The air was stuffed thick with some inexplicable humidity that coated the season with some tricky tinge of identity crisis. The humidity hovered around 39 degrees Celsius, spurning a density that sent all gathered at the Akanu Ibiam Airport, Enugu perspiring profusely, as some of them said jocularly, like a Christmas goat! You could say many of them were already in the Christmas mood; after all, this is November, next to December.

The day was November 30th, 2005. And the event was the arrival of Mr. Briam Browne, the Consul-General of the American Embassy in Lagos to Enugu, to join the growing army of curious representatives of governments and international development agencies in Nigeria, who have heard of Enugu’s striving to be different, to provide a break from the humdrum beaten path of business as usual, with which Nigeria has been associated over the years.

Nobody was sure what to expect. As government functionaries and dignitaries at the airport mingled, backslapped and bantered sometimes over nothing, time seemed to have stood still, and this increased the frustration of those gathered, more so when the august guest did not arrive at the time advertised by the governor’s chief of protocol in his daily manifest of events.

His arrival into the embrace of his guest, Governor Chimaroke Nnamani a little after 11am, dissolved all the frustrations as the jostling for space within the convoy on the speedy journey to Government House, Enugu became the present pre-occupation. The journey to the Executive Council Chamber of the Government House was expectedly swift.

Seated at the chamber, the Consul-General took the opening shots as is customary in calls on the governor in the chamber. He went straight to what he already knew about Enugu, stopping briefly to comment on the ranking of Enugu as the number one state in governance reforms and fiscal responsibility by the National Planning Commission, the many donor agencies, development partners and the Breton Wood institutions in Nigeria.

He found so many common grounds with the governor. He hails, he said, from Florida, the same state where Governor Nnamani lived and practiced medicine. From the air, he said, the vegetation reminded him of nowhere else but the same Florida, adding that he felt he was already home.

The next thing was his promise to engage with Enugu on her various reform programmes. I expected no less. The stage had earlier been set in his opening remarks. If the intelligence at his disposal confirmed the ratings of other governments and agencies, there was nothing surprising in his eagerness to engage with Governor Nnamani, if only for daring to be different, to tread the path that had not been trod before him.

Beaming with infectious smile, who would not on such occasion, Nnamani addressed his guest on a philosophical plane. Taking off from the strategic importance of Enugu to Ndigbo, in the same way Ibadan is to the West and Kaduna to the North, he described the ibo as a vibrant, aggressive, industrious and ever-optimistic people, anchoring on the trinity of Igbo character of njepu, igbambo and odenigbo.

His reform regimen, the governor explained, was targeted at moving Enugu into global relevance. The other pillar of his reform, he informed his anxious guest, was the realization into his second tenure that poverty is really the issue. He said all the debate, and I am sure this will also include Harold Laski’s definition of politics as a debate over who gets what and how, is about poverty, how to better the lots of the people, how the genuine sovereignty which resides with the people can translate into dividends of democracy for them.

At this stage the teacher in the governor took the upper hand as he leapt from his seat to his demonstration board, which was handy. With a marker in his hand, he began to write the outlines of the pillars of his reform – wealth creation, where he gave some of the elements as neighbourhood associations, community policing, where Enugu is pilot of pilots, the Small and Medium Enterprise Center and the Ideas-to-Enterprise competition, where young business entrepreneurs won between N1 million and N5 million, based on the strength and viability of their business ideas.

Next, he took on the criminal justice system, where he spoke of the reform of the directorate of public prosecution, the building of the brand new 18-court room judicial headquarters complex, computerization of the court reporting system and institution of the alternative dispute resolution mechanism in the state, under the security, justice and growth programme, it is pursuing with the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, DFID.

He went to reforms in the health sector, where he educated his visitor on the health district system, whereby health institutions in the state are grouped into districts for ease of management and supervision. The agriculture policy he said aims to catalyze growth in promoting private sector dominance, with emphasis on production of rice and cassava and fruits to sustain a planned fruit juice factory in the state.

Issue-based projects in the reform process, according to the governor, include school meals plus programme, under which the state gives every pupil in the affected schools a balanced meal day, which comes with the early child care centers attached to these schools. Other projects include, reform and rehabilitation of the fire service, the state library, Daily Star, the state newspaper and the printing press, among others.

The governor also took on fiscal reforms in the area of public finance management, where he explained to his guest the detailed and intricate process of budget making, monitoring and evaluation. He told him that Enugu now publishes its budgets yearly so the general public can ask questions. He also told him of the budget evaluation and monitoring, BEAM, unit, which has members drawn from the government, donor agencies and civil society organizations.

He capped his presentation by saying that his goal was to intitutionalise reforms in a more permanent form. He said that apart from pursuing excellence, his government was very interested in ensuring that what is being put in place becomes part of the people’s way of life. He said that to be adjudged successful, reforms should be habit-forming.

The executive council chamber ceremonies over, the train headed to the Governor’s Lodge, where a state banquet had been set for the consul-general and his team of two assistants, one white and the other Nigerian. It was a potpourri of music and sumptuous meals of African and semi-continental dishes. The police band serenaded the event with some melodious tunes, after admirably rendering the American and the Nigerian anthems, to set the tone for the luncheon.

Having made his guest welcome, it was time to show him some concrete projects of the government, call it the real evidential concretization of the reforms. The governor and select government officials now dropped all official vehicles and joined the consul-general in an air-conditioned coaster bus. Soon the now-shortened convoy snaked its way out of the Governor’s Lodge, using the official entrance, which can only be used in the governor’s company.

The first port of call was the teaching hospital of the Enugu State University of Science and Technology, within the old premises of Parklane Hospital. The train moved from there to the International Conference Center in front of the Government House, where the governor showed his guest one of the wonders of modern architecture, rising to dominate the Enugu skyline.

To arrive here, the convoy passed through the ebeano tunnel crossing, the first road tunnel in Nigeria, then through the newly dualised Chime Avenue, New Haven layout and the bypass linking the avenue to Nza Street in Independence Layout.

From the judicial headquarters complex, which the governor said completes the concept of a three-arm zone, with the executive, the legislature and the judiciary forming a triangle, within a working distance in the same location, the tour coursed through the 360 units Loma Linda housing estate, on the way to the permanent site of the Enugu State university of Science and Technology, ESUT, sitting on a stretch of land donated by Agbani, Obe, Amuri and Ozalla communities.

Work on the Ozalla-Agbani road, which is being made a dual carriageway, was one of the surprises the team encountered on the way. At the ESUT permanent site, the excitement of the consul-general hit a climax. A brief stopover at the Augustine Nnamani campus of the Nigerian Law School, built by the Nnamani government, turned out to be the crowning moment of the facility tour.

Zooming into the auditorium, where a lecture was in progress, the governor introduced his guest, informing the students that the consul-general was a lawyer. The ecstasy in the room was electric. The effusive enthusiasm displayed by the students formed a thick smoke, which literally hung from the ceiling of the expansive hall down to the floor. Every speech by the governor and his guest was punctuated with a thunderous ululation, which shook the edifice to its very foundations.

Returning to Enugu through the Nyaba bridge, also built by the Nnamani administration, the convoy went straight to the Old Government Lodge, where the diplomat and his entourage would settle for the night, before coming for the a cultural night in his honour within the governor’s residence in the evening.

The consul-general was to depart for Lagos the next day. This was not to be as he was still busy all of that day. He was with his guest on a number of occasions, including an occasion where the government donated 13 Toyota hilux vehicles and seven Peugeot 504 station wagons to the state police command, in furtherance of the reforms in the security, justice and growth sector.

The forum provided the consul-general an opportunity to give what has since been described as a profound pronouncement on Nigeria’s democracy.

* Chief Eze is Governor Nnamani’s Special Adviser on Public Affairs