial decision to persuade Otti to leave his juicy bank job and help rescue Abia State was made in 2013. We were right!

The physical transformation of the state, especially Aba and Umuahia within just two years, is such that dozens of young people are now creating social media contents freely advertising Otti’s work. It is so funny that supporters of former Governor Okezie Ikpeazu now rush to claim that most of Otti’s finished works were projects started by Ikpeazu. It still validates Otti, even if it is true. Rivers State is littered with billions of naira worth of projects started by Governor Chibuike Amaechi’s regime but abandoned since then.

Otti is not merely building to win the next election. The roads that Julius Berger is building in Aba are three layered: stone base, concrete and rod foundation and thick asphalted surfacing; roads that will serve well into the next generation. We see the same quality in the areas of education, health, industrialisation and others. To top it all, Abia is generally secure, especially from Fulani terror attacks. Otti nimbly liberated Lokpanta, which was a budding seat of jihadist terror in Igboland, literally without firing a shot.

Soon, Ndi Igbo will no longer be refugees in Nigeria. We will go to them, and they will come to us!