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Fact-Check 72 — The Industry of Illusion
By Prof. MarkAnthony Nze
The Spectacle of Resurrection
The scene was choreographed for belief. In February 2025, Governor Hope Uzodinma took the stage in Owerri, flanked by glossy banners that declared “Industrial Rebirth: Building Back Better.” Cameras rolled. Dignitaries nodded. “We have revived all abandoned industries in Imo State,” he proclaimed, his voice steady, his smile assured. The crowd erupted in applause—not because the claim was true, but because it was expected.
For a government that trades in image, facts are secondary. Within hours, television stations aired drone footage of refurbished gates, freshly painted signboards, and politicians in hard hats pointing at empty compounds. It was theatre disguised as policy—a resurrection staged for the evening news.
But when investigators followed the governor’s trail of achievement, the truth surfaced like rust through fresh paint. The industries had not been revived—they had been rehearsed.
The Remains of Promise
The ruins of Imo’s industrial dream tell their own story. At Avutu Poultry Farm, broken conveyor belts gather dust under the stillness of disuse. Generators roar briefly when
complete it
The Remains of Promise
The ruins of Imo’s industrial dream tell their own story. At Avutu Poultry Farm, broken conveyor belts gather dust under the stillness of disuse. Generators roar briefly when visitors arrive, only to fall silent once the cameras depart. At Ada Palm Plantation, the workers are gone, wages unpaid for years, while litigation over ownership drags on like a slow execution of public assets. The Nsu Tiles and Ceramics Factory, once a pride of indigenous enterprise, now lies abandoned—its warehouses colonized by rodents, its machinery stripped for scrap.
The Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (2024) reports Imo’s industrial capacity utilization at 29 percent, the lowest in the South-East. Neighboring Anambra stands at 51 percent. What the governor called revival is, by every metric, inertia polished into propaganda.
Factories have become mausoleums; each signboard is a gravestone for the state’s industrial past.
Table 1 – Condition of Imo’s Legacy Industries (2024–2025)
(Prepared by Prof. MarkAnthony Nze | The Eastern Updates Investigative Series – Imo State)
| Industry | Status | Workforce (Pre-2020) | Workforce (2025) | Observation |
| Avutu Poultry Farm | Partially active | 320 | 41 | Diesel-powered operations during official visits only |
| Ada Palm Plantation | Dormant | 480 | 0 | In court over ownership; unpaid staff since 2021 |
| Nsu Tiles & Ceramics | Non-functional | 230 | 0 | Machinery obsolete; power supply disconnected |
| Imo Rubber Factory | Abandoned | 190 | 3 | Security guards only |
| Shoe & Leather Factory | Sporadic output | 150 | 27 | Operates below 10% capacity |
Sources: NIPC (2024); BudgIT (2025); Ministry of Commerce (2024)
Read also: Falsehood No. 71 — “We Made Imo Nigeria’s Creative Capital”
The Mathematics of Deception
Between 2021 and 2024, the Uzodinma administration allocated ₦12.4 billion for “industrial rehabilitation.” Only ₦4.1 billion—barely a third—was released. Even that amount was swallowed by consultancy fees, feasibility studies, and “media engagement.”
No new production lines. No export data. No factory logs. Only brochures, banners, and televised optimism.
When the Federal Ministry of Industry’s Subnational Audit (2024) defined “revival” as production reaching 50 percent of previous capacity, not one of Imo’s factories qualified. Yet, in government documents and televised reports, every dormant site was listed as “fully revived.”
The deception was methodical—budgeted, broadcast, and believed.
Table 2 – Industrial Output Trends in Imo (2021–2024)
(Prepared by Prof. MarkAnthony Nze | The Eastern Updates Investigative Series – Imo State)
| Year | Industrial Output (₦ Billion) | Capacity Utilization (%) | Employment (No.) |
| 2021 | 29.3 | 33 | 1,540 |
| 2022 | 27.8 | 31 | 1,320 |
| 2023 | 26.4 | 29 | 1,210 |
| 2024 | 25.7 | 28 | 1,145 |
Output fell each year while the rhetoric of revival intensified.
The Choreography of Governance
Governance in Imo has become performance art. Ministers rehearse talking points. Contractors paint crumbling walls the color of hope. Drones record empty buildings from flattering angles. It is development as theatre—crafted to impress, not to endure.
Behind every glossy broadcast lies a machinery of manipulation: consultants drafting success reports, media handlers feeding applause, and ministries recycling past achievements. The result is a digital illusion of progress that vanishes under the first audit of facts.
The Nigeria Governors’ Forum (2024) ranked Imo 27th in subnational industrial performance—below all South-East peers. The World Bank’s Nigeria Manufacturing Index (2024) classified the state’s industrial economy as “structurally stagnant.”
These are not misfortunes of fate; they are consequences of deceit.
Table 3 – Regional Comparison of Industrial Growth (2024)
(Prepared by Prof. MarkAnthony Nze | The Eastern Updates Investigative Series – Imo State)
| State | Industrial Investment (₦ Billion) | Capacity Utilization (%) | Employment Growth (%) |
| Anambra | 37.8 | 51 | +14 |
| Ebonyi | 19.2 | 44 | +11 |
| Enugu | 16.7 | 47 | +9 |
| Imo | 4.3 | 28 | -17 |
The numbers speak for themselves—Imo’s economy runs on optics, not output.
The Workers Who Never Returned
In interviews conducted by The Eastern Updates Investigative Team (December 2024–January 2025), former factory workers described the governor’s claim as “a second betrayal.”
A dismissed supervisor from Ada Palm said,
“We heard we’d been re-employed on the news. The next day, we went to the gate—nothing but weeds.”
At Nsu, a former tile technician laughed bitterly:
“They call this revival. We call it repainting failure.”
These testimonies reveal the heart of the deceit: factories turned into political billboards, workers replaced by photographs, and the idea of progress reduced to a press statement.
Verdict — The Resurrection That Never Was
Governor Hope Uzodinma’s declaration that “all abandoned industries in Imo have been revived” collapses under every verifiable metric—output, employment, investment, and infrastructure. The supposed rebirth is a public relations mirage, sustained by press conferences and official silence.
The factories remain cold. The workers displaced. The economy stagnant. What has been revived is not production, but propaganda.
This is not mismanagement—it is moral failure. To lie about hospitals is cruel; to lie about industries is criminal. For in that lie, the government denies its youth the dignity of labor and its state the promise of recovery.
Until Imo replaces illusion with industry and spectacle with substance, it will remain a state governed by slogans—a republic of painted ruins.
Professor MarkAnthony Ujunwa Nze is an internationally acclaimed investigative journalist, public intellectual, and global governance analyst whose work shapes contemporary thinking at the intersection of health and social care management, media, law, and policy. Renowned for his incisive commentary and structural insight, he brings rigorous scholarship to questions of justice, power, and institutional integrity.
Based in New York, he serves as a full tenured professor and Academic Director at the New York Center for Advanced Research (NYCAR), where he leads high-impact research in governance innovation, strategic leadership, and geopolitical risk. He also oversees NYCAR’s free Health & Social Care professional certification programs, accessible worldwide at:
👉 https://www.newyorkresearch.org/professional-certification/
Professor Nze remains a defining voice in advancing ethical leadership and democratic accountability across global systems.
Bibliographies
African Development Bank. (2024). Nigeria Industrial Competitiveness and Infrastructure Report 2024. Abidjan: AfDB Industrial Development Division.
BudgIT Foundation. (2025). State of States Report 2025 – Industrial and Manufacturing Performance (Imo Chapter). Lagos: BudgIT Foundation.
Central Bank of Nigeria. (2024). Manufacturing and Industrial Capacity Utilization Report Q4 2024. Abuja: Development Finance Department.
Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Investment. (2024). Subnational Industrial Asset Utilization Audit 2024. Abuja: Department of Industrial Development.
Imo Broadcasting Corporation (IBC TV). (2025, February 5). Governor Uzodinma: “We Have Revived All Abandoned Industries.” Owerri: IBC Archives.
Imo State Government. (2025, February 6). Press release: “Imo’s Industrial Renaissance—Uzodinma Restores Legacy Assets.” Owerri: Ministry of Information.
Imo State Ministry of Commerce and Industry. (2024). Industrial Asset Verification Report 2024. Owerri: Department of Industrial Monitoring.
Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission. (2024). Subnational Industrial Development and Investment Readiness Report 2024. Abuja: NIPC Research Department.
National Bureau of Statistics. (2024). Industrial Output and Employment Survey 2024 – South-East Zone. Abuja: NBS Industry Statistics Division.
National Council on Privatization. (2024). State-Owned Enterprise Performance Review (2018–2024). Abuja: Bureau of Public Enterprises.
Nigeria Governors’ Forum. (2024). Subnational Economic Competitiveness and Industrialization Scorecard 2024. Abuja: NGF Secretariat.
Premium Times Nigeria. (2025, February 12). Fact Check: Most of Imo’s “Revived Industries” Remain Moribund. Retrieved from https://www.premiumtimesng.com
Punch Newspapers. (2025, February 14). Imo’s Industrial Revival Claim Disproved by On-Ground Data. Retrieved from https://punchng.com
The Guardian Nigeria. (2025, February 15). Reality Check: Imo’s Abandoned Industries Still Idle Despite Government Claims. Retrieved from https://guardian.ng
World Bank. (2024). Nigeria Manufacturing and Subnational Industrial Productivity Index 2024. Washington, DC: World Bank Nigeria Country Office.
