US embassy cable - 03LAGOS2283

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 LAGOS 002283 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ECON, PGOV, SOCI, NI 
SUBJECT: EBONYI STATE:  FIELD OF DREAMS 
 
Sensitive but Unclassified 
 
 
1.  (SBU)  Summary:  Making something out of Ebonyi state 
will be a challenge.  It's in the middle of nowhere, and with 
Nigerian agriculture in the doldrums the state's prospects 
seem modest. It's a new state, though, and to beat the odds 
its leadership has seized on careful fiscal policy, low 
overhead and good quality in the civil service, and a 
emphasis on education.  End Summary 
 
 
2.  (SBU)  As Consulate records show no official visit to the 
small, new Nigerian state of Ebonyi, we felt the state should 
no longer be denied the aura of prestige conveyed by our 
presence in its capital.  We attempted to call and set up 
appointments.  None of the phone numbers on hand worked, so 
we decided simply to go there and see who we could see.  The 
risk in this approach was that lacking adequate notice Ebonyi 
would miss the opportunity for the pomp and circumstance 
appropriate to our visit.  We could only hope they might 
detect our approach as we crossed the state line, so from 
that point we drove slowly.  It was easy to find the seat of 
government in Abakaliki: the town is very small, as is the 
state of 2.1 million people.  To give them extra time to pull 
themselves together we parked in plain view for some 15 
minutes, and then approached Government House. 
 
 
3.  (SBU)  Governor Sam Egwu was regrettably not "on seat" 
(he was in Abuja), so we were ushered (respectfully, but no 
color guard) in to the anteroom of the Chief of Staff to the 
Governor, Chief M. A. Nwankwu.  The anteroom contained a 
disintegrating sofa with enough room left over for a thin 
person to slip through into the office beyond.  We were 
invited in promptly and found the Chief of Staff 
communicating effectively with a small group.  Chief Nwankwu 
had evidently been reading up on his role:  on the desk was 
"Chiefs of Staff to the American Presidents, Kennedy to 
Carter" and "Effective Small Group Communication."  We were 
curious to see how much time would elapse before visa 
problems first came up:  less than 20 seconds.  Apparently 
Chief Nwankwu's passport has been with Embassy Abuja for an 
extended period.  We commiserated with his misfortune but 
told him there was nothing we could do.  He missed an 
agriculture show in the U.S., but he still hopes to catch a 
poultry show next January. 
 
 
4.  (SBU)  The first thing Chief Nwankwu wanted to emphasize 
was how important his education in the U.S. had been to him 
and to others who had studied there.  The impact of this 
capacity building, one individual at a time, could not be 
overstated, he said.  He studied at the University of 
Northern Colorado and has kept up his contacts there.  He 
wants to establish a relationship between Ebonyi and UNC in 
the field of education and hopes to take his governor there 
after they do the poultry show next year. 
 
 
5.  (SBU)  The second thing he wanted to say was that while 
Ebonyi is a small place in the middle of nowhere, it has 
plans and ideas.  Carved out of backwater areas of Enugu and 
Abia States, it became a backwater with a state flag in 1996. 
 It has always ranked very low in the indices used to 
calculate federal budgetary support, and its educational 
levels have lagged.  Public health is not a pretty picture; 
press reports indicate it has the highest incidence of guinea 
worm in the country.  Its promising agriculture sector 
crashed as a casualty of the oil boom (a familiar story in 
Nigeria), and its rice mill, the largest in Nigeria, closed. 
 
 
6.  (SBU)  The state has nowhere to go but up, said Nwankwo, 
and it intends to go there.  It has a few important 
advantages.  Its creation was not entirely a virgin birth (it 
inherited some of Enugu and Abia's debt burden), but it was a 
clean enough start that its new government began life without 
the huge overhang of debt and bloated civil service that 
afflict so many states.  Ebonyi, Chief Nwankwo said, has been 
extremely careful about taking on debt and has kept civil 
service salaries to about 45 percent of the budget, a much 
lower number than most Nigerian states (Ebonyi's capital 
investment is 30-35 percent of the budget, a very high 
number, with the balance being debt service and social 
services).  Ebonyi's strategy has been to go for quality: 
"the right staff, the right caliber."  It pays the highest 
minimum wage of any state.  It is the only state in the 
southeast, he said, which pays federal scale and is current 
in its salary and pension payments.  It will match the 
federal government's promised 12.5 percent pay raise, but 
it's going to have to cut funding elsewhere to do it. 
 
 
7.  (SBU)  Ebonyi has hired first class consultants to help 
formulate policies for growth.  These focus heavily on 
education, said Nwankwo.  The governor has instituted 
universal free education (a very expensive proposition, and 
coverage is far from complete), built a new university, and 
established a graduate level exchange program with the United 
Kingdom (112 Ebonyi students are there already, he said). 
The government is digitizing the telephone system (which is 
why our numbers didn't work) and has an internet service 
provider about ready to start. 
 
 
8   (SBU)  Chief Nwankwo told us the Deputy Governor, Dr. 
Chigozie N. Ogbu, was in town but working at home.  He called 
ahead and sent us over to the official residence, a large 
dilapidated house with a view over the tin roofed town.  We 
had to wait some minutes, presumably while Dr. Ogbu changed. 
He finally appeared in resplendent white robes and gold 
chain.  The Deputy Governor turned out to be a doctor from 
Michigan, a green card holder of many years standing, who has 
several children in the States.  Like Chief Nwankwo, he 
stressed his gratitude for his education in the U.S., and 
noted how important his American experience has been 
(mid-western winters notwithstanding).  He discussed Ebonyi's 
quasi-Appalachian past and (hoped for) education-intensive, 
knowledge-based future in roughly the same terms as Nwankwo, 
adding that the state government has assiduously cultivated 
good labor relations and has never had a strike. 
 
 
9.  (SBU)  For a reality check, we stopped by the offices of 
the National Poverty Eradication Programme for Ebonyi, to see 
A. J. Onwubiko, its director.  This turned out to be our 
third meeting in a row with an American-trained professional. 
 We spent most of the meeting talking about his youth 
training programs (all cancelled by Abuja at present), but 
Onwubiko did confirm the thrust of the government's efforts 
as described by Obgo and Nwankwo, adding that given the level 
the state is starting from there is going to be a long way to 
go.  It seemed to us that poverty eradication could start in 
his office: the squalor was Dickensian. 
 
 
10.  (SBU)  Comment:  "Build it and they will come" (or not). 
 Is Ebonyi a Field of Dreams?  The state government is making 
the best play it can with a weak hand to make Ebonyi an 
attractive destination:  keeping debt low and the state 
fiscally sound, hiring quality staff and paying them well 
(and on time), bringing in good communications and pushing 
education to the hilt.  Location is working against them, 
however.  Their road link to Lagos goes through the black 
hole of Onitsha where traffic jams add hours to the trip. 
Ebonyi doesn't even have an airport.  Visitors fly into 
neighboring Enugu state, and the government drives over to 
pick them up.  These seem like determined people, but we 
aren't sure all of this will realistically produce a big 
improvement in the state's growth rate without a resurgence 
in Nigerian agriculture to support it.  Ebonyi is doing its 
part: it has just built a large new poultry hatchery.  If 
they can get their passports back and get to the poultry show 
in January, perhaps they can make it fly. 
HINSON-JONES