What is today known as Anambra State used to co-exist with Enugu State as one state, with Enugu as its capital. But as the agitation for the creation of more states intensified in Nigeria, Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, created more states on August 27, 1991. The old Anambra State was split in two, with one becoming Enugu State; and the other, Anambra.
The new Anambra State, with capital at Awka, is a state endowed with highly gifted people. What Anambra State lacks in landmass, it makes up for with its possession of internationally renowned people. They are/were international personages, who achieved distinctions in their diverse areas of specialization. And not a few of them blazed the trails in those areas.
A few examples will suffice. Anambra State is the home state of the Rt. Hon. Nnamdi Azikiwe, a Pan-Africanist and freedom fighter; the late Chinua Achebe, Africa’s greatest raconteur and novelist; Chief Emeka Anyaoku, a former secretary general of the Commonwealth; Mary Onyali-Omagbemi, a former African sprints queen of the tracks; and Prof. Laz Ekwueme, a great music teacher and composer.
But it is not only the state’s possession of highly educated and skilled people that makes it thick. Anambra has the singular honour of being the state that has the largest market in the entire West African sub-region. Besides the Onitsha main market, the largest in West Africa, there are many other big markets in towns that make up the state. Those markets are central to the economic growth and survival of the state as huge revenues are generated from them.
