National attention shifts to Owerri the Imo State capital today, as the first-of-its-kind South-East Economic Summit being packaged by The Sun Newspapers, in collaboration with the five state governments of the South-East zone, opens at the prestigious Concorde Hotel.

The economic brainstorm which is expected to set an agenda on ways of returning the South-East to the commanding heights of national and global economy is billed to be declared open by no less a person as His Excellency Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, Vice President of the Federal Republic.

The VP had since last week confirmed his intention to personally attend the all-important summit and all arrangements have since been put in place by the administration of host-Governor Ikedi Ohakim to receive the Vice President and also make the summit a success.

In a letter confirming Jonathan’s attendance and addressed to the Managing Director of The Sun, Mr. Mike Awoyinfa, the Vice President commended the efforts of The Sun in pioneering the push to give the South-East the required push to return the zone to its pride of place in the commanding heights of the nation’s, nay global, economy.

Also billed to attend the opening event at the prestigious Concorde Hotel are Governors Peter Obi of Anambbra State who also doubles as the chairman of the South-East Governors Forum, as well as his counterparts from Abia, Enugu and Ebonyi

Deputy Senate President Ken Ekweremadu is leading members of the South-East Caucus of the National Assembly to the summit, where they are expected to be joined by Speakers of the states’ Houses of Assembly, many of their principal officers and key political figures from across the parties?
But then, the issue at stake at the summit which holds between December 4th and 6th is the economic re-engineering to thrust back the South-East into national reckoning; and so, micro and macro economic experts, businessmen and woman from both within and from among Diaspora Nigerians are key among those converging in Owerri for the historic summit.

The speakers and discussants have been drawn from a wide spectrum of theoreticians, experts and practitioners who are expected to x-ray the challenges of doing business in the South-East, the business opportunities that exist therein and the way forward.

There are Central Bank Governor Chukwuma Soludo, Prof. Pat Utomi and Prof. Bath Nnaji, Coscharis President, Dr. Cosmas Maduka, among other high-profile experts on national economy and development. Former Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is also expected at the summit themed: Igwebuike Harnessing Efforts for South-East Economic and Social Renaissance.

Eminent jurist and author, Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, will co-chair the proceedings
Among the business magnates who have also confirmed their attendance are billionaire businessman and industrialist, Chief Innocent Chukwuma popularly known as Innoson who told The Sun in his office in Enugu that the summit which will bring businessmen and women from the region under one umbrella would go a long way in helping them reason together on how to solve the numerous problems facing them in the country and the region in particular.

Chukwuma who is the Group Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Innoson Group of Companies lamented that businessmen in the region have suffered untold hardship, some of them affecting businessmen generally in the country, but most of them peculiar to business people of Igbo extraction.
He pointed out that the movement of goods in the region has become cumbersome as the roads, mostly the federal roads that criss-cross the region are dilapidated.
The Innoson boss, therefore, hopes that as the summit would draw out eminent people both from the business circle and the tiers of government, some of the problems mitigating against doing business in the region and Nigeria at large would be addressed.

The chambers of commerce and industry in the zone are also expected to put up a showing. In fact, President of the Onitsha Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (ONICCIMA), Mr. Okey Akaneme, who confirmed attendance equally commended The Sun for the initiative, saying that the forum would be a one-stop talk shop for the business community in the region.
Transporters of repute, captains of industry, monarchs and community leaders from both within and outside the zone have also indicated their interest to be in Owerri.

For Senator Annie Okonkwo, the summit is long overdue and everything possible must be done to make sure that the South-East is liberated from being looked upon as a desert for investment. "People of this region go all over the country and the world investing and contributing to the growth of the places they are. But it looks like our own place is doomed, jinxed and shut out from development.

Let us use the opportunity afforded by this worthy summit to re-orientate our people on the need to think home. I am sure by the time Igbo investors in Lagos, Kano, Abuja, Port Harcourt and the rest take part of their investment home as branches either as automobile sales, factories, service-related outfits and the rest, the fate of Igboland will improve", he said.

A statement from the Deputy Managing Director of The Sun Publishing Limited, Mr. Dimgba Igwe, said that the summit, which is part of the activities marking the fifth anniversary of the newspaper is being put together "to facilitate development… and chart a roadmap for the economic renaissance of the South-East region".

He said The Sun also has a huge stake in the economic wellbeing of the zone, since it accounted for about 40 per cent of the newspaper’s national market share.
Said Dimgba: "We are providing an independent and credible platform for the articulation and harmonization of visions and efforts of the five state governments in the region, especially in the area of industrialization and harnessing of our abundant human and natural resources".

According to him, the time has come to attempt to consolidate and pool together the various individual successes that have been recorded by many south-eastern business owners – through dint of dogged individual efforts to give the region the needed quantum leap forward to recapture, and possibly surpass, the golden era of between 1930 and 1960 when the Michael Opara administration built on the momentum of the pre-independence eastern region to hoist and superintend over the fastest growing economy in the whole world.

The Sun which, last year, won the Newspaper of the Year trophy of the Nigerian Media Merit Award (NMMA) returned last weekend to claim the DAME Newspaper of the Year trophy, thereby emerging back-to-back newspaper of the year winner. It is also worthy to note that the newspaper emerged overall winner, with four awards from the DAME event.

For the fourth year running, The Sun has remained the highest selling newspaper in the country and was recently voted, ahead of Punch and Vanguard, as the newspaper of the year in a survey conducted among consumers by the National Award for Marketing Excellence, a research overseen by The National Institute of Marketing in Nigeria (NIMN).