How The Southeast Became World’s Fastest Growing Economy

Few economic feats can be as prestigious as becoming the world’s fastest growing economy

This has come on the back of having the best social capital, a united people and social harmony, and what is more?

“The Igbo state union, the Igbo elders, traditional rulers, and communities put heads together and trained the brightest and they came back and invested in the community.

“We don’t need police to police us every day, we have order, we have cultural norms, and the police are just to manage elements who veer off from the central cultural practice. Today, there is a generalized disorder and we have to fight it”.

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Well, all these were before the tides turned for the South east region of the country, now resonating with insecurity of a very worrisome dimension, rather than retaining the enviable tag of the world’s fastest growing economy.

Prof Sam Amadi, social critic and founder Nigeria’s Center for Public Policy and Research, bared the facts while delivering the Keynote address at the 2023 South East Security Summit, organised by Peace & Good Governance Group, in collaboration with the Enugu State command of the Nigeria Police.

At the event which held in Enugu, he listed lack of social order, bad governance and the lack of attention to separatist agitators as main causes of the prevailing insecurity in the southeast region of Nigeria.

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 “Why did the most peaceful region become the most traumatized and insecure region in the country? The Igbo have a saying that truth in life and that you have to know where the rain started beating you to know when it ended,” Amadi said.

“Economic growth is dependent on state order and state order has three variables; one, credible way of electing leaders, in our traditional culture we have a credible way of electing leaders, the Umunna gather and decide who will rule.

“The second aspect of social order is that the people in power can deliver goods, when you are elected you must deliver some benefits.

“Thirdly, you must have trust in the government. What I see in the south east is an increasing lack of social trust in institutions of leadership. Our young people, rightly or wrongly, have lost confidence that the leaders, informal or formal, can secure them and people have resorted to dangerous self-help.

“Any society where people do not respect state order and everybody begins to achieve his own personal justice by his own understanding, it’s going to enter into anarchy. No matter how prosperous you are, anarchy will bring about poverty and that’s the order of nature.”

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 “The young people are the first casualties of insecurity. How? First, insecurity will disorient them into violence and when they become violent, they become unproductive. So today I want to encourage our young people to please care about security.

 “Under M.I Okpara, the south east flourished, we became the fastest growing economy in the world, because we had the best social capital, what sustains an economy is social capital and it’s a capital that gets people united to achieve social harmony.

“The Igbo have the best social capital in the world. The Igbo state union, the Igbo elders, traditional rulers, and communities put heads together and trained the brightest and they came back and invested in the community”, he stated, alluding that these combined made her the world’s fastest growing economy.