Imagine two brothers born into the same household but raised with two different mind-sets entirely. One is trained in structured wealth creation - indoctrinated in the principles of education, global exposure, strategic networking, and calculated risk-taking.
The other is left to rely on instinct, hustle, and informal business tactics, believing that sheer resilience alone will bring prosperity.
Fast forward to 30 years later. One brother is a senior executive at a Fortune 500 company, wielding influence over billion-dollar transactions and shaping global policies.
The other remains tethered to the marketplace, working harder than ever but barely keeping pace with an economy that no longer rewards brute force but intellectual capital.
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This analogy mirrors the economic trajectory of the Southwest and SouthEast of Nigeria. While both regions brim with ingenuity, the Southwest has meticulously engineered a system that places its people in high-income, high-influence sectors, while the SouthEast remains anchored to traditional commerce and self-sufficiency-models that are increasingly obsolete in today’s hyper-digitalized and globally networked economy.
The question is not whether the SouthEast is industrious - it indisputably is. The real question is whether it is strategically positioning itself for long-term economic dominion.
If the SouthEast Development Commission is earnest in its mission to transform the region, it must abandon cosmetic interventions and adopt a radical blueprint for economic ascendancy.
As John Adams once said, “Facts are stubborn things.” The economic disparity between the Southwest and SouthEast is not conjecture—it is quantifiable and irrefutable.
In the oil and gas sector, which remains Nigeria’s most lucrative industry, out of 10,000 high-level jobs, 7,000 belong to professionals from the Southwest. These individuals earn an average of ₦50 million per year, injecting a staggering ₦350 billion annually into their economy - more than the combined budgets of Abia, Ebonyi, and Enugu States (Statista, 2024).
The financial services industry paints a similar picture. Firms such as PwC, KPMG, Accenture, and McKinsey have over 65% of their top executives from the Yoruba ethnic group, with salaries ranging from ₦30 million to ₦120 million annually.
Collectively, this sector contributes an estimated ₦500 billion yearly to the Southwest’s economic base.
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The technology industry is perhaps the most damning testament to the widening chasm. Over the past decade, Lagos has produced 70% of Nigeria’s top tech entrepreneurs, securing over $3 billion in startup funding from international investors (TechCabal, 2024).
The fintech revolution is a prime example of this economic dominance. Yoruba entrepreneurs have built billion-dollar fintech firms that are reshaping Africa’s financial ecosystem.
Flutterwave, founded by Olugbenga Agboola, is valued at over $3 billion and processes transactions worth billions of dollars across Africa.
Paystack, co-founded by Shola Akinlade, was acquired by Stripe for $200 million, a landmark deal that showcased Nigeria’s fintech prowess.
Opay, a leading digital payments platform, raised over $570 million from global investors, dominates mobile banking in Nigeria.
Kuda Bank, co-founded by Babs Ogundeyi, has raised over $90 million, becoming Nigeria’s first digital-only bank.
This is not mere happenstance; it is the result of strategic investment in tech education, access to global venture capital, and deliberate positioning in high-growth industries.
Now, contrast this with the SouthEast. Where are the billion-dollar start-ups from the region? Where are the Igbo-led fintech unicorns? Why has the SouthEast failed to produce a single tech company on the scale of Paystack or Flutterwave?
The problem is not talent - it is the absence of structured venture capital, mentorship, and industrial pipelines that can elevate ideas into global enterprises.
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The Nigerian music industry - now a multi-billion-dollar global enterprise—further underscores this disparity.
The three highest-earning Nigerian artists - Wizkid ($30M), Burna Boy ($35M), and Davido ($30M) - hail from the Southwest, commanding between $500,000 and $1 million per international performance.
Conversely, the most successful Igbo artists - P-Square ($30M combined), Flavour ($10M), and Phyno ($12M) - earn significantly less and secure fewer global bookings (Forbes, 2023). The difference is not talent but infrastructure.
Yoruba artists have constructed strategic pipelines to international markets, inked major record deals, and leveraged elite networks across the UK, US, and Europe.
Meanwhile, the SouthEast has failed to establish an industry architecture that ensures its artists break into the highest echelons of global music commerce.
Francis Bacon’s immortal words, “Knowledge itself is power,” ring especially true in the 21st-century knowledge economy.
The Southwest has weaponized structured education as an instrument of wealth creation, whereas the SouthEast, despite boasting high literacy rates, has failed to translate educational attainment into global economic dominance. A staggering 50% of Nigerians in Ivy League schools hail from the Southwest, compared to only 20% from the SouthEast (NBS, 2023).
The result is a disproportionately high number of Yoruba professionals occupy lucrative positions in Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and Fortune 500 firms, funnelling generational wealth back into their regional economy.
If the SouthEast fails to prioritize aggressive talent placement in global institutions, it will remain an economic backwater while others chart the future.
For too long, the SouthEast has relied on trade and diaspora remittances as its economic bedrock. But this model is no longer tenable in a world that increasingly rewards technological innovation, corporate power, and structured wealth creation.
The SouthEast receives $4 billion in annual remittances, but this is three times lower than the Southwest’s $12 billion.
The majority of SouthEast businesses are traders, not industrialists. This means we move goods but do not control production, resulting in massive profit leakages that hinder sustainable wealth accumulation.
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To rewrite its economic destiny, the SouthEast must embark on a bold, structured transformation agenda. The first step is to establish a ₦500 billion Education & Workforce Fund dedicated to launching 10,000 of the Southeast’s best students into the world’s most prestigious universities and corporate institutions. This initiative must be paired with a structured career pipeline that strategically places Igbo talent in tech giants like Google, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, and McKinsey, ensuring the region’s representation in global decision-making arenas.
Simultaneously, the SouthEast must create and develop tech and financial hubs in Enugu, Owerri, Aba, Abakaliki, and Awka - cities that should transform into Africa’s next-generation innovation nerve centres. By investing in technology incubators and attracting venture capital, the region can position at least 100,000 SouthEast youths in high-paying global remote jobs within the next five years.
Beyond technology, industrialization is non-negotiable. The SouthEast must transition from a trading-based economy to a full-fledged manufacturing powerhouse. Large-scale factories specializing in textiles, electronics, and pharmaceuticals must be established, with strategic partnerships forged with diaspora investors to ensure scalability and global competitiveness.
The Southwest did not ascend to economic pre-eminence by mere happenstance. It did so through meticulous planning, structured education, and strategic workforce placement.
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If the SouthEast Development Commission fails to act decisively, the region will be permanently side-lined in Nigeria’s economic power matrix. This is not just an economic discussion - it is an existential imperative. The SouthEast stands at a crossroads - it can either embrace a future of economic subjugation or forge a path toward dominance.
The choice is ours. But if history has taught us anything, it is that those who control the future do not wait for it - they build it.
Credits: This article was original titled:
BRIDGING THE ECONOMIC DIVIDE: THE IMPERATIVE FOR SOUTHEAST HUMAN CAPITAL INVESTMENT
By Prof. Bernard Odoh
Prof. Bernard Ifeanyi Odoh is a forward thinking and visionary leader, an erudite professor of applied geophysics, and a distinguished scholar with over 132 scientific publications in reputable national and international journals.
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