By Vincent Ujumadu

The Senator representing Anambra Central senatorial zone, Senator Victor Umeh has advocated genuine cooperation among the five South East states to ensure speedy development of the region.

Speaking during the rebranding of the former Anambra Times newspaper to Alpha Times published by a former Commissioner for Information in Anambra State, Dr Paul Nwosu, Umeh called on the governors to come together and evolve pragmatic economic revival of the zone.

Recalling that the old Eastern Region was the fastest growing economy under Dr Michael Okpara as premier, he urged the governors to join hands with the leadership of the South East Development Commission, SEDC, Umeh, who chaired the event, said they should emphasize on security, joint economic programmes, including reviving moribund industries in the zone to provide employment for the zone’s teeming population.

He said: “The South East is not where it should be. In 1964 we were branded as the fastest growing economy in the world because of the ingenuity of the Igbo people, and the industrialization policy was top notch under the administration of Dr. Michael Okpara.

“That was when most of the industries you see today were built. In the hospitality industry, we had Hotel Presidential in Enugu and Port Harcourt and in agriculture we were the best and the South East was the development corridor of the country.

“President Bola Tinubu did well by establishing the South East Development Commission and the people appointed to manage it are people who are forward –  thinking. We that are in the National Assembly will continue to speak, but the people of the South East must take the bull by the horn and concentrate on areas we have comparative advantage.

“We should not be waiting for anyone to make the South East an industrial cluster because we have the ingenuity.

“I challenge our governors to lead the quest for industrialization, as M. I. Okpara did.

“All the industries built by Okpara have all died and the governors should revive them. Our people are very ingenuous and creative. If we are talking about industrial parks, let them come alive. We need roads, but that is not the only thing we need; we need industries to engage our people. We want to see what happened in Japan happen here.

” As a Senator, people are coming to ask for white collar jobs, but we know that people can acquire skills that can help them be useful. Small and medium scale industries are what helped to boost the economy of China and Japan.”

Keynote speaker at the event, Prof. Godwin Onu who spoke on the theme, ‘Harnessing the Power of Interstate Collaboration to Unlock the South-East’s Full Economic Potentials’, called for collaboration among the governors of the zone, instead of competing among themselves.

He  said it is better for the South East to be cooperate as alliance states, on which platform they should be forming an agenda about how to push the development of the region beyond their various states.

Onu proffered several agenda on how the zone can improve, both in education, security, infrastructure and many others.