As a foetal surgeon, few people gave Chimaroke Nnamani any chance of making success out of his present endeavour when he stepped on the scene in 1999. To worsen matters, he was seen as an "American boy", having had his specialist training in that country and gone ahead to make his mark in the profession there. Going by conventional wisdom, doctors are largely seen as gentlemen, people who could not or would not hurt a fly, and thus could not survive the heat on the Nigerian political scene. This view is not borne out in practice. On the international plane, Che Guevera, a professional revolutionary who fought in many countries for the enthronement of socialism was a medical doctor. So was Augustinho Neto who led the struggle for liberation of Angola.

On the national scene, the role of Chief Moses Majekodunmi in the First Republic is in the records. Dr. Peter Odili is the governor of Rivers State while Dr. Rabiu Kwankwaso was once governor of Kano State before he moved to the federal scene as a minister. But, Governor Nnamani has proven the sceptics wrong. If anything, he has proved that he could absorb the opponents’ punches as well as land killer punches of his own when needed. Indeed, given his success at the polls in 2003, he is regarded as a giant killer, in the mould of the Biblical David. Monday, February 7, was a day he set aside to unveil his vision to transform Enugu State.

It was a time, to use his words, to demonstrate that he is not an American boy made by and for the United States of America, but, rather, an Enugu boy. As the president paid an official visit to his state last Monday and Tuesday, it was time to unveil his vision for what remains of his term in office. As he spoke with visiting journalists from Lagos, he also tackled questions on his post-2007 period and the Political dialogue being organised by the Federal Government. his views are not always conventional. Excerpts:


SOME people believe the whole dialogue idea is an imposition and may not represent the actual views of society. What do you think. Do you think it can succeed where previous attempts failed?

If I extend your position I might say that the Nigerian state is an imposition, but you have to remember that Africans have gone through a lot of assault starting with slave trade, Christianity, Islam, and then we had colonialism, and Nigeria’s negotiation to nationhood, civil war and then now the present dispensation. So we have gone from era either positively or negatively, and if you recall these mini nations were independent, living their own lives, minding their own business, and all of a sudden you now had the Colony of Lagos, Southern Protectorate and Cameroon, and Northern Protectorate; then somebody came up with merger of Lagos with the other Protectorates and then you had a nation. It was a reluctant nation, a nation carved out to satisfy the interest of the colonialists, but we have a nation.

Do you then believe the political confab will achieve anything which others before it did not achieve?
My people say that you do not refuse any opportunity to come and discuss because you can never tell what will come out of it. Somebody said let’s dialogue, you go and dialogue, because it is your own thought process and somebody else’s thought process.

Has Enugu State sent its list of nominees for the political confab?
We have sent the list of the nominees and it will reflect the Enugu society, the zones and gender, not that I have anything against our elders, but it will reflect our society.

You have been in office for nearly six years; you started by saying that Enugu was a big picture, do you still hold that view or, as 2007 approaches, are you now looking beyond Enugu?
Enugu is still the big picture, I am an Enugu boy. If I walk away from here, after eight years as governor, albeit accomplishing my goals for the people of the state, what other picture can you paint that would be bigger than that? So, for me, Enugu is the big picture, any other thing is a mere addition. I have been here all my life, even though I was born in Port Harcourt; I did my primary, secondary, and university here. When I left for America, it was because I had a vision, and the dream was Enugu State, and now I have been able to transform Enugu into reality, so what more can I ask for?

Do you have a time frame for completing these projects (being undertaken by the state government) and how do you intend to fund them all at the same time?
If you think that we will not complete them before we leave office, then you are wrong, because I believe we will finish what we started so that we do not encumber our successors with uncompleted projects. The new administration, it can be expected, may have a different set of priorities not in line with what we are doing. But my prayer is that the in-coming administration will be smarter, more intelligent than we are, as you know the prayer of every parent is that the child will be bigger than them. So that is the least of my problems, my main concern is that we complete the projects. Take the Conference Centre, once that project is completed, we do a management lease to run it, and that is what we are going to do with most of these establishments, we will do lease on them. I do not know whether you have seen our liaison office in Abuja, it is about the best in the country. That is the model we have spelt out, that whatever we do shall be the best and of the finest quality.

What do you have to say concerning the manner Chief Audu Ogbeh was forced to resign from office by President Obasanjo? You were said to have played a major role in the drama?
What was said mostly is all media frenzy, people looking for jobs, people looking for relevance. Which governor will have such a major disagreement, whether philosophical, intellectual or moral with his chairman and then the latter will not go? Who appoints the chairman of the Republican Party or the Democratic Party in the US? Do you know the chairman of the Republican or Democratic Party? So what makes our own different, is it not the same presidential system? Which governor will accept the same kind of letter from his chairman and will still talk to him the next morning? Ogbeh resigned, they said he was intimidated.

When a president tells you to resign, is it not intimidation?
So if I call my chairman and I ask him to resign, what do you expect him to do? Since the President cannot resign for him, it means the chairman has to resign. It is very clear that Ogbeh and the President could not work together anymore. So those writing about gun point resignation, did they interview the President to establish what happened? Remember, till date, there is no presidential comment on that issue.

But do you not think that what Ogbeh said reflects the feeling of millions of Nigerians?
Do you think that the feelings of most Nigerians were that December 2004 was the same as December 1983? In Ogbeh’s letter, he made it clear that there was no difference between perception and reality, and he brought December 1983 to buttress his points that hospitals were mere consulting clinics, fuel scarcity, there was looting and all these things, such that by the end, the army came. By inference, one would expect that January 2005, the same thing would happen, based on his reading. From what you see in Enugu is the feeling the same as it was in December 1983, that would justify military intervention? Do you think the military government can undertake all these projects we are handling? So do not superimpose Ogbeh’s personal feeling as the feeling of most Nigerians.

With 2007 around the corner, is it true you have plans to pair up with somebody from the North for the vice-presidential slot?
Why must I seek office for the vice-presidential position, is it because I am not qualified to be the President? Is it because those who have been President are smarter than me, or better educated? I will tell you that those who have a career of looking for Southerners and Igbos to be vice-president are just playing to stereotypes.

A Southerner and an Igbo can be president, and a Northerner can be vice-president, but I believe that in the final analysis the country will get the leadership it deserves, as we are in a democracy and with globalization the best will emerge. And I know that the ship of state is a very important ship and if we are going to look for the best people to run the banks, the hospitals, airlines, the telecommunication industry, only the best should be president, wherever he may come from. The most important job in Nigeria is the presidency, so why are we creating stereotypes? It is not a job for the mediocre, but if our society will allow emergence of the mediocre, then that is what it will get.

The other point that I want to make is about the intimidation of the intellectual and professional class. For me and the way I see it there seems to be intimidation of such a class, and that is why they do not want to come out. It seems that this class has resolved that so long as they can put food on the table, have their generator and bore hole running, and fly their wife and children abroad, nobody cares about Nigeria. The country becomes politically irrelevant, a state belonging to nobody, which allows the political scavengers to step in with nobody saying no to them.

The pseudo-elite, the money bags, are in charge, and it drives away those who have the capacity for nation building; so why we are stereotyping those who should be the president of the country? Do you care where the pilot of the plane comes from; all you are concerned with is that he is good. Do you care about the making of the football national team, whether it comprises mainly Igbo, Yoruba, or northerners, do you care? All you are interested in is that they are the best eleven? What you care is that they should be the best available. This stereotyping is intimidation that is what it is.

But the point that we should get out there is that he intellectual and professional class are intimidated, I do not wish to name names, but I see the Fola Adeolas, the Pat Utomis, there are many people who can run this country, just as you can run banks. This area I am talking about is an area I am looking at, and which I could speak on in a lecture. Leaders are artisans, with credit to Pini Jason, in his article Leaders as Artisans; leaders thrown up by accidents of history, leaders thrown up by society without a middle class, with majority poor and few rich. It became the business of the elite to keep the rich, rich, and the poor, poor. Leaders with no vision, leaders without ideology, from political party to political party, those who can be described as CV chasers, dialoguing for the past 40 years, average 70 years, which is why I say the Enugu list will be different.

But, you are a professional and you do not feel intimidated. You got involved, so why do they feel intimidated and frightened from the scene? Or do you?
No, I do not, that is why I left the American dream to come and serve my people. I love Enugu, and for me there is no better city than Enugu, and that is why we are completing the dream begun by our founding fathers. As you can see, there is a Conference Centre coming on stream, the Judiciary Quarters, Teaching Hospital, University permanent site, Chime Avenue is dualised, we are linking up New Haven to Independence Layout, we are building a tunnel linking up Okpara Avenue and Ogui road, we are linking up Coal camp with UNTH, we are doing the Loma Linda Hospital. As you can see the development in the state is ordered. In fact, the Conference Centre is so important because there is none in the Southeast that can take between 1000 and 1500 people.

Now, to return to your question, I do not feel intimidated, eventually the true nation state will emerge. And I can tell you knowing all these things has made me not to have problem with the President. People think that I support him, and all that, but I know what he is going through. He is trying to build a nation state that has been abandoned; a nation state run by people who had no vision, a nation state run by those who think only about themselves and not the people. It will be interesting to see the likes of Fola Adeola come out to run Nigeria, or you think they are not interested?

But you have emerged nonetheless, despite these constraints that you have enumerated...
I made it because the arena is small and not as complex as Nigeria; Enugu is a homogeneous society, and then I grew up here, so I know the place very well. When I was coming back from America, I knew the people I was coming back to meet, and I knew I could outsmart them. But I cannot say that of Nigeria, it is too complex and the variables are too many. There are issues of ethnicity, religion; yet the children are dying everyday from preventable diseases, women are dying everyday from child birth, the energy sector is not working, the schools are not working, where are the secondary schools, where are the universities, there is no research going on. Rather what you find from all these are the rush to leave the country, the biggest idea going through every child’s mind is how to leave Nigeria.

What kind of home can we have, when everybody is trying to leave, if people do that, it means there is a problem. Where are they rushing to, you have school of architecture without computers, you have School of Engineering without computers, but with globalisation they are going to compete in the international arena. I mean do we think our own engineers are different? At the moment, they are paying for hand outs, paying for results. I say all these things because I know how serious it is because I have been on that side, it's a major problem. Look at the hospitals, how are you training the doctors, when the people who are supposed to train them are not even around, most times the doctors have their own private clinics, doing abortion and all sorts of things. Nigeria is a nation state abandoned, and because of ignorance, people do not realise the urgency of the issue. When did it become usual for us to go to Ghana for education of children and those who go to Ghana are the elite, who are showing apathy because they have taking care of their family needs.

Don’t you think all these could be blamed on the political class?
We do not have a political class, what we have is a pseudo-political class. What we have had is a people who never excelled in their given area of professional life. What do we call a political class, a contractor who suddenly finds there is a space, he gets nominated into some office, and he gets it. Is it a failed medical doctor, who could not make progress in his profession, or is it a lawyer who has neither gone to court, nor won a major case, a failed banker; are these the people you call the political class? Go to the U.S.A., you would see successful lawyers, bankers, people with pedigree, people with antecedence; they are the ones who constitute the political class.

The people you call the political class here are in actual fact political accident, creatures of a malfunctioning system, who have gained from a dysfunctional society. This is not a true political class. These people went into politics to survive because in their primary calling, they failed. So the better description is to call them by the correct name which is that they are political business men. These are people who are using politics to put food on the table, they have no ideology.

Do you also include the delegates to the political dialogue?
What I am saying has nothing to do with those going for the Political Dialogue, those people have their own agenda. Some of them, when they get there will sleep 90 per cent of the time, because they naturally cannot stay awake any more. That is why I am sending people who reflect society to the conference, and when they get there they will make their impact. You will see the chairman of the motor park dealers association (on the Enugu list).

2007 is around the corner, do you not have plans for it?
My interest for now is to complete my tenure as governor and then transit to a hospital or to my village doing some research. That is my interest and I have no presidential ambition.

The Vanguard, Monday, February 14, 2005