Official Website of Governor Chimaroke Nnamani

I don’t know if Enugu State government celebrated the visit, penultimate week, of President Olusegun Obasanjo to the state. It should. And not just because the President shunned cruel critics and visited. It should, because the President told the truth as it is in that state. But perhaps, it should be sober about it, even modest, and simply proclaim: To god be the Glory.

That would be an appropriate proclamation. For, it indeed took God for the President to so publicly expose the wickedness that is the opposition in Enugu.

Anybody who knows Obasanjo would confirm that he is incurably blunt, does not suffer fools gladly, and is not generous with praise. In Enugu penultimate week, the first two attributes were on display. The last? He rightly untied his tightly-knot bag of praises and let it flow.

If you had been following the story of Enugu State since 1999, and especially since Senator Ken Nnamani became the Senate President, then you would appreciate the statements attributed to Mr. President. The state government has been under the most deliberate, poisonous attack. Former favoured relations suddenly became enemies and deadly canons in the hands of an overwhelmed opposition. Some political allies suddenly became deadly enemies. Even those who couldn’t have won elections but for the political structure of the governor and his government, suddenly became rallying points for the opposition. These days when I read what they say – their threats, including flaunting accessibility to federal security apparatus – I remember yester-years and shake my head in disbelief.

The opposition includes a so-called man of God who does nothing but curse people, pray for their death, and dish out false prophesies. By God’s grace, he fails all the time. He brain-washes gullible minds, fabricates all kinds of stories and has become a politician. One night, a few years back, while holding his so-called crusades without any care for crowd control, innocent people who thronged there to listen to his repetitive false prophesies suffocated to death in a stampede. Because of politics, he quickly accused the state government of being responsible for the deaths. In more civilized climes, he would have been prosecuted for that tragedy. Recently, cruising in a flashy car, a dividend of his “visions and prophesies” with two under-aged boys, at an uncivilized hour of the night, he was, the police said, attacked by armed robbers. But he insists, for political reasons, that it was agents of the state government who wanted to kill him. In a more civilized clime, he would have had to explain to the police what he was doing with two under-aged boys at that time of the night when the kids should have long been in bed.

The opposition in Enugu spares nothing, including using Governor Chimaroke Nnamani’s long divorced wife to attack him. So, a woman, whose offspring are the man’s children, tells gutter stories, unbecoming of a woman, to please the opposition. She forgets that whatever, the man is the father of her children, and that the children will grow up to read what she said about their father. But I digress.

So, Mr. President went to Enugu. And saw landmark contributions to development. He saw gigantic projects which nobody can ignore. And he was both shocked and excited at once. So, he opened up. And invited the blind opposition to come and witness the good deeds that came from the Governor Nnamani government. Mr. President saw the permanent site of the Enugu State University of Science and Technology, flaunting 164 buildings and basking on a 600-hectare virgin land. And he smiled. He saw the Enugu State University Teaching Hospital and College of Medicine, Parklane, Enugu, with 26 new gigantic structures. And he smiled the more. He saw the underground Tunnel with dual carriage access road, street lights and drainage channels. He saw bridges and roads, the most modern university library in the country, the state Judiciary headquarters complex, with 18 fully computerized and automated court rooms, the Chief Judge’s chambers, libraries and press galleries. He saw the very massive multi-auditoria International Conference Center (ICC), with office complex, the brand new 2,000 seater auditorium at the Enugu campus of the Nigerian Law School, and he saw the housing estates. And he did more than smile.

Blunt as ever, he chided and exposed the opposition. He disclosed that what they tell him contrasts sharply with what he was seeing on ground. “I’m seeing it with my koro-koro eyes,” he told them. He chided them for their penchant for flaunting the EFCC before the governor. Most state governments and other government agencies, and not just Enugu State government, the President said, are under EFCC investigation. So, he asked what the big deal is, revealing that they had lied to him that nothing was working. “Enugu is working,” Mr. President exclaimed. Then, the most disgraceful: he revealed that the opposition had bombarded him with letters, asking him not to visit Enugu.

This statement, to me, is the high point of all that the President said. Enugu State indigenes should take note of it. Their sons, according to the President, hate their state so much that they actually asked him not to visit their state, not minding the goodwill, to the state, that comes with such visits.

Enugu people should thank Mr. President for exposing the saboteurs. They now know who their enemies are. Indigenes that would lobby the President not to visit their state are enemies. People that would use an ex-wife to ridicule the father of her children on the internet, knowing that those children would grow up to read those things are destructive.

Opposition is good. But it should be about issues. Not about personalities or private lives. When it descends to that level, it becomes petty. And belittling.