Res ipsa loquitur! Yes, that is it. The fact speaks for itself in the Coal City State. The Governor of Enugu State, Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani, a seasoned medical practitioner, renowned for his brilliance and aptitude in the medical realm, has cleared the people’s doubt through the positive transformation the state has undergone since his assumption of office. With surgical precision and the wits of Solomon, Chi-boy, the name which the common people of the state know him by, has succeeded in restoring the metropolitan status of the former Eastern Nigerian capital. An expert in man-management, Governor Nnamani accommodates constructive criticisms and upholds tolerance as one of the pillars of democracy, while detractors are left at the mercy of his stunning records. Ebeano, as he is also popularly called, jealously guards his area of responsibility with the similitude of a lion and its tender cubs as he placed security as one of his premium in his scale of preference. In this interview granted to the New Soja correspondent, Maureen Chima and Warrant Officer Ogbonna Wabara, Governor Nnamani opens up on his peculiar style of governance and the secrets of his successful governance.

Soja: Sir, your words and deeds rank you among the “Governor friends of the Army” in the Federation. Does your level of interaction with the Army before you assumed the mantle of leadership of Enugu State explain this? What other factors would you say account for your disposition towards the Army?

Gov. Nnamani: Thank you. First of all, I must welcome Chima-Maureen and Ogbonna Wabara to interview a Chima Nnamani! Having said that, I must say that it is a honour and privilege to welcome what I would describe as the window to the world of the Nigerian Army to Enugu State for this interview. I believe this interview is part of a discourse that is necessary in a democracy as we have in Nigeria today. My admiration and respect for the Nigerian Army is out of a sense of history, a sense of history of the role the army has played over the years, right from First World War, through the Second World War, to the peace-keeping they have done in Congo and other areas, to maintenance of national integration, all through independence, through the civil war, to mid-wifing the democratic process which we are enjoying today. So I believe it is out of respect for men and women who have agreed to sign a contract to pay the ultimate prize, as part of service to the nation. The Army is one of those few professions where you actually sign a contract, knowing fully well that your life could be paid in the process. So I have a great deal of respect for the army. I have also interacted with a lot of people in the Army that I have respect for, through the academic institution, through the Youth Service Corps, through living in Enugu here – 82 Division. So I have great respect for them.

Soja: How would you assess the Army/civilian relationship in Enugu State?

Gov. Nnamani: Well, the Army/civilian relationship in Enugu State is very good, very very good. The Army is part of us. We don’t take them as strangers. They are part of our society. They are fully integrated. When we took off, we had the gate, you remember the famous gate at the Abakaliki road? We had wonderful relationship. We have had wonderful GOCs pass through here, Sangotade, Adewuyi etc. So many of them have passed through here. They are part of our system. 0f course, you know that the Army is part of our Security Council. At present, we have a joint Army/Police/Air Force team patrolling our city. We don’t take them as outsiders. They are part of our system. We share their pain and they share our joy. We share it together, we also share their joy. So we don’t look at the Army as a federal establishment, we look at them, the Army, their families, as part of a greater Enugu society. So we have not had one single incident of Army/civilian discord here, not even one.

Soja: Most Army locations in Enugu State, particularly 82 Division, have enjoyed the support and assistance of your government. Would you like to talk about some specific areas of assistance and what it takes to extend such gestures?

Gov. Nnamani: Well, as I said earlier, we take them as part of us. We have tried to make sure that the Water Corporation maintains water supply through the pipelines to the Army. We have also tried to participate in all their activities, WASA etc. They are also part of our activities. We are also involved in their festivals. We make sure that they are taken care of, in terms of provision of some welfare, either during Christmas - both Christian or Moslem festivals - make sure we do provide some welfare to the men and women of the Nigerian Army, sometimes through provision of cow and some stipends to celebrate those festivals. We try to do that. I try to get personally involved, if invited: weddings, social activities, baptism. We get involved. The same as in church harvests, or other activities of the Army. We try to be part of their activities. If I am not directly involved, I send representatives and also provide some assistance, if asked for.

Soja: The Nigerian Army has been involved in the construction of roads and bridges and the provision of medical services to the people, in collaboration with the governments of some states of the federation. Are such programmmes envisaged in Enugu State?

Gov. Nnamani: Well, thank you. Now that you have said it, you know as civilians or people in the civil society, I may say that there is always the tendency to know where to draw the line between interaction with members of the armed forces and their family but just from this interview, it is clear to me that there is the need to have a closer interaction, especially in areas that concern the Millennium Development Goals, to know what is happening in those barracks, in terms of education, in terms of primary basic schooling education, what is happening to them in terms of healthcare activities, especially in the areas of certain intervention. Take malaria for example or HIV. What is happening in terms of ante-natal care, even in terms of job acquisition? So, even though I know that the army as an institution does have it own programmes, but just thinking aloud in this interview, I believe that there are areas where government will get involved. I believe one has to address the bureaucracy first before all that.

Soja: Army barracks in Enugu State are populated largely by dependants of officers and soldiers who come from different parts of Nigeria. Is there any plan by your government to enable them benefit from your Poverty Alleviation Progammes?

Gov. Nnamani: Yes, well, I am sure that you know that I have had the opportunity to review the history of the development of the Nigerian Army Corps, the Corps of engineers, right from the Olusegun Obasanjo period and many others and have had the opportunity to revere the history and the role they played, through the war efforts, bringing down bridges and pulling them back. We are well aware of it but we have not tapped that resource in Enugu State. I am sure that, as Wabara, coming from Aninri, here in Enugu State, there is a bridge there, there is 0gbaku bridge. We are lucky to have few bridge engineers available in the country in our Ministry of Works so they have to go to Okpanku to take up the bridge there. That is an area we may have to address in the future if needed, but I can tell you that I am certainly cautious and mindful of the history of the development of the Nigerian Army Corps of Engineers and all the people that have passed through there, especially the President, Olusegun Obasanjo.

Soja : The security situation in some states of the Federation has degenerated to a level where the military has become perpetually involved in helping to maintain the peace. This, in comparative terms, is not the case in Enugu State. Would you like to share with us the secrets that have fostered this situation?

Gov. Nnamani: What we had in Enugu State, that we have had for sometime now, is the reinvigoration of our security system, both surveillance and also interventional activities. We had to provide vehicles and security equipment to the State Police Command. We had to go further than that because of the activities in our neighbouring states, especially Anambra State. We had an influx of a lot of hoodlums within Enugu here because of the intense security activities in Anambra. So, we had to resort to working with the Nigerian Army to provide a combined team of Nigerian Army, Nigeria Air Force and the police, to provide security within Enugu metropolis and Nsukka. I believe that because of our level of development, as part of the process of globalization where there are emphases of excellence, free market, free enterprise and of course, exposure to media, the CNN, Channel O; there seems to be a boisterous and aggressive assertion of civil rights and expression of faiths. So we have all sorts of tendencies and of course, with an explosion of the unemployment market and a lot of graduates unemployed and the problem of cultism. And we have in Enugu what can be called a University town. So Enugu here, with three or four universities, with three or four Polytechnics, colleges of education, is a University town. As such, you expect these activities but we are approaching it aggressively and I am sure that in the next few weeks, we will take care of it. I believe that the Army, because of the caliber of the men they have, the caliber of materials and their mentality, they are still in some way so completely excluded from the idea of collecting money at the checkpoint, (laughs). We don’t see much of that from the Army, so there are going to be tendencies of radiating from them, from time to time, interventional activities, to help stem the problem with insecurity.

Soja: The Nigerian military in a democratic dispensation has been preoccupied with core military duties and what the military hierarchy described as re-professionalization efforts. How do you see this development in the light of global political trends?

Gov. Nnamani: Well, clearly, if you look at the history of Nigeria, from the early colonialism, the annexation of the Lagos colony, the amalgamation of 1914, regionalism, early journalism, the fight for independence, through the activities of late 1965, January 1966, subsequently the civil war and various military interventions that came about and now democracy, you can see that the Nigeria Army appears in global history just like other countries, countries in South America, countries like Egypt and even Italy and France, they also had episodes of involvement of the military. So I believe that the Nigerian Army is part of the process of globalization which essentially has as its cannons globalization, information technology, stakeholder-driven developmental governance and true enterprise, privatization. So you can see that the Nigerian Army is also being exposed to the effects of globalization. We now have all-round soldiers as it were, soldiers that have professional backgrounds, have the exposure, that are also digitally compliant, who understand democracy, who have also seen that even the military sector, just like other sectors of the society, thrives better under democracy because globalization emphasizes merit, globalization emphasizes excellence, it even endorses the human spirit. Rather than relying on geography, relying on other auxiliary factors, it brings out the true man or the true woman and is ready to expose the power of the human spirit. So I believe that the Nigerian Army is part of the process of globalization going on in Nigeria today and there is no doubt that when you look at the caliber of the people at the top, the Chief of Defence Staff, the various principal officers, the GOCs and even the officers, when you discuss with them, you see a holistic attempt at building a great soldier.

Soja: It has been in the news that you constructed the first underground tunnel in Nigeria which links two parallel but busy commercial hubs in your state. Could you comment on the motivating force behind this and similar ground-breaking achievements of your administration?

Gov. Nnamani: Our interest in governance is the same. We are in pursuit of history. We know that animals vegetate; if they see food, they eat, but human beings do more than that, they try to create food, they even try to create roads. So, that is the difference between man and animal. Man tries to influence his society, not to dominate it but to influence it. We see political power as an opportunity to change our environment, an opportunity to make history, so that when people are going to be counted, we also wait to be counted. The idea is, many years from now, we could not be said to have just passed through. We didn’t just pass through. We are trying to stamp our presence in the sands of history of our people. So, our major philosophy when we started governance in 1999 was what we described as dividends of democracy. That is, we believe that it is not armed forces, it is not even the constitution or democracy, but the people, the will of the people, and the people can only fight when they see something in exchange for their votes, something tangible, something concrete, something they can touch. So, when they vote, they expect dividends from that vote. That is what is described as dividends of democracy, what our people can get in exchange for their votes That was why we embarked on aggressive infrastructure, through development in areas of water, electricity and also providing an enabling environment for the private sector to thrive but as we moved into 2003, early 2003, 2004, it became clear to us that it was more than dividends of democracy. The United Nations General Assembly came out with a road map of about forty indicators that will help alleviate poverty and decrease poverty by 2015. So it now became clear to us. If you look at the constitution, you will see that the essence of governance is the welfare of the people. Governance without the welfare of the people is a nullity. So if you are going to move Enugu State from A to B and it is not in the interest of the people, you have wasted your time, you wasted your resources. So it became clear to us that the most single indicator, the greatest threat to democracy, the greatest threat to development, is poverty. So we now decided to focus on poverty, focus on the Millennium Development Goals which are to defuse poverty, reduce hunger, to address the Universal Basic Education, address gender empowerment and gender parity, address infant mortality, maternal mortality, address HIV/AIDS, malaria, address things like environmental sustainability and of course, global partnership. So we are lucky, because we had the opportunity at the right time to develop relationship with development partners, such development partners as DFID, WHO, UNICEF, SEDA, a network of development partners. Of course, we went through a stakeholders’ dialogue – getting all stakeholders together: civil servants, teachers, traders, legislators, traditional rulers. We now got together, went through series of dialogues to define poverty. In defining poverty, is it monetary poverty, is it based on social exclusion, is it based on capability approach - because there are so many ways of defining poverty. It could be monetary, that is one dollar a day, it could be social exclusion, where the system or otherwise excludes people because of race, because of deformity, it could be due to capability, where the system does not provide enough facilities or resources put to reach their potentials, so there are so many ways. So we had to go through a stakeholders- driven dialogue to define poverty, poverty in Enugu and got definite modalities to address poverty in the area of health. We started what we call the School Meal Plus programme. School Meal Plus programme was just more than providing a meal a day to a child. We also provided health data analyses, health evaluation, health exam to check for dentition, to check visual acuities, check for hearing, look at the morphermetary data in terms of weight, the growth of the child. It also gave us the opportunity to look at that index child and the mother. Is she in the health system, the siblings, are they in school? So in terms of poverty reduction, on feeding that child, you are reducing hunger; by making sure that the School Meal Plus is home-grown, you are decreasing poverty because you are operating business for the women and members of the society. It showed clear 200 per cent increase in school enrollment and it showed increase in weight and other health parameters for the child so you are decreasing infant mortality. So if you also provide some antenatal care services, you are decreasing maternal mortality because of the auxiliary activities. Because it is a partnership, partnership with the development partners, UNICEF, DFID, WHO, we also provide things like VIP latrines, providing electricity, transformers, generators, so you also try to sustain the environment. So it is a holistic approach to developmental governance. What we do in terms of health, criminal justice system? We work with DFID. Initially, it was called Access to Justice, now it is Security Justice and Growth. We went into reform of our criminal justice system. We had renovation, refurbishment of our Ministry of Justice, provision of generators, computers, books and also capacity building for the staff. We also did some form of prison reforms. We also did dialogue and capacity building for our traditional rulers in the areas of alternative dispute system and documentation. We also set up a Citizen Rights and Mediation Center that provides legal services to our citizens. We went into a lot of reforms. Enugu State, I must say, with all due respect, is a leading reform state in Nigeria today. At least, when it comes to relationship with the development partners, Enugu State is number one. There was a benchmarking process that took place last year, where all states, apart from Bayelsa, with the Federal Capital, Abuja, went through a benchmarking process. Looking at the fiscal policy of the government, looking at service delivery, looking at communication and transparency and then budgetary, Enugu State came out as number one: Enugu State scored the highest! So our interest now is pursuing aggressive efforts, to follow the Millennium Development Goals and roadmap, using the over forty indicators. That is our interest. In addition to doing that - this is essentially capacity building, holistic development - we also know that we have to continue with our aggressive infrastructural development. So we can say that for an eighteen-month period or thereabout, our state had witnessed a level of infrastructural development that is virtually unheard of in the history of this country. In the process, we built a Teaching Hospital with the College of Medicine, we built a tunnel, we built the permanent site of the State University, we built many roads. We are also in the process of building an International Conference Center, state-of-the-art facilities, that has a major bowl that will seat five thousand, medium bowl, two thousand and a small bowl, one thousand and it has offices and shopping complex. You will see it. We also, in the process, built a Judiciary Headquarters, with 18 court chambers, has library, has a different complex for the Chief Judge. We also work with our developmental partners in terms of design so it will be digitally compliant. We also did a lot of housing estates. Within an eighteen-months period, our state actually paid out well over N19 billion to our contractors, with a total commitment of about N30 billion or thereabout. So it is aggressive, with over six thousand construction workers in Enugu, within that period of time. We are also doing things in the rural areas. In the area of agriculture, we also embarked on the establishment of cassava plant, cassava mills. We are also working on a fruit juice factory and rehabilitation of our mills. So, a lot is happening and we say, to God be the glory, for that.

Soja: You are known to be a renowned medical practitioner of note. To what extent do you think this has influenced your perceptions and actions in state administration?

Gov. Nnamani: I wouldn’t say that I am a renowned medical practitioner (laughs). I am still a little guy in this business but I can say that I did acquire some special skills and I had the rare opportunity, the luck and God’s blessing, to have acquired special skills and training in the United States of America, specifically in Boston and also in the Loma Linda University where I trained as an obstetrician and gynecologist, also as a maternal foetus medicine specialist and a perinatal biologist, did some research works and some practice before coming back home here. Well, the advantage of that is, our health policy is very clear. You have to be a medical professional to put over N6 billion in developing a Medical School and a Teaching Hospital. A Medical School and a Teaching Hospital that are like no other in the country. You need to visit it. It is built for purpose, the hostels are all en-suite, the rooms have their toilets and baths. It has a library within the hostels, it has an auditorium, it has a pre-clinical complex, it has a clinical complex and building, even the anatomy building is specialized, with a cadaver tank that is purpose- built, that the preventives have to flow into a tank, recycle and come back, not exposed. And of course, if you are at the anatomy block, you can see the lighting. When you look at it, you see that only a medical personnel who understands, who is in government and controls policies that can put that kind of money in such a Teaching Hospital and Medical School. So I believe that my medical background also helped me. It also helped me to work with a lot of medical professionals in government. We have six doctors in the executive council. We have a medical doctor SSG, medical doctor Commissioner for Health, medical doctor Commissioner for Education. So we have over six doctors in the executive council. It is not that we don’t believe in other professions but I understand what it takes to go through medical school and come out, in terms of training, in terms of building an analytical mind and discipline and the ethics involved. So, the most important thing is that my career and social development emphasize the importance of history. History is important to me because by history, you know where you are coming from, you probably know where you are heading to, because man is in a perpetual search to improve life for tomorrow, to be better than today, and you can only know that if you realize the activities that led to the emergence of today so you can prepare for tomorrow, to be better than today.

Soja: You are obviously on the verge of taking leave of Government House, Enugu come May 2007. What happens next? Will you go back to your medical practice, or what do we expect?

Gov. Nnamani: Well, you can describe us as being in the summer, being in the summer of governance here in Enugu State and we are looking forward to the end of that experience and of course, as trained professionals, we look forward to going back to our professional calling, to play one role or the other. As politicians, we will also try to stay within the cycle in one capacity or the other, contribute to the polity.

Soja: Sir, the term ‘Ebe-ano’ has come to be synonymous with Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani. What does this really mean?

Gov. Nnamani: Yes, Ebe-ano is a feeling; Ebe-ano is an experience; Ebe-ano is like a feel-good phenomenon; Ebe-ano means that something right is going on here; Ebe-ano is the pursuit of excellence; Ebe-ano is something different; Ebe-ano is a daring to achieve, daring to serve; Ebe-ano is going beyond the norm, do you understand? When you see several hills, you see the crowd surging to the small hill, Ebe-ano is going to the summit of the biggest hill; Ebe-ano is the expression of human faith, the human faith, daring to achieve. When you achieve, you feel good. So it is a celebration of success. It is a model, it is a show of what is good. So I cannot really define Ebe-ano; it is an experience, it is a spirit, it is a movement. It is a demonstration of a man’s pursuit of the best he can get from any society. You can’t beat excellence, you can’t beat good, you can’t beat a perfect score.

Soja: What Legacy would you like to leave behind?

Gov. Nnamani: They said it ain’t over until the fat lady says. So it is too early for us to start talking about remembrance. We are just starting! You can say that we are in the early period of our development. The history has not been written yet. So it is still early to start talking about that, right?