It was preceded by a mild drama. Police men and other security details had acted their pretension to alertness and duty once again. They seemed to scamper, reposition and scowl at bystanders who responded in the normal citizens’ attitude to men who serve selves. Then a parchment of men and may be, a woman had walked through the lobby and emerged at the glass doorway.

Descending the stairs of the famous Lion Building, seat of the Government of Enugu State of Nigeria, penultimate June 10, 2006, were entourage and person of Chimaroke Nnamani, native of a small railway town, Agbani, born in 1960 in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. He wore the look of a man thrown into hurried strides by the urgency of whatever it was he went after.

Then, he beamed at the reporters and hailed one or two of the more familiar ones. Suddenly, he spun around and unfolded his palms, still beaming, beckoning on the reporters to join him. He was headed for the project sites, commencing with the now gleaming Rangers Avenue in the highbrow Independence Layout of the Coal City.

As the powerful automobile leapt forward, skidding through the tarred driveway of that corridor of power, this reporter who had the privilege of riding in his car, quietly rolled out a scrap of paper and pen, causing the governor to flash a smile and ask: but you will see the projects before you ask questions…is that not the normal thing?

This reporter grunted, not that it is a written rule, Sir…I may need to know you, perhaps to understand the personality which drives those well talked-about-projects.

The governor smiled again, seeming undistracted as the big Mercedes sped through the runway of the government house, shooting across the main gate as he emerged at the dual carriage way intersecting the Independence Avenue (formally called Bisalla Road). Ahead as he swung left was the bedazzling Rangers Avenue which he had just converted to a dual carriageway, with a median, waste water runway and glistening street lights. It was a splendid place to be.

But for Governor Nnamani, there was nothing in his person. There was nothing in his driving the projects. And there was nothing spectacular about massive infrastructure. Just service…continuing from where our fathers and forefathers stopped, he intoned. This city and indeed the length and breath of old Eastern Region was selflessly built by such founders as Nnamdi Azikiwe, Michael Okpara, Akanu Ibiam, Eyo Ita, Udo Udoma and the rest of them. The issue was never who they were but what they stood for, he said at length.

But even if enamoured by the choruses of history, as Nnamani was, which the reporter easily confirmed on further independent enquiries, he had come of a pedigree enriched by one striking hunger for excellence. Right through the tender years as he attended the Methodist Primary School, Agbani Road, Enugu, the College of Immaculate Conception (CIC), Enugu; and subsequently graduating from the medical school of the University of Nigeria, it had all been go, go and add-more-in-life.

He had his specialist training in Obstetrics and Gynecology, State University of New York., capped with Super Specialization in Maternal and Fetal Medicine at prestigious Loma Linda University in Southern California. This was immediately followed with the special feather in Basic Science training and research in the division of Perinatal Biology, of the same Loma Linda University.

The difference, as they say, in disciplinary interests, sometimes, lie in the depth of training and as Governor Nnamani would say, life saving enterprises as his beloved medicine goes with irreversible exactitude that the practitioner had to continue his training and specialization to meet with the changes which go with development in that endeavour of life. Consequent upon this, he developed deep the hunger and so pursued clinical interest in Fetal Medicine, Fetal Surgery, and invasive Fetal Ultra-sound and high risk pregnancy. Put simply, he pursued research knowledge and practices in such delicate regards of the mother-to-be-and-the-unborn-child.

As he did these, he had firmed up his basic science interest on parturition, uterine smooth muscle physiology, cell-to-cell communication, molecular biology, and tissue cytology, achieving, on the long run, the coveted fellowship of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. This had armed him to bear the appellation FACOG, borne in the subsection of maternal fetal medicine.

These had earned him the big-league slot as a member of the American Society for Cell biology amongst other associations; that is as he rode the tide of prestigious faculty in the Loma Linda University; College of Medicine, University of South Florida. He had thus maintained acclaimed presence in many international journals including Journal of Biology of reproduction, Journal of cell and nature.

This, they say, was his story before he felt he had had it all and would risk political battles in Nigeria, believing that if he could attain much on personal resources, dint of hard work and luck, he could make things happen on a bigger scale if he had massive political power and public resources. Then, he had thrown his hat in the ring and even as he won cleanly to become the governor of Enugu State, since 1999, it had been challenges after challenges. And the idea of coming out bruised never bothered him.

This, it appears, provided the link between his well cut life and the emerging social interest which has been woven around poverty alleviation, mass mobilization, constitutional federalism and critical consciousness.

The last of these, as we can also see, appears to anchor the body of thought he has developed in the past six years, laced with admonition, preachments and indices for growth and development for an emerging national political leadership.

He started out actually with his pre-governorship blueprint on the health system in Nigeria. In that massive and air stirring work for the vision 2010 committee, Nnamani brought into the country’s evolving polity, a consciousness on diffused health system which would lead the country out of the repeated failure of national health programmes. It was in that work that he gave a hint of the current policy of health district system in Enugu. Actually, the evolution of the health district system in the state and its graduated delivery pattern deeply represent the true value of inverted pyramidal approach to perfection, which he has also elaborately preached. That is to say that Nigeria had better design a unique health system of proceeding from the basic to the general so as to provide a fuller coverage of the national landscape and well-being of the citizenry.

Well, that was a descriptive work in the professional areas of Dr Nnamani. He soon showed he could go into areas outside his professional enclave when he gave the opening speech at the Southern Governors’ Conference in Enugu, January 10, 2001. Before Enugu, the Southern Governors’ Conference was like a jamboree which never exhibited any focus. Nnamani upturned that in his thesis which gave the conference a sense, a focus and the teeth.

That fire had caught and the embers never went down. It was an exhibition of rare intellect which defined the compartments of such issues of southern interests as in resource control, true federalism, state police, et al, to unprecedented levels.

In the same month of January, Chimaroke went to the Igbo Summit at the Hotel Presidential, Enugu. Under the topic: Ndigbo; Let Us Be Frank With Ourselves, he jolted his kinsmen whom he believed had to be woken from the political somnolence to mount adequate vigilance in the way Nigeria has run.

But whereas he held the view that Ndigbo had lost so much in their badly developed national consciousness, he still hoped for a re-awakening which could lift the people. Ndigbo, Taa bu gboo, echi di ime (Let the future begin now). This emerging national conscious“nist” could not have been more apt in his admonition of his great Igbo race.

He had taken them down to their side of old values, reminding them of the great attributes which sustained the fore-bears of Ndigbo in their pristine time, pointing out such vicissitudes of life which they, in generations gone, had had to contend with, even coming out accomplished and reckoned with, as a political and economic force.

Then, just then, the avalanche broke and Governor Nnamani had chased and explored every imaginable topic, be it in philosophy, politics, governance, economy, medicine and the rest. May 15, 2001, he took up the intellectual challenge to arrest a national restiveness, which grew from people’s bloated expectation framework against the overwhelming impediments on the path of national recovery. In that topic: The Press and our Democracy, the part not trodden, Nnamani woke the nation up from the wrong framework being propped by sentimental media analysis which tilted the people’s interpretation of their leaders’ efforts within the then two-year old democracy. Things were regimented in the military era. Nigeria was left to decay. So, time must be allowed for revival. He was blunt and daring.

Then came the Post Express Inaugural Lecture of July 2, 2001 which was held at the MUSON Centre, Onikan, Lagos. Its title was Transition Politics and Nigeria’s Search for Sustainable Democracy. Under this topic Nnamani laid bare the pretension and deception of the national political elite on elections, particularly the needless apprehension caused the common citizens as each drew close.

By his summation, Nigerians should begin to see elections as mere points in democracy, business of the typical politician and not the totality of democracy. He likened it to the process of procreation labour, which begins with conception through pregnancy, culminating in the delivery of the Fetus (baby). Democracy is not limited to elections as labour is not limited to delivery of the Fetus (baby).

He soon followed this with a trip to Kaduna where he worked the topic: The Nigeria Idea … Can the Press Sustain the Nation’s Interest? Under this topic, he lamented the abandonment of the true nationalist struggles by self-seeking politicians and soldiers who reduced the values of true nationalism to ethnicism, and eventually, to the base individual. These, he said, had hardly been unmasked by the press, which ought to be the watchdog and the conscience of the nation.

Then, after then, the call came from home and in Enugu, September 24, 2001, he took on the topic, Ndigbo and the challenge of nation building. It was another special day to hit the nail on the head and he never minced words in getting his people to appreciate the diffuse nature of their political system, the tendency to be carried away by the so-called Igbo individualism and the challenge to be more strategic in political considerations, so as not to continue to be the whipping boy of national power game.

When he arrived Jos, Plateau State, November 18, 2001, Chimaroke Nnamani was plainly saying that he could take up any challenge, what with the courage to mount the podium to address such volatile issues of The Press, the Faith and the State, in a volatile area of Nigeria. Marking the distinctiveness of each even as they coalesced in building the society of equity, justice and fair play, his words were like pulling the citizenry from the bootstrap of fixated ethno-cultural typecasting.

Barely 29 days after the challenging Jos outing, he was home again in Owerri, Imo State, December 14, 2001, where he returned to Igbo issues, forcing discourses on the question he raised, Ndigbo, can your generation sustain our Igboness? In that forum, his searing admonition went again to his people whom he saw as having had the best of Nigeria’s first generation leadership but who had degenerated along the slipshod of the unpardonable prodigal. For him and as he posited, Ndigbo had had it all. Had great nationalists and foremost technocrats, but now appeared to be hemmed in by short-circuit desires and momentary benefits.

When then he arrived the main auditorium of the Babcock University, Ilishan Remo, where he dealt with the issue of the Democracy 2003; it must be the voters’ world, it became clear that this itinerant governor-teacher had so much to offer and perhaps actually been steaming for the big intellectual show. He had, in the treatise of the day, questioned the rationale of national leadership to seek the appeasement of fellow political elite when in reality, the deciding factors of political relevance ought to be anchored on the desires, aims and preferences of the index voter.

Enraged by what he perceived as the wrong direction of Igbo youth in preparing for roles in their country, as elsewhere, he returned, April 11, 2002, to matters in Refocusing Igbo Youth Energy, arguing strongly that such easy and posh flash-points of material success as presented to youths were indeed inimical to national growth and development. According to him, youth must pick the values of hard work, gradual development and eventual consummation of goals as set for each individual.

Sources close to Governor Nnamani’s offices said that at this stage, it was already getting difficult to handle the torrent of invitations to give lectures. As he dealt with them, more were coming and he had not alternative than to chose on the bases of need in favour of the audience.

He then had to take up the matters in National Question in Nigeria and the Democratic Experience in the main auditorium of the University of Lagos, April 23, 2002. There, he further swept the nation into the four dimensional implications of issues in contention in the making of the impending nation state, arguing elaborately that it was never easy, never cut out as in laid down principles and never as were such cases in other lands. The challenge of his thesis on this had further broadened the perception of citizens to appreciate that peculiar experiences of a nation were as important as the desire and other efforts at achieving nationhood. This firm and unassailable position had to come up again in his review of the post-military skirmishes tending to social/cultural militias, which began to be noted on the political landscape. So, on May 20th, Nnamani was at the Press week of the Nigeria Union of Journalist (NUJ) Abuja where he took on the issue of the Wave of Arbitrary Culture in Our Nascent Democracy. Aptly, he admitted that such was expected as the decade long military regimes had infused on the people some bizarre extra-judicial conducts, especially in settling disputes.

But he had followed this with a strong counseling on May 28, 2002, in Abuja, where he presented a democracy as the recipe to rediscover Nigeria, averring that if the political organization was going to be a lasting democracy, then it would be assured that it would provide the Vehicle for Investment Growth and Development.

Unhappily, Governor Nnamani’s lecture circuit was to take a break lasting till November of that year. But the resumption on 28th and 29th of that month, in Enugu marked honing of an exploratory initiative capable of standing the test of times. So, the topics, By the Hills and Valley of Udi and Nsukka … the People, their Heritage, their Future for the Enugu State Development Association (ESDA) and Reflections on Architecture as Societal Mirror … the Enugu Perspectives for the Nigerian Institute of Architects (NIA), revealed the intellectual edifice he had long haboured in his mind.

Thursday, March 13, 2003, was Chimaroke Nnamani’s second return to the Babcock University, Ilishan, Remo where he invested with adjunct Professorship in Political Science of that institution. And true to type, he chose to explore his critical conscious enterprise under the topic, Scare Mongers and the Challenges in a Defective Political Society. This daring speech was a further indictment of the political class, which he clearly accused of unnecessarily inducing tension by attempting to intimidate the common citizenship for mere political gains.

And as the elections closed that year, Nnamani had words of personal and perceptive experiences to show on an emerging menace in the political landscape. It was that Tuesday, of May 20, 2003 at the Nigeria Institute for International Affairs (NIIA), Lagos, that he boldly took upward swing of the arm to deliver the crushing stroke at the question of looming godfather in Nigeria politics. He entitled it The Godfather phenomenon … in democratic Nigeria … silicon or real? This was prophetic as it was barely one month after which what was clearly an evidence of the godfather morass erupted in Anambra State, and corroded the base of state power until it finally consumed the governor, Dr. Chris Ngige. It subsequently erupted in Oyo State and Governor Rasheed Ladoja had to give way to his deputy who was preferred in political dealings by the godfather, Chief Lamidi Adedibu. Till date, the echoes of the godfather phenomenon have remained on the horizon, threatening State after State.

Nnamani was to return, Tuesday, August 5, 2003, to the NIIA, this time, to deal with the question on local government and locality development. In the volume he entitled Confronting the Local Government Question, the matters of conscious locality identity, focus and development was taken as never before, giving an insight into his own system in Enugu where he had commenced a whole scale in-land development with a development center scheme. Indeed, working on the straitjacketed structure of 17 local government areas, the governor had created 39 development centers – an average of three per local government – to ensure coverage and conscious presence of government in every ten kilometers in the State. As explained by his media strategists, the scheme paid off with the elaborate design and implementation of district health programme, which is woven around a district health institution. Each of these in the 39 development centers are drawn to include in-patient ward, out-patient ward, pharmacy, consulting room, emergency ward and such other small scale units of a compact clinic. In addition, other vital agencies of government as represented in local governments are also in-built to meet a short-distance need of the locality people.

When Governor Nnamani responded to invitation of the Kogi State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Tuesday, September 2, 2003, he returned to the knotty issue of time lag and consummation of democracy. Under the topic, Gap Crisis in Transition Democracy and the Challenges of Proper Expectation Framework, which he delivered at the Glass House, Government House, Lokoja, he reiterated his position that the press had yet to assume the role of shaping the expectation framework of the citizenry so as to allow democracy take proper roots. According to him, the press should prepare Nigerians appreciate that it was normal in transition behaviour for the system to witness some lull in the time between military era and the dawn of democracy. Against that background, he firmly argued that all hope was not lost as the regime of military adventure had to take time in wearing out of the political and social system.

This was quickly followed in three weeks by an invitation by Sokoto Forum for Democracy and Justice (SFDJ) for Governor Nnamani to extend his critical consciousness lectures to Sokoto, which culminated in the lecture entitled National Conference in Nigeria: by Who, for Who … power oligarchies or citizens? In the main auditorium of the Uthman Dan Fodio University, Sokoto, Thursday, September 25, 2003, Governor Nnamani was avuncular and professorial in drumming down the fangs of agitation, which, in his estimation, undermined what could be termed a true sovereign national conference. Aptly, he wondered as every reasoned think would, if the clamour was not wrong headed as it was going to be highjacked and perverted by political gladiators. And more importantly, he invited Nigerians to consider moral empowerment for their respective representatives in the various Houses of Assembly at the national, state levels and locality council levels.

Just five days after this epic lecture in the arid Sokoto, what appeared as a mine field was laid for the governor in the second edition of the Bola Ige Posthumous Birthday lecture, September 30, where he was challenged to confront a heady topic, June 12: The North and the rest of us. As was never done by any analyst, he boldly stated that whereas it could be said that a government of Ibrahim Babangida – a Northerner – caused the turmoil in that annulment, he vehemently rejected the typecasting of Northerners as the culprit, arguing that the government in question was made up of citizens from North and South. Moving further off the clime of the hurried conclusion of earlier days on the boiling matter, he questioned the sincerity of the teeming agitators some of whom were far removed from the reality of the desire for actualization of the annulled election. Nevertheless, he averred that a new political behaviour was born as the annulment took place and emotions rode high, giving the nation a good chance of re-examining itself.

Actually, what Governor Nnamani set off to achieve in the lecture circuit, which soon came under the programme of what an aide called the Emerging Thought Foundation, in Enugu, appears now a tireless drive at tackling matters, intellectually, be challenging, frightening and intimidating.

So, if the challenge of June 12: The North and the rest of us, in Ibadan, was a minefield, usually more emotionally taken than soberly reflected, the avalanche of invitations to do these lectures, which now came, an eight for each week, became the higher task in handling. And so, he could not resist the pressure of friends in the Alumni Association of his Nigeria Alma Mata, the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

It, therefore, was firmly in place for him to take on the issue, Poverty in Nigeria: eroding the dignity of man, October 6, 2003 as a prelude to the university’s convocation of October 7, 2003. Done a day before he, Nnamani was awarded the D. Sc (Honoris Causa) for public service and building of public awareness, he set off another chain of intellectual reactions in the study of poverty in Nigeria. Indeed, before this, poverty was merely seen as an incident of lack and punishment of the body and soul for failure to secure material well-being. Nnamani changed all that, arguing that poverty, realized in the higher dimension of the study was more than an incident, but had covered processes and resulted in flawed interventions usually associated with policies and programmes of developing economies.

The fortieth anniversary of the coming to throne of Alhaji Ado Bayero, Emir of Kano, followed quickly and for the elaborate Conference held in that honour, Governor Nnamani was invited to speak on Chieftaincy and Security: an overview of non-contralised East/West Niger Igbo, October 13, 2003. And at the Murtala Mohammed Library Complex, Ahmadu Bello Way, Kano City, he explored the history truncated in the attempts of Nigeria colonizers to hem nations of varied mood and temperament into one single political ethos. And arguing for emphasis on variety so as to apply locality measures to realize proper control mechanism for a more environmentally secure Nigeria, he called for more positive attitude to the rainbow coalition, which Nigeria had presented.

Next on the now busy lecture schedule for Nnamani was the forum of the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association of Nigeria (NPAN) whose 2003 annual programmes included a public lecture entitled The Press and the Nigeria Project. And on October 23, 2003 in the Diamond Hall of the Golden Gate Restaurant, Ikoyi, Lagos, he firmly stated that Nigeria would be what the press would consciously design it to be. On that note, he challenged the press to appreciate its vast responsibilities and apply the necessary caution expected of persons assigned enormous duties.

Subsequently, Governor Nnamani was invited to the second session of the Third Synod of the Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion, Egbu, to talk on the subject of “Righteousness exalts a nation … the case of Nigeria”. There in Umuneke-Ngor, he tackled November 3, 2003, with the same gusto and actually elaborated, to preview Poverty and the Challenge of New Hope Evangelism.

Next on the call was the political science department of the University of Ilorin, which demanded of the Governor to speak on the topic, Globalising in Poverty; November 19, 2003. In the main auditorium of the University of Ilorin, the governor examined the implications of poverty on the developing nations, which would soon be pitch against persons and institutions from the advanced world in the new globalisation process. Contending that Nigerians may not be able to help themselves if they failed to appreciate that they must develop up to world standards in the era, he questioned the seeming dis-interest of governments in pursuing such programmes, which would prepare the citizens for the challenges of competition in the globalising world. Already, as he pointed out, the tragedy of failing to pick the elements of would easily show in the failure of the three basic cannons of globalisation, stakeholder driven democracy, free market and information technology.

Chimaroke, then had to return home at the Protea Nike Lake Resort Hotel, Enugu on the invitation of the Association of Pediatric Surgeons of Nigeria (APSON). He dealt with the issue of Fetus as patient: meeting point between the pediatrician and the obstetric surgeon, November 27, 2003. This was entirely a professional-peer exercise, of which the only thing a layman could pick was that the fetus – the unborn baby should be regarded a full functional human being, even as it stayed ensconced in the womb.

The next port of call was Abuja, December 10, 2003, in Congress Hall of the NILCON (now TRANSCORP) HILTON Hotel. It was the annual Bar Week Lecture of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Abuja branch. He dealt with the issue of the Bar and Bench: Public Expectations in a Nascent Democracy. This was an admixture of quests in unresolved matters in an emerging democracy and the threat to reliable justice system in a very poor economy.

Subsequently, Governor Nnamani imposed an interlude in the circuit, which formed a period of vigorous personal supervision of the sturdier infrastructure base for his dear Enugu State. This has given birth to the now gleaming edifices as the permanent site of the Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT), the universities medical school and teaching hospital, a mega International Conference Centre, 18 computerised Court room Judiciary Headquarters Complex, 326 two-bedroom flat named Loma Linda Estate, Dualisation of Chime Avenue, underground Tunnel crossing to link the veritable Artisan/Ogui Road and Okpara Avenue, the Z.C. Obi Link road, which is now connecting the Nza Street in Independence Layout and Chime Avenue in New Haven, and of course, the various routine projects of which the aim is to bring a turn-around for the State.

Yet, the truth soon came to surface that Governor Nnamani could not fend off pressure to give more lectures. The most persistent at the time, it was learnt was a group of professional colleagues who insisted that he must speak on Poverty … the Challenge of Medical Ethics. And it was March 17th, 2005, in the Conference Hall of the Protea Nike Lake Resort Hotels that he reemerged, blasting the sloppy attitude of professionals who mixed sacred calls for duty with unquenchable avarice for material.

Subsequently, the drums for power grab anchored on zoning political offices appeared on the horizon and Governor Nnamani had the great urge to state it the way he felt. In response to the South-East Zonal operations of Campaign for Democracy (CD); Human Rights Justice and Peace Foundation and Arewa Youths Progressive Forum which could not hold back their own urge to have one tested speaker to examine the matters of power rotation and zoning, he took up the issue of Artisans as leaders … zoning to power. But this time again, it was in Kaduna, to be sure, in the Arewa House, Centre for Historical Research and Documentation, Wednesday, July 20, 2005, where he laid it prostrate that zoning could not be expected to guarantee quality of leadership. Rather, it would engender a divisive Nigeria whose citizens would be reduced to the fancies of fast-buck politicians masquerading as their representatives.

Now, as the circuit re-gathered momentum, the corrosive nature of poverty, albeit the superstitious response of the ignorant, constituted a source of concern for Governor Nnamani, who swiftly accepted to take on the subject again, this time – July 29, 2005 - in the bowels of Oduduwa Hall of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife. He chose to tackle what he called Poverty in Surplus…water, water, everywhere; little ever to drink. Although not really indicting the government, he concluded that if the various governments had worked hard at attuning the citizenry to explore their possible best potentials, much of the constrains of poverty would have been removed, and that is especially in view of the fact of abundance of resources in Nigeria, where horrendous, high magnitude natural disasters were rare.

Just one day after this well responded lecture at Ile Ife, he moved over to Lagos on the invitation of the Association of International Lions’ Club, District 404, Ikeja, whose appointed audience in the Sheraton Hotel and Towers, that day, listened to the seeming banal topic, Poverty in Nigeria…we are all in it together. Perhaps, no Nigerian leader, other than Governor Nnamani, would appreciate and drum up the realism that the national economic horizon maintained one pattern of transience of which nothing could be more unstable than the statuses of individuals who had to be thrown from poor to rich and from rich back to poor, due mainly to an unstable economy.

Since that lecture, the governor beamed at the reporter, he had to stay put in Enugu and personally supervise his enormous projects. He feels satisfied in both endeavours, stating that each would be treated as they came and time allocated in their order of necessity.

Then, his domineering powerful car negotiated the last turn into the Government House where he leapt off the wheels and pumped hands with reporter before hurrying to a function in the Executive Chambers.

His aides then took over.

Aghanwanze is a Lagos-based journalist.