In order to experience vivid examples of underdevelopment in southeastern Nigeria, one does not have to travel far out of its old capital Enugu. Taking the bus toward Abakpa, a densely settled quarter north of the Ekulu River, the visitor arrives at a busy marketplace. Another bus—or an okada motorcycle serving as a taxi—will take the traveler further north. Within a few minutes, the city limits are reached. A road branches to the left, leading to Nike Lake Hotel, arguably the most prestigious hotel in the Igbo-speaking states. Behind this point one arrives at a lonely country road, full of potholes. Driving a few kilometers through the savanna, the traveler passes Ibagwa village. When I visited the area for the first time in late 1998, there were electricity poles along the roadside up to this point; by early 2000, wires had been added to them, thanks to the new civilian government's efforts to ensure electricity supply at least to the LGA headquarters. “Light” even reached a bit beyond that, to Amorji and Ibagwa—at least as long as NEPA, the parastatal supplier with notoriously poor performance, did not fail.

Beyond Ibagwa, there were neither poles nor wires. The Mbulu-Iyiukwu group of Nike villages, about 10 kilometers north of Ibagwa, was far away from any electricity1 or water supply. Apart from a few boreholes, people in these villages depended on the water they could fetch from streams, which becomes scarce during the dry season. The poverty of much of Nike, compared with other areas of Igboland, became clear from the usually modest character of the buildings— although Nike people maintain that they do not like to display wealth by erecting impressive structures, as wealthy people tend to do elsewhere in Igboland.

There is virtually no industry in rural Nike, and the vast majority of people are farmers. Some villages, especially in the north of Nike, are quite successful in this regard. The largest of them, Ugwogo, has a large orie market (that is, a market on the second day of the four-day traditional Igbo market week). The market concentrates on foodstuffs and firewood, making it “the breadbasket of Enugu.”

However, food production—at least if it is not carried out on a really large scale— has created little wealth in Nigeria in recent decades.