Steadilly, Nnamani rides the EFCC storm |
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By the time they complete their term in office next year, many more state chief executives would have come under the scrutiny of EFCC, as some are currently being investigated for one financial misconduct or the other. Some would be indicted. Some would be let off the hook. It would be interesting to know, for instance, the fate of Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani, Governor of Enugu State. Will he be in the first or second category? As of now, the current of public opinion seems to be in his favour concerning the petition written by a former local government chairman, Reverend Oscar Ekwuonwu, to EFCC. A lawyer and political analyst, Barrister Humphrey Nwodo, has already dismissed the petition as “an irritating distraction.” It is a “ploy to rubbish the sterling record of the governor…this is a government that has continued to receive positive endorsements and commendations from national and international bodies as regards his performance in office.” “We are not worried,” an advertorial signed by Mr. Festus Adedayo, his special adviser on media, declared in several national newspapers last week when the EFCC probe commenced. “But indeed, proud of the integrity of the governor who, among other self restraints, has not embarked on any travel cumulatively for more than three times across the Atlantic in almost six years as governor and does not have any property/building outside Enugu State.” And there seems to be a consensus of opinion about Nnamani’s performance in his seventh year as governor of Enugu State. For one, the state is one of the poorest, in terms of resources east of the Niger. Secondly, it receives one of the smallest allocations from the Federal Government. Yet, Dr. Nnamani has managed to take his state from the backwater it was to one of the most modern in the entire Southeast. “I have a social contract,” he once told reporters. “Remember I left the United States of America and headed home without any guarantee of success. I headed home because I wanted to be counted. I wanted my story told, rather than stay outside and criticize. I wanted to be in the corridors of power where decisions are made…and change the lives of my people.” Changing the lives of the people of the state for the better is just what observers now agree he is doing, and encouraging the rest of the country to emulate his example. Diplomats are hardly those you’d expect to say positive things where none is deserved. But when 13 European Union ambassadors visited Enugu Sate late last year, they all came off with glowing remarks about the pace of development in the state. And they meant every word of it, judging from the projects they’d seen on the ground in their tour. The leader of the delegation, Richard Gozney, British High Commissioner to Nigeria, noted then that they were pleased with the projects the governor had commissioned. Speaking for his colleagues as the head of the EU ambassadors, Gozney noted that “The picture they are taking away is that the governor is putting a very great deal of infrastructure in place in the city of Enugu: on health, tertiary education, dualising roads and so on.” There was, Gozney continued, “an unusual and dynamic development of infrastructure by a state government,” and even allowing that “the future of Nigeria starts in Enugu State.” The Charge-de-Affairs of the German embassy, Mr. Wolfgang Manig, was similarly effusive in his remarks about the progress so far made in Enugu State. “As a new comer, I have to say that I am very impressed to see what have been achieved here. Enugu State is an example, showing that you (Nigeria) can move forward.” In fact, Enugu State would not be the first in the country to be visited by the EU ambassadors. They had been to Delta twice and Sokoto but never before has any European delegation been impressed with developmental projects anywhere as they were with Nnamani’s. And the governor himself is determined to do more. In the past 18 months, no fewer than, 6,000 youths in the state have been employed in construction projects going on in the state; the state judiciary headquarters is getting a makeover as well; ESUT teaching hospital, too, and the Loma Linda housing estate and the ultimate Ebeano tunnel which stretches for 80m. Visitors to the state tell of the enormous transformations embarked on by a governor who a writer recently described “as among the intellectually endowed governors the current political dispensation has produced.” His intellectual prowess has never been in doubt, and reporters, so it is said like to sit with him for long discussions on just any thing under the earth. When his state hosted the Southern Peoples’ Forum last year, Nnamani spoke extempore and brilliantly. But it is not for his intellectual savvy that Nnamani is winning the respect of the West. As the head of the EU delegation that visited the state last year, Gozney was only too proud to declare that the U.K was willing to do business with Enugu because it “appeared to be the only one at that time to have presented a clearly documented SEEDS programme.” In a recent interview, Nnamani stated that Enugu has in place another programme called School Meals Plus Programme (SMPP). “The programme is part of the reform process in terms of poverty reduction,” Nnamani said. “It is a programme that provides one meal a day to a child. For that indexed child, we provide medical evaluation in terms of dentition, visual acuity, hearing capabilities and so on.” Asked whether his administration will complete all of the projects under way now in the state, (a visitor recently likened the state to a giant construction site); the governor said no project would be left uncompleted. “There is no project abandonment here. We are finishing those projects; we can’t take that risk.” Sunday Sun, January 29, 2006 |