If you attended any of the numerous lecture series he delivered across the country, during his first tenure as governor of Enugu State, and at the wee hours of his second tenure, you will, most probably, suspect that when he leaves the Enugu State Government House in 2007, he would retire to Babcock University, where he has already been made an Adjunct Professor or to any other university in Nigeria or abroad. You would reach this conclusion even more, if you encountered the governor at close quarters and probably asked provocative questions that required careful explanation.

Of course, an interview session, or even a media interactive session with a sitting governor is not the same thing as a lecture session, but if you encounter Nnamani in any of these sessions, it would be better to prepare to listen to a highly educative lecture, the type that only the best in the academic world would be able to offer.

If you have been a close observer of the politics of Dr. Nnamani, since 1999, when, as his critics would put it, he emerged on the Enugu political scene, from nowhere, to become the Executive Governor of Enugu State, you will agree that he does not seem to be afraid of controversy.

If it is your first real encounter with Nnamani, and you were therefore unable to gather before hand that the governor is, so to say, a fighter, who would never accept failure for an answer, you may be shocked at his blunt responses to your seemingly sensitive or provocative questions. But if you had the privilege of listening to his numerous public lectures live before the encounter, you would be better equipped to face the man whose style of governance has radically changed the hitherto predictable politics of Enugu State.

For example, if you expected the usual "I will do the same things I have done in the same manner," from him, when you wanted to know if he would repeat his actions, exactly the same way as he did them before, if the hands of the clock were to be reversed and he was to serve as governor of Enugu State again, you would be thoroughly disappointed. Unlike majority of other political leaders, who, in a bid to defend all their actions, would insist on doing exactly what they have done before, the same way; Nnamani would say simply, without hurting his ego, "No, there are many things that I did as governor of Enugu State, which, if I were to repeat them now, under the same circumstances, I would do differently. There are many of them."

You could see the interest to explain what he means. Looking rather excited, or was it provoked; he would adjust his executive seat hastily, face you squarely, and then begin a rather startling explanation of how his knowledge of his people’s expectations, the pressure of the possibility of his political rivals taking advantage of the people’s immediate needs to attack him, and other similar pressures, forced him to adopt a pace and development approach, he would not have adopted ordinarily.

It was not an admission of failure-Far from it. It was an honest account of a governor, who in his busy schedule would spare time to engage in an in-depth comparative study of his people’s needs and his government’s developmental response. It was an account of a governor bold enough to admit there could have been better ways of tackling developmental initiatives in his state, even though he has been applauded both by President Olusegun Obasanjo and by 13 Ambassadors of the European Union Countries, who toured his state to see for themselves to what extent he delivered dividends of democracy to the people of Enugu State.

Given that on the day of the encounter, President Olusegun Obasanjo, after inspecting some of the breath-taking projects handled by Nnamani’s government had just declared that "Enugu is working," one would have expected him to beat his chest and say, "I got it all right." He acknowledged instead that it would have been better to approach the development efforts in Enugu State with a slower pace. Within 18 months, he admittedly embarked on over five multi-billion Naira projects, working on all simultaneously in a pace that seems to suggest that there might be no tomorrow. The projects included the International Conference Centre, which boasts of a 5000-seater conference hall, another 3000-seater conference hall and a 1500-seater Dome, not to talk of the in-built five Star Hotel that is part of the architectural masterpiece; the Enugu State University of Technology Teaching Hospital; the permanent site of the state university, a historic tunnel at the centre of the Coal city and the Loma Linda Housing Estate among other concrete projects that should serve as a major challenge to other governors, especially most of the other South-East governors..

Knowing and admitting that handling so many capital-intensive projects at the same time could be rather unenviable, why did he adopt such an approach and how has he managed to succeed?

Frank and ruthlessly blunt, he said, because of years of neglect and misrule, the people of Enugu State needed so many concrete projects at the same time. Also, given the aggression of political rivals in the state, who would like to prove that the incumbent did not achieve anything, one has to move at this jet speed, though in practical terms, it may not be the best, since the state’s allocation is amongst the least in the country’s allocation portfolio.

As a result of this reality, Governor Nnamani has to recycle overdrafts and sometimes deny civil servants some luxuries, allowances or other sweet benefits. As some former contract merchants would tell you, he also took it upon himself to personally supervise construction projects, counting every block and cross-checking same with the paper work and the amount of money demanded from the government. Though these radical and bold initiatives may, up till date, remain unpalatable to some influential civil servants, contractors, and former political godfathers in Enugu, the governor, has, through his unconventional style, turned Enugu State to a huge construction site.

Unlike most of the other South-East states, most of whose development claims have only existed on the pages of newspapers’ paid-advertorials, in Enugu State, as Obasanjo confirmed recently, democracy is working.

But even at that, Nnamani would readily tell you that he would want his successor to slow down the pace because the current pace, which he deliberately adopted because he saw himself as a pioneer, was rather too strenuous on both the state’s resources and human capital.

As a fighter, who from day one in the Government House in Enugu State, seems to have set out a blueprint on how to empower a new and younger generation, and dislodge the old who he believed have failed his people, he has had to fight unending battles and has come out of many of them, successful, although tagged with different names.

No matter how anybody may have perceived Governor Nnamani, both his critics and admirers have come to agree on one thing: the governor rates very high on personal intellect. Even his bitterest critics cannot truly include his name in the long list of fools that have managed to acquire political power in Nigeria. Though a medical specialist, Nnamani’s understanding of political currents, and his ability to articulate same both in private and public gatherings are as astounding as his ability to dare the odds in Enugu and to emerge a political giant in that area; within such a short space of time.

Ask him a simple question, like why he chose to embark on seemingly over-ambitious and long term gigantic projects in a civil servant’s state like Enugu, he would simply smile and drag you back to the history of the Eastern Nigeria, prior to independence and then down to the glorious years of the late Dr. Michael Okpara as the Premier of Eastern Nigeria. Then, he would explain an emerging global trend that seems poised to favour the old Eastern Nigeria and indeed, Nigeria, where he would want today’s and future leaders to emulate and re-enact the glorious vision of late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, late Alhaji Ahmadu Bello and late Dr. Michael Okpara, whom he seems to have studied so well.