Awards are often treated as trophies; they should be treated as tests. When The Sun Publishing Limited names Peter Mbah its “Man of the Year,” the instinct is to celebrate the headline. But the deeper value of such recognition is what it signals—and what it demands next: proof that the momentum is real, measurable, and durable beyond the glow of a ceremony.
Reports around the 2025 edition of the awards place the presentation in Lagos on 31 January 2026, wrapping applause around a leadership story that has become difficult to ignore.
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To understand why this moment resonates, it helps to step back from the politics and look at the governing logic that has defined the Enugu State narrative since 2023: focusing on human capital, rebuilding systems, and financing ambition with a stronger revenue base-factors that may inform similar reforms elsewhere, though tailored to local contexts.
Start with education, where the ambition is as symbolic as it is practical: schools are the clearest proof that government can touch everyday life. The Smart Green Schools idea – one modern school footprint in each of the state’s 260 political wards – has been framed as an attempt to equalise opportunity.
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It is the kind of project that forces a government to answer hard questions: Can the poorest child access the same learning tools as the child of privilege? Can education be made future-facing in a nation where many families still struggle with basic learning outcomes? Multiple reports describe the programme as a statewide architecture – technology-enabled, sustainability-conscious, and designed to shift learning from rote/memorisation to capability.
Health is the second pillar, and it is telling that the administration’s language here is not abstract: it is about proximity. When primary healthcare is far, people delay treatment; when it is weak, emergencies become tragedies; when it is distrusted, myths replace medicine.
Enugu’s response has been to push a ward-level primary healthcare build-out – 260 Type-2 Primary Healthcare Centres across 260 wards — so that the notion of “basic care” stops being a promise and starts becoming a place. Some accounts list at least a portion of these facilities as already completed and in use, underscoring that the plan is not only a blueprint but a functioning system.
But the hinge that makes education and health more than aspirations is revenue—because good intentions do not pour concrete, pay teachers, or keep clinics stocked. This is where the Mbah story becomes especially instructive: not simply that he prioritises revenue mobilisation, but that he frames it as a shared capacity—government’s ability to plan, fund, and execute for the benefit of all.
On the numbers, the clearest baseline comes from the National Bureau of Statistics‘ 2024 report, which lists Enugu at ₦180.5 billion in internally generated revenue (IGR).
That figure matters because it is an external reference point—useful for separating rhetoric from trend. What turns the story into a headline, however, is the claim of acceleration into 2025: Governor Mbah was quoted in December 2025 saying the state’s IGR was set to exceed ₦400 billion by the end of 2025.
Yet again, Mbah shocked the world, as the state’s IGR grew to N406.7bn at the end of 2025, comprising a tax revenue of N51.5bn, representing 12.6 per cent of the total amount and non-tax revenue of N355.2bn, representing 87.4 per cent. This has marked another dramatic leap in the state’s fiscal self-reliance.
Even beyond IGR, the broader revenue context is revealing. In the same period, the governor also referenced about ₦230 billion received from the Federation Account Allocation Committee in 2025—important because it highlights the two-track reality of subnational finance in Nigeria: you must compete for federal transfers, but you must also build an economy that can increasingly fund itself.
Yet revenue mobilisation is not automatically virtuous. It can be visionary—and it can also be predatory if it becomes a scramble. The real test of “phenomenal” is not only the size of collections, but the quality of the social contract beneath them: widened compliance rather than harassment, automation rather than discretion, fairness rather than intimidation, and visible public value rather than hidden leakage.
Citizens rarely resist paying when they can see what payment produces. They resist when revenue feels like punishment, and government feels absent.
This is why the symbolism of ‘Man of the Year’ should be read carefully. It is not merely a personal commendation; it serves as a public challenge to institutionalise the gains, encouraging reforms that outlive the governor and produce tangible, measurable improvements in governance and public services.
So, yes—celebrate the recognition. But hold on to the more valuable implication: a model of governance is being tested in real time in Enugu—one that treats ambition as normal, insists that delivery is the new legitimacy, and frames revenue not as a bragging right but as fuel for human development.
If the state can keep the reforms disciplined—measuring outcomes, strengthening transparency, and sustaining public trust—then this award will not just be a headline; it will be a marker of a turning point. And if it cannot, then the applause will become an annotation: a reminder that momentum is not the same thing as transformation.
*Dr Jeff Ukachukwu is a public affairs analyst and writes from Lagos
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