His background as a fetal surgeon prepared him adequately for this. He distinguished himself in America in this rare area of medicine. Having done that he wanted to take more challenges. This time around, he looked beyond the shores of America and remembered his own country - Nigeria. He came and took a plunge into the murky waters of Nigerian politics. Again, he conquered. He beat all his rivals to become Enugu State governor in May 1999.

In 2003, the obstacles against his re-election became much more formidable, with Chief Jim Nwobodo, then the father of Enugu State politics leading the opposition. Again, he silenced them all.

Nnamani realized that power won through the support of the people is not meant to be kept idle. It is to be used to promote the welfare of the electorate. Today, he is doing just that. He is transforming Enugu into a model state.

Many people think he is biting more than he can swallow. But he thinks the risk is worth taking. And he is succeeding. The Newswatch team of Dan Agbese, editor-in-chief, Maureen Chigbo, general editor and Mike Akpan, editorial consultant was recently in Enugu. What the governor’s doing for his people, how he’s doing them and making success of them are the subject of our cover story this week.

Governor Nnamani speaks to Newswatch editors Dan Agbese, editor-in-chief, Maureen Chigbo, general editor and Mike Akpan, editorial consultant on his achievements and his legacies. Excerpts:

From what we have seen this afternoon, it is like it is the second phase of your development plan?

Nnamani:
I came back from America to implement a vision, The vision to rather than staying outside and looking in, to at least come within the corridors of power and be part of the decision making process. In America, I have gotten used to dividends of democracy that you do take for granted like turning the switch and you have light, running water, roads, mothers going to the hospitals to deliver and going home safe, kids going to the emergency room and going home. Those things they took for granted in America. Being in America, I realized that home was different, where kids still die routinely from diarrhea; mothers still die routinely from childbirth. And when Americans demonstrate fighting for democracy they can demonstrate over things like the right to wear uniform, whether or not to pray at school.

I felt that things were more fundamental at home and I wanted to come back and be part of it. I also realized that the human system, man is born perfect; God created a perfect being right from the eggs, fertilization through the various stages if human development through maturity, the human system is perfect. I felt God should not go through such a process only to produce something that is imperfect, that man has greater calling to uplift society. Man has a responsibility to leave a better society than he met it. I felt just succeeding in America with a practice, a house, a family, a car- that there was more to it if it were back home. I needed to come back and be part of it and implement the vision of my people and implement the vision using political power to use Enugu State as a model of what change democracy can make to the so called third world. And being an Enugu boy growing up here, I was already in tune with the Enugu society. That was why I left America and came home. And of course my American background, training gave me the confidence that I could come here and move with the guys and succeed. When I came back to Nigeria and was blessed enough to become the Governor of Enugu State, we articulated a clear vision of our programmes for the state. We also felt that democracy then was essentially transitory, in motion, it is inherently unstable because it is experimental. And coming from America I was also a little bit anxious about the permanence of that democracy, about the stability of that democracy. I was also a little bit worried. And we felt that to defend that democracy; it must be protected by something more than the armored cars, artillery guns, and men in uniform. Democracy needed to be anchored by the people. And for the people to rise and defend that democracy it must be protected by something concrete for their investment. That was why we talked about dividends of democracy. That is when people vote something they get in return, what their vote represent not just equality, justice, freedom. Something that they can touch-water, roads, health facilities. When we talk about dividends of democracy, there are the new-look roads. We have the ring road network connecting all the local government headquarters. We are already building about 500 kilometres of asphalt road. We talked about our health district system, where we divided our state into 56 health districts, for primary health care. For secondary health care we use general hospitals. We ended up having 24 cottage hospitals. That was how we started. We did the same thing for education – school district system. Knowing fully well that we couldn’t put computers in all the schools, laboratory facilities in all the schools, modern equipment, libraries in all the schools, so we did what we called school districts centers, where group of schools will share these facilities. We also identified more than 200 communities, hired 2000 teachers for both primary and secondary schools. Many water projects made up of twin boreholes, 50,000-gallon tanks, and some as much as 14 kilometres of pipeline circulation. We built the law school; we built the Air force school and so many other things. That was what we did during the six years of our lives. And of course, two years into the first tenure I gave a presentation to the southern governor’s meeting. The presentation was so well received. The palpable energy generated during the speech was so good. So we started our lecture series. The lecture circuit became a form of self-education, self-enlightenment for me. It was in the cause of the lecture circuit that I ran into poverty. I had to do some work and had to study poverty and its implication in an emerging democracy. At the same time, DFID was also getting interested in Enugu State. So the whole thing happened at the same time. So by the time we were starting the second term we had become exposed to the DFID. I now became convinced that it was all about poverty. It was no longer dividend of democracy. It was all about poverty. Of course, in our first term of office, we were talking poverty but we didn’t call it that. We just didn’t click on it. So what we did with DFID was to try to define poverty? There are several definitions of poverty. People could be excluded either because of race. It could be capability –that is where the state fails to provide enabling environment for people to actualize there minimum capability either in terms of their reproductive rights, health, education facilities, environmental sustainability. So we defined poverty using a participatory means. What we did was that the stakeholders tried to identify what it means to poor and not poor. What we did was to get all the stakeholders – civil servants, okada riders, traditional rulers, NGO, traders etc. We called the whole society and locked ourselves up and held a series of dialogue, broke into groups to define poverty. We went into all definitions of poverty. Once we defined poverty in Enugu State, we set up what we call poverty reduction strategy. First of all, we set up what we call ministry of human development and poverty reduction. We broke it into health and human services, wealth creation, criminal justice system. We had immediate intervention programmes.

Were you able to determine the level of poverty in Enugu?

Nnamani:
Yes and no. You have to look at the genesis of the poverty rate over the years. Starting from poverty rate of about 15 percent in 1952. The growth rate of the eastern regional economy was at par with the advanced economy of he world, far advanced than that so called Asian tigers –Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore. Going down to 24 percent in the 70’s. By the time the civilian administration was coming in it was questionable between 60 and 87 percent. This was where it was until a few years ago.

But, of course, you know these figures have become politicized with people in government trying as much as possible to keep it down and people outside trying to keep it up. Of course, those that are pro-government and those anti-government. But the bottom line is to look at the human development index, which looks at 189 countries. Nigeria is in bottom 18. If you look at access to computer, access to electricity, Nigeria could be way down there above Eritrea, Sudan, Afghanistan and one more country. Look at computer technology, which you know is n index of globalisation. If you look at globalisation as a major tool for countries getting out of poverty and look at computer needs, you will see that we are number four from bottom, which, of course, forms the three cannons of globalization - privatisation, information technology and democracy.

So we came up with our poverty reduction strategy. At the same time we looked at the Millennium Development Goals, several indicators – reducing poverty by 2015, training students up to JSS 3, reducing infant mortality by two-thirds, decreasing maternal mortality by three-quarters and providing homes for hundreds of millions through global partnership. Government still has to provide for people in the rural areas. That was what we did through a holistic poverty reduction programme. There are several agencies. One is the DFID intervention programme.

There is a programme called LEEMP – Local Environmental Empowerment Monitoring Programme. I believe DFID also has a programme called SSLGP. Let me give you an example how it works. We have what we call school meal plus. We call it school meal plus because it is more than a meal. It is a programme where an index child in a community gets a balanced meal a day. That child upon being integrated into the programme and on a yearly basis gets medical preparation to get medical records of what they call morphormetric data in terms of weight, height, hearing, document things like colour blindness, attention disorder and what it means to that child. We also need the documentation to buy vitamin supplements, if necessary provide malaria drugs. We want to make sure that the siblings are within the educational system. If the mum is pregnant she will need the help of the health system. That is why it is called the school meal plus.

In addition to that, we have early child school learning system. That is, little kids at what we call the kindergarten, so that when the little ones are going they go with their smaller ones. So within the community, when the school meal plus is going on through DFID intervention programme, the SSLGP will provide rural roads within that community, provide electricity either in form of transformer or generator. LEEMP could also have an interventionist programme through a community committee. It could be health, electricity or water facilities. The rural water sanitation agencies, RUWAN, will come to that community and do a VIP latrine either within the school premises or within the community. Even though the target programme is school meal but SSLGP comes in to boreholes or shallow wells. This is a holistic approach to rural development. Another example of our intervention is the public service reform like the fire service, which went through a reform supported by DFID. Reforms that involve physical rehabilitation of the facilities, training. Capacity building to achieve service standard delivery in terms of response time, management of internally generated revenue. We also did public service reform in our civil service with computerization of our civil service records and proper IDS and services. They also did a charter in terms of service charter. What does the civil servant owe the general public?

In the area of wealth creation, we had what we called neighborhood associations. But what we did was to formalize this neighborhood association in terns of factors – either contiguous or homogenous factor either in terms of number. So given this neighbourhood association, we can now plan for micro credit scheme or we can plan for security / vigilante. I am sure that Enugu State is the pilot of pilots in community policing.

So in the area of wealth creation, we set up what we call business pack and also SME advisory center and what we call community business organizations. Working with DFID, we set up competition for young entrepreneurs. And those who won got N5 million, N3 million and N1 million to set up business ideas, monitor it and implement it.

In the area of criminal justice system, working with what we called Access to Justice, which is now called Security, Justice and Growth, we did some reform of criminal justice system starting with automation of the office of justice. Refurbishing of the Ministry of Justice with computers and generators. We also did an update on the Laws of Enugu State. We have always used Laws of Anambra as it applied to Enugu State. Working with the DFID we produced Laws of Enugu State. I think they gave us N7 million and we brought N7 million to produce Laws of Enugu. We also did capacity building in the areas of alternative dispute resolution, record keeping . We also did capacity building for customary court judges. We set up a Citizenship Rights and Mediation Center that was commissioned when the ambassadors came. So we did a lot and also computerized our land registry.

I believe we are going to work with DFID to computerize the judicial headquarters. In the area of health working with DFID we had a programme called PATHS (Partnership for Transforming Health Systems). Working with PATHS, we now went through the whole dialogue so when you are doing a report, what you do is to call stakeholders. Remember what I told you about the sectors, after having the stakeholders meeting, each of these sectors had to do its own series of dialogue to further identify poverty reduction strategy. So the health sector went over its stakeholders meeting again and decided that 56 health districts were just too much and they brought it down to seven health care districts. So by law we have seven. Health districts are to decentralize healthcare to the locality to make it easy for data collection. We got a lot of help from DFID. Initially, they gave us 500,000 pounds and later to spend up to four million pounds to furnish the Health Districts. What I am giving you is an overview of the major projects we are doing apart from the major projects you are seeing.

Have you been able to assess the impact of your poverty reduction strategy?

Nnamani:
Yes. A few weeks ago we had a visit from 14 European Union Ambassadors, who requested for raw data. It is being collected but I can tell you that when you look at the effect on school enrolment, we have the highest percentage of the female members of the house of assembly and of the females in the local governments as chairmen or supervisor. It is part of poverty reduction strategy. We have women who are customary court judges. It is mostly unheard of. They are seven. Enugu State is the leading state in terms of sustainable development with development partners.

There is this federal government poverty reduction programme. Is Enugu State not part of this programme?

Nnamani:
Our programme is factored into federal government’s programme for the state. Of course, when you go round the state I am sure you will see those mama and papa stores. Those containers, business containers. It’s everywhere. For us it is good business. It is a dilemma as to maintaining the aesthetics of the city than giving people their fundamental right of doing business in the sun and put food on the table, especially in a society where there is failure of the social contract.

What is that telling? Is it the right thing to do?

Nnamani:
People looking for space, economic space. It is population growth. Those that came back from the north. It is the economy. When we came into government, we had five banks, now we have about 50. I am sure you have heard of the Ama Brewery. The biggest single foreign investment since 1999.

Will you be able to complete all the projects you have before you leave office?

Nnamani:
We are going to finish them. My commitment is to make sure they are finished. I am hoping that the government here will maintain it. I am looking at a bright future with a lot of enthusiasm and optimism.

How much is your state allocation of the Federation Account and how much have you spent on the projects alone?

Nnamani:
We are way down in terms of allocation. As you know, Enugu state is way down there in terms of allocation. We have received about N43 billion since 1999. So, we are way down in terms of allocation. We may be one of the five states sharing the number three position from below. It is just some financial re-engineering and a l lot of credit to the staff that work with me. The accountant-general, commissioner for finance, the economic team and as you can see, I am fully aware of work going on, whether you are putting window, doing drainage. I was involved in the design of projects. Whenever I am in town I visit all those projects on a daily basis. I was involved in the briefs of those projects so I understand what is happening. Whenever I am in town I visit the projects.

How successful is…

Nnamani:
Very successful. Most of those programmes were finished. We had problems here and there. Vandalisation, community crisis. We have problems here and there. But programs are on.

How much did you spend on the university?

Nnamani:
The bulk pack is about N14 billion.

The projects we visited are being handled by one contractor throughout.

Nnamani:
When you came in 2001, we were using only Strabag. I have tried to refrain from discussing this because it is part of the secret of our success. I am never enthusiastic letting out secrets until the job is done. But because of questions of transparency which I am sure that they could release the result of the bench marking, it could show clearly that in an era of transparency in the projects, we are way up there. What we needed to do was to award the contract and made sure that it was advertised. We also wanted to be sure of the actual cost of building that university. We put 10 percent on top of it for profit and 10 percent for contingency. So when you go through the bidding process, the contractor we started with has an inherent advantage, because he is already mobilized. So even if we go through the bidding process and all the bidders fall within range that is not outrageous then we award the contract to him because it makes sense. When you have 13 projects and you have 6-13 contactors, for each new project you are going to mobilize. Mobilization could be anywhere from 10 to 30 percent. So how do you mobilize the contract for teaching hospital of N6 billion? So how do you mobilize the contractor for the university project of N14 billion? Mobilize the contractor for the judiciary, conference centre. It is not possible. So once the contractor meets that parameter we award the contract. We started with one contractor, then added two more. The advantage is to make sure that we pay the contractor monthly on certificate produced. The way he spreads it among the contract he is doing. We did not mobilize him for each contract. But we make sure he maintains cash flow. And as long as he maintains cash flow he is going to continue working on all the sites because that’s the only way he can generate certificate. If he concentrates on one site, he runs out of certificate. So you keep working. He is not going to make profit until all the contracts are done. We are also in a hurry because we are a government that is leaving and we don’t want to run into problems of cost variations.

These projects are very major projects and I was wondering why you did not tackle them in your first term.

Nnamani:
Only God knows. Even at some of my quite moments I wonder why I didn’t start earlier. I believe we had a full plat. That’s what we call experience, that’s what we call age. I believe that leadership comes with experience. I believe that it took us time to really zero in. we were building roads, building health centres, water projects. How to finally put together is like a painting on canvass. It is like a big puzzle. If you put it together it will work for you. First of all, it was very challenging. It takes a lot of courage to start a university, start judiciary headquarters. It needs a lot of courage. And a sense of history. Only God knows. But if we had started it early it would have been cheaper. It would have been best. But God’s time, they say, is best.

I thought maybe it reflects your personal confidence that you have achieved the basic things and you can now concentrate on you legacies.

Nnamani:
I wouldn’t take credit for it. That’s why we always say to God be the glory. I cannot explain it. The honest truth is that I cannot take the glory. I believe that it is an urgency. Suddenly we discovered that we were leaving in 2007 and that the power we sought was the power to do good and there may not be another time in history.; we may never have this opportunity again. Our time will pass and when the story is going to be told what would they say of us? How does man remember us? How is our story to be told? One thing is clear: we will never pass this way again., we are not doing this for five years, 10 but 100 for posterity. We are not doing it for mere mortal because man cannot understand this. The elite don’t even understand it. They are putting up all sort of advertorials accusing us of all sorts of things and when you add up the accusation, you are talking of almost N30 billion, for a state that got N43 billion; accusing me of building this, building that. They themselves know it is not true. But we do not reply them because what they want is to drag us into an argument. There is what you call elitist deceit, disconnect. If there is no elitist deceit one will believe that the power class would have no reason to question what we are doing. Rather what they should be doing.

How much do you spend on projects?

Nnamani:
I spent everything on projects apart from salary. When the money comes every month, I told you that we live on recycling overdraft. What that means is that we get a bulk pack of about N1 to N1.2 billion. When you get excess crude, it adds up to about N1.4. we pay salaries of teachers, civil servants, state subvention, warrant, bring out money for donations, travel to Abuja, for governor’s staff or for whatever, once we do that the whole money is taken in bulk to contractors. Whether it is N500 million or N1 billion, it is taken like that to the contractor. And we start waiting for another one. And that’s how we are going to do it till we leave office. The bulk of our payments will go into these projects. The rest will go into salary.

You inherited some debts when you came into office?

Nnamani:
Five months wages arrears for civil servants and more than that for teachers, parastatals, water corporation, universities, some as high as nine months. 13 months.

You have cleared all that?

Nnamani:
We have paid. We have discharged all those.

By 2007, you would have ruled this state much longer than anybody else.

Nnamani:
No, no, no, I would have been in service for the state, not rule. Service not rule.

Service. I thought that in the process you must have acquired the status of Godfather?

Nnamani:
No. I am not going to do that. I don’t believe in that. Even in Igbo, we say that it is the prayer of the father that the son should grow to be greater than him. May me some level of mentorship, advisory sort. I see a bright future for Nigeria. A bright future for Enugu state. Where people see dusk I see dawn. Where they see rainstorm, I see rainbow inn the sky. I believe tomorrow will be better than today. That is the essence of hope. It is that hope that is guiding us. It is hope that tomorrow will be better that makes you go to bed and sloop. If you don’t have that hope you won’t sleep. You just toss and turn until morning. It is the hope that is guiding all of us. I believe that by the grace of God, whoever is likely to be here will be better educated. May be younger, maybe more hardworking. May approach governance form a much better standpoint that there will be little need for interference. If it works out the way we want it. Unless he comes to Agbani once in a while to say hello, I am unlikely to be a guest at the government house. I am not a jobber. I will likely find something to do to keep me busy. If he comes to see me fine, if I run to him and I have to give advice fine. If ther3e is absolute need for me to come and see him I will come and see him. But I am not going to sit down with somebody sharing commissioners or sharing local government chairmen. Or picking candidates for election or begging him to come and put water in my town, in my village or begging him to do electricity or do road. I have done all those things. If there is a pothole on my way, I can arrange to get asphalt somewhere and fill it. I can do that.

Are you actually telling us that you will not have a say in who becomes governor in 2007?

Nnamani:
Highly unlikely. We have a political group here and I appear to be the oldest. I have been nominating ministers. I have been involved in sending people to the senate, one of whom is the senate president. After eight years in office, what will I be out there struggling for? Is it to be a minister? Is it to be senator? Is it to go to House of Representatives what is there that I will be out there struggling for that I don’t have younger men who can be out there doing it?

Are you telling us that you are not interested in who succeeds you?

Nnamani:
I am. As a group we are. I do not have a personal interest. But as belonging to a political group, it is inherent that we will be struggling to have one of us sitting here. It is done all over the world. We are going to struggle aggressively to ensure that one of us sits down here. He is likely to pursue our programmes and give us peace of mind. If that is what you want to know.

You talk as if you are going into political oblivion.

Nnamani:
I will go into political oblivion. But I won’t go into social oblivion. I will still remain a social being.

Are you interested in becoming the president?

Nnamani:
No, I am not.

Are you interested in becoming the vice-president?

Nnamani:
Far from it.

So what is it you want?

Nnamani:
I have gotten what I want. God has given me what I want. By 2007, I would have been governor of Enugu state for eight years and still in my 40s. I have a skill, acquired skill. I will go and use it.

When we were inspecting projects, we heard people shouting Ebeano. What does it mean to you?

Nnamani:
Ebeano is like a “feel good” phenomenon. Ebeano, you can describe it. It is like describing how Coca Cola tastes. What you know is that there is certain thing that coke does to you when you are thirsty. Ebeano is something good. It is something exhilarating. It is something that comes with a level of confidence, affirmation something that is good. Something that is categorical. Something that is not equivocal. Ebeano is a statement that something is good. It is clear and simple, either black or whit.

Is it a slogan?

Nnamani:
Well, you can call it a slogan. It is a statement. It is good feeling. Something that connotes good feeling.

How do you feel when they shout it?

Nnamani:
I feel good.

What percentage of our vision have you realized?

Nnamani:
Unfair question, very unfair. A vision is not talked in percentage. A vision is the totality of a concept. You cannot talk of what percentage you realized. Everything has to come together. Come back March next year. My greatest day is the day I go to Ebeano in the university and I see a group of students at the freedom square happy. Drive through the tunnel to Parklane Teaching Hospital. Go to the conference centre. Loma Linda, then the vision is met.

What has been the most frustrating experience so far?

Nnamani:
Frustrating experience or impediments which one? We can’t talk about frustration. But we can talk about impediments. Impediments have been finances. Frustration carrying people along, getting people to move along at my speed, at my energy, keeping up. When I came from America I didn’t really realize the level of elitist deceit going on in Nigeria. I only realized that only when I came here and became governor. There is nothing wrong in being a elite. But the true elite will want to carry people along. So you don’t have to carry copper wire on your fence. You can have your big house and your small pump out there serving from your borehole in the house. You can still have a driver and be concerned where your driver’s children are going to school. You can still do that contract and may be take 15 percent or 20 percent. You can still decide whether you want to be a senator or a member of the House of Representatives or governor based on the programme. I believe there is an elitist deceit.

The Nigerian elite has to understand that it is in his own interest to carry his people along in order to enjoy his money. It is the same thing with debt relief. Debt relief is not because the western nations love us that much. You have to understand that right from slavery, colonialisation that the problems of territory, urban unrest all has to do with poverty. So, again it is possible that by taking acre of debt relief and other problems of poverty we are building an environment for holistic peace.. so, for you to be comfortable you have to carry the masses along. There is an elitist deceit.