By Martins Azuwike
The economy of Imo State can become the second-largest in Nigeria by the size of its gross domestic product (GDP) if the state’s rich resources are shrewdly harnessed and deployed over time. This may be unknown to many, but the potential remains enormous. Imo boasts a $19+ billion (N7+ trillion) economy, and ranks either 4th or 5th by GDP, depending on the data source. However, this would only come with a clear strategic goal to make the state Nigeria’s second-largest economy. The business of business is business. The state needs to spark that ambition with friction. Yes, it cannot tiptoe into second place without disrupting the status quo. First, it must shock the system by electrifying industry, unlocking gas at scale, making land liquid, and turning its stock of human capital into export engines.
There are core issues that will move the needle here. The state must be relentless in project selection, knowing that only bankable projects with signed offtake, escrowed revenues, and measurable impacts will deliver value. There must be an export bias to ensure that all key investments have the capacity to earn foreign exchange or ensure import substitution with clear savings. Transparency and probity remain pivotal, and would mean that at least, megawatts delivered, jobs created, cost-to-serve, and foreign exchange earned are published quarterly to sustain trust and assure investors.
The timeframe for what is termed a concise, execution-first blueprint could be 10-12 years, with the policy focus on an export-led industrialization and services transformation anchored on agro-industrial value chains, manufacturing clusters, digital services, and large infrastructure investments.
Would that be all? Not at all! There must be bastions and pillars to make this happen. The state needs to think of five priority pillars to succeed in this. The first is economic governance and investment climate. This draws attention to simplifying regulations, creating a one-stop Investment Facilitation Centre, adopting a transparent PPP framework, and publishing a multi-year fiscal plan with lucid project pipelines. It also envisages professionalizing revenue administration and digitizing payments to double internally generated revenue (IGR) within four years.
The second pillar is industrialization and value-added agriculture, which needs to focus on building agro-processing clusters for cassava, palm oil, rubber, poultry, and fish; align each cluster with at least one large processor (anchor investor). Imo state also needs to create a light manufacturing park comprising textiles, plastics, food, or packaging, with reliable power, roads, and customs facilitation for exports.
The third pillar? Infrastructure and connectivity. The idea here is to regularly and consistently deliver prioritized hard infrastructure, such as year-round power for industrial zones (hybrid of grid and embedded gas/solar), 3 trunk road corridors linking farms to ports/markets, and affordable broadband to support digital services. It is also to upgrade key logistics nodes and establish cold-chain hubs to cut post-harvest losses.
The next pillar that needs attention comprises human capital, innovation, and small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This involves scaling vocational training and industry apprenticeships, with embedded competency certification tied to jobs. The state also needs to launch a State SME Growth Fund with blended finance, credit guarantees, and technical assistance for exporters and high-growth SMEs. SMEs, as the third market, are the engines of economies. When they hum, the gap between large corporations and informal businesses is bridged, as growth, innovation, and job creation are spurred. There should also be an innovation corridor and a regulatory sandbox to attract fintech, healthtech, and agritech startups.
The pillar on finance, diaspora, and external markets requires the state to issue transparent, rated state development bonds and target diaspora bonds, and use PPPs and concessional finance for catalytic projects.
The state also needs to establish an Export Promotion Office and trade missions that target ECOWAS, EU, UK, and US markets.
Generally, there are six flagship projects to drive scale in the state within the first three years.
• Imo Agro‑Industrial Park that offers dedicated land, utilities, one large anchor processor, cold‑chain, and export packing facility.
• Owerri Industrial Power Hub needs to have 50–100 MW mixed generation for industries and clusters.
• Trunk Road Corridor 1 would mean that the state would rehabilitate and upgrade the main farm‑to‑market corridor with logistics hubs.
• SME Growth and Export Finance Facility should facilitate blended capital to finance 1,000 MSMEs with export potential.
• Vocational and Technical University Partnership targeted at rapid expansion of Technical, Industrial, Vocational Education and Training (TVET) with private sector faculty and placement guarantees.
• Digital Services and Innovation Hub to promote co‑working, accelerators, and a licensing sandbox for fintech and the international sale of services provided through Business Process Outsourcing, also known as BPO exports.
It is also important to pay close attention to the issue of governance, delivery, and de-risking by creating an independent State Development Agency (SDA) with private sector board members to implement projects, manage PPPs, and attract investors, setting project prep, procurement, and financial transparency standards, publishing quarterly performance dashboards, and using blended finance to de-risk early investments. Here, it behooves the state to establish donor grants for feasibility, concessional loans for infrastructure, and equity from private anchors.
Action plans to consider:
Financing mix (practical targets)
* During the short-term framework covering 1-3 years, Imo needs to mobilise state bond (domestic retail), diaspora bond tranche, and concessional donor/grant funding for feasibility and social projects.
* The medium-term phase, which covers 3-7 years, should be focused on PPPs for industrial park and power hub, commercial loans for anchor firms, and reinvested IGR
* Long term (years 7–12) should target private equity exits, export receipts, and sustained IGR surplus funding expansion.
KPIs and milestones (10‑year horizon)
* GDP rank target: move into the top 3 states within 6 years and become No.2 by year 10.
* GDP growth: achieve sustained state GDP growth >10% p.a. for 5 consecutive years.
* Jobs: create 300,000 formal jobs by year 10.
* Exports: increase state non‑oil exports 10x in 7 years.
* IGR: triple IGR within 5 years.
* Industrial base: establish 1 industrial park with 30+ firms and 3 agro‑processing anchors within 5 years.
Quick wins (first 12 months)
* Publish a 12‑month Rapid Action Plan with six priority projects and assigned budgets.
* Launch the Investment Facilitation Center and an investor “fast‑track” policy for anchor firms.
* Seed the SME Growth Facility with an initial capital tranche and guarantee line.
* Begin digitization of land and tax administration for faster approvals and revenue collection.
Caveat and verdict
Realising the ambition to brace the tape as Nigeria’s second-largest economy would require a timeframe like the 2030 targets and a firmly balanced economic focus. The state needs to build the industrial heartbeat – power and gas, as a pull factor. For instance, it could focus on a gas-to-power buildout, converting its proximity to gas fields into 1,000 MW of firm, dispatchable power through IPP clusters of 300 MW quick-win and 700 MW variants tied to industrial estates with embedded and ring-fenced cash collections.
The next scenario requires licensing private distributors in parks, smart meters, prepaid models, and escrowed receivables to de-risk collections. The essence is to build and operate viable embedded grids for industrial purposes.
Fertilizer, methanol, LPG bottling, and glass manufacturing need to be anchored around gas supply to lock in industrial demand in building feedstock integration.
Land, logistics, and special economic zones need to be in place. To succeed in this, requires land markets that move through the digitization of the cadastre, enactment of a 30-day consent rule, standardization of lease templates, and title insurance to make the state’s industrial land bankable.
There would also be a need to designate three Special Export-processing zones (SEZs) in the state. For instance, while Owerri zone could be for services/tech, Ohaji-Oguta could be for gas-based industry, and Okigwe for agro-processing corridors. Overall, these zones should offer VAT exemptions, duty-free inputs, and single-window permitting.
The zones need to be supported with a freight backbone, which would require the state to concession at least two dry ports on the Onne-Owerri and Aba-Okigwe axes, with rail/haulage PPPs and guaranteed minimum tonnage to cut logistics costs by 20-30 per cent.
Imo state needs to build talent factories partnering with global outsourcers. This would imply building, for instance, three 25,000-seat digital campuses (Owerri, Ohaji/Oguta, and Orlu), fed by 12-month bootcamps in customer success, cloud, quality assurance (QA), and fintech operations.
Operations here should emphasize demand-first training to ensure that talents are trained in response to assigned seats, not hope. The curricula here need to be tied strictly to contracted key performance indicators (KPIs) and wage floors, while first-year wages may be subsidized through outcome-based vouchers.
Connectivity and policy in the state must be laced with citywide fibre, data centre incentives, and streamlined work permits to attract regional hubs.
Managers of the economy in Imo state must note that ascending to the height of the country’s second-largest economy remains ambitious and won’t come on a platter. However, it is feasible if the state sequences high‑impact investments, leverages diaspora and private capital, and sustains disciplined governance and measurement. Imo needs to focus on a few large, exportable value chains, weave dependable infrastructure around them, and use transparent public‑private delivery to scale swiftly and unleash growth.
Martins Azuwike is an Economist, a member of the Guild of Public Affairs Analysts of Nigeria (GPAAN), the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE), and a multiple award-winning journalist in Banking/Finance (DAME Hall of Fame), Energy, Telecommunications (NMMA), and Business Analysis.
