By Reuben Onyishi (Ugoachataberu)

Is there anyone anywhere in Enugu State before whom it has yet to be clear that Peter Mbah is the most suitable candidate to be elected governor of Enugu at the governorship polls on March 11, 2023? He who did not hear the din of Nwadimogoro, did the elephant stamp on his eardrums? Why is it so? It is so because Peter is trained, prepared and poised to lead and lead well. He has a clearcut idea of governance and the economy. Leadership, besides influencing decisions, involves the ability to manage men, money and material with a view to achieve economy, efficiency and effectiveness. Peter has so far demonstrated unqualified capacity, character and competence in leadership.

Peter had set out quite early in life into business. As at 1992, Peter was one of the highest importers of electronics at Alaba International Market in Lagos. At such a time when it took about N3 million to float a bank, Peter Mbah had a net-worth of over N50 million. Within that period, his trading company, Peter Mbah Investment Limited, was the sole representative of International Oil Corporation (IOC) in Nigeria. But Peter had felt it was not enough to make money without requisite education, bearing in mind his call to serve in the future. He got admission at the University of East London( UEL) to study Law on self-sponsorship and did come out in flying colours, having been elected the first black president of the students' Law Society of UEL. Peter had not yet done with education. He sought knowledge as the deer would the water brook, and indeed he drank largely from the fountain of it. Peter was quite conscious of half education, whose shallow draught intoxicates the brain and drinking largely sobers us again, as Alexander Pope would say. Listening to Peter analyze issues of governance and the economy, one would agree that he is filled to the brim with knowledge. Peter is soft-spoken and does not make such animal noise as do the half-baked empty vessels and barren crags such as people some political parties in the present political scheme of things in Enugu State.

Peter took an LLM degree in Maritime and Commercial Law from Lagos State University. Yet undone, he attended IESE Business School, Barcelona, in Spain where be bagged Maters of Business Administration (MBA). Peter is also a graduate of the prestigious Lagos Business School Chief Executive Programme, and also holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Strategy and Innovation from the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, United Kingdom. Peter had also participated in a number of Executive Certificate Programmes

in Harvard Business School and Standford University in the US.

The trainings through which Peter had undergone were deliberate. He had known that he has a destiny in the leadership of our country. It is a call to serve the people, and should he answer to the call, he has got to expose himself to these trainings in governance and the economy. That is why Peter today can speak the language of business and burrows into the inner recesses of economic issues with ease and perspicuity. Peter had known this call while at Law School Agbani when his people of Owo in Nkanu East Local Government called him to run for the chairmanship of the local government, a call Peter accepted and ran under APGA. During the electioneering campaigns, Peter had given the then PDP a run for its money. He ran under APGA and had squared up to the PDP candidate, Frank Anioma, under Chimaroke's watch as the leader of the party and governor of Enugu State. The rest is history, but the ashes of the Holocaust Peter had politically stoked had yet to die down, having left the then PDP aghast and bewildered, and had made good impressions of Peter on the then Governor Chimaroke Nnamani. That was in 2002. No sooner was the local government elections concluded than Chimaroke appointed Peter his Chief of Staff and subsequently moved him to the ministry of finance as the commissioner. Peter turned the ministry around and was adjudged by the Newswatch Magazine as one of the top 10 commissioners of finance in Nigeria.

That Peter is prepared for the onerous task of governance is evident in the manner he conducts his campaigns which is issue-based, unlike the other blunt side of the political process whose only stock-in-trade is emotional braying like an ass and the throwing of tantrums. Governance is not a dance done with snuff in palm. Most of the dudes shrivelling towards governance do not know jack about it. Many are accidental aspirants who have neither managed people nor businesses.Peter Mbah's superlative exploits in the private sector are a litmus test to his capacity and preparation to lead Enugu State. Peter as the CEO of Pinnacle Oil, the leading firm in the downstream oil and gas industry, shows how much of disruptive innovation he can radically engender to move the obscure to limelight. Peter Mbah can sell ice to the Eskimos. He is creative and visionary, and can see far deeper than the facade of surface configuration. He has what Raymond Williams in his book, Illuminations, calls complex-seeing. Where the ordinary see a culdesac, Peter sees a way through. He has the experience and antecedent of excellent leadership. Pinnacle Oil alone has in its employ up to a thousand staff some of whom are expatriates, taking directives from Peter, and as can be seen, Pinnacle Oil is better off for it. When opportunity meets preparation, success is inevitable. It was this preparation that Governor Ugwuanyi saw in Peter, and scaled the wall of clannishness and cronyism, and went for the best hand that has the capacity to engender the consolidation of his own deliverables, a foundation upon which to build the proposed exponential level of growth. 

Part of the preparation is Peter's choice of Barr. Ifeanyi Ossai who himself is trained, prepared and poised to lead. Ifeanyi is a graduate of Law from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and also holds LLM from the University of Essex in UK. Ifeanyi is a top-notch legal mind excelled in public interest practice. He is as filled with knowledge and wisdom as the biblical Daniel. Peter and Ifeanyi make an indomitable team that has the capacity to bring to reality the economic propositions they have made to the people of Enugu State. They are a team of crack intelligentsia which has felt the pulse of the people, and is prepared and poised to eradicate poverty in Enugu State.

Peter is poised to lead. He stands out among the servile heads groping in the dark in the name of governorship aspiration. Peter has the aura, charm, confidence, elegance, grace, elan and panache that position him as the most endeared to the people of Enugu State, who have tasted the sweet flagon in the good news Peter preaches, and cannot ask for anything else.

Here in Enugu State, all considerations have coalesced into the crystalized consciousness of our tomorrow birthed now. Peter has become a metonymy for transcedental leadership. He has clearly laid a clear roadmap to the tortuous path to astronomical economic growth such as he has proposed- to move the GDP of Enugu State from its present $4.4 billion to $30 billion in eight years. Peter has antecedents and that is why his message is credible and assuring to the Enugu electorate eagerly waiting to vote Peter Ndubuisi Mbah the governor of Enugu State on 11th March 2023. Indeed, tomorrow is here.