MOE meets…
CHIMAROKE NNAMANI (1)
M. O. ENÉ
New Jersey, USA
Friday, September 23, 2005
“We shall be judged more by what we do at home than what we preach abroad.”
-- John F. Kennedy, State of the Union, 1963
Enugu, Nigeria, Wednesday, September 14, 2005. It was my second meeting with the Executive Governor of Enugu State, His Excellency Chimaroke Ogbonnia Nnamani, MD. The first meeting was in a hotel room in now Rita-ravaged Houston, Texas during the third Enugu-USA Convention. I had actually seen him for the first time earlier that Friday evening in late August 2001, during an introductory general session of the Convention. I was impressed by his simplicity and willingness to mix as an ordinary Enuguite. However, my knowledge of his person and any detectable bias go back to 1996. But that’s another kettle of fish, another story for another day.
This is 2005. I was on the last legs of my trip to Nigeria. I had secured a Sosoliso ticket for the rough and noisy hop-over to Lagos, from whence I would commence my return trip to the United States via my old lair, London. I had just one full day to spend. A drive through Anambra State was on my agenda, since I had covered some parts of other mainly Igbo-speaking states. A meeting with the State chief executive was on the cards but, with our backbreaking bureaucracy and obfuscating officialdom, I quickly lowered my expectations. No one expects the job of a state governor to be easy, so I was not expecting any special favors. It was not as if I had dollars to dish into the state coffers… if you know what I mean.
I had woken up this day to see early-morning visitors. When my JAMBite niece Ezimaama, as I call her, brought my phone from the bedroom, I had two “missed calls” recorded on my handset (cell phone). The numbers did not tell me much, since the voice mail was not functional. Then it dawned on me that someone might have been trying to get in touch or a niece/nephew/cousin, who owned a phone but could not sustain the money-munching “credits,” must have “flashed” me. I was still not conversant with some new local lingo, even though this was my third visit in four years. So I called back the last number. It was a call made form a cheaper “calling center” outlet, or so some lass said. I tried the second number.
“Chimaroke here.”
His day was packed solid, as expected. My evening was reserved for family goodbyes. Could I make it between 9:00 and 9:30 AM? I made a mental mathematical calculation and agreed. It was past 8:00 AM. I was somewhere in Achara Layout, with a fairly good road connection to major parts of Enugu. Alas, my host had left for work with one car. I do not have a car of my own. The car I would use for the trip to Onitsha was being firmed up at the mechanic. I called my brother-in-law on the other side of Agbani Road. He scrambled a car. I was ready to go by 9:00.
Fortunately, traffic on the Kenyatta-Independence Layout bypass was flowing. The Loma Linda Housing Estate and other major structures in progress had changed the Maryland landscape. Independence Layout itself was traffic-friendly, as usual, even though the roads had taken a good, pot-holing beating from the ebbing rainy season. I must note that the road around Okpara Square did the impressive edifice no favors, especially since it connects the legislature and the executive branches of government. Someone should threaten the Speaker with impeachment, I mused to myself.
At the Government House rear-gate by the lion statue, the security officer was pacing as he approached apprehensively.
“MOE,” I offered, sounding too casual even for my likening, but I am yet to tone down my Americana simplicity to accommodate some Naija air of importance. I made a mental note of that.
“We have been waiting for you since 9 O’clock. His Excellency…”
“His Excellency said ‘between 9 and 9:30’; it’s 9:20,” I interjected as calmly as would make a snail jealous. The officer stopped and considered my sudden air of importance. His eyes lit, as if saying, ‘You must be out of your frigging mind.’ He didn’t know what to make of me. I was not rude, and I was not panicking. I decided to put him out of his worries: “Shall we proceed?”
“Open the gate! Open the gate!” he yelled. As the gate swung open, he barked directions to the driver.
At the second gate, we made a right and I alighted to awaiting security details.
“Subject is here…. Subject is here….”
“The name is MOE, Dr. MO Ené.” I didn’t find being labeled “subject” funny, but what does it matter if that is their signal term.
I was ushered into the inner offices. I have been here before. Back in the days, at Nike Lake Hotel, I had presented a paper proposing a mass transit system for Enugu urban to cover Awkunanaw, Achara Layout-Uwani, New Layout, Independence Layout, New Haven, and Abakaliki Road. This would mop up the growing ten-toe population in these formerly opulent and exclusive sections of the Coal City. [Little did I know that things would further degenerate to where okada (motorbikes) now mop up everyone everywhere in Enugu!] Chairing the seminar session was Air Force Officer Luke Ochullor, deputizing for then Anambra State Governor, Colonel Robert (Bob) Nnaemeka Akonobi, a fellow Coal Camper. When the proposal came to become TRACAS, Transport Corporation of Anambra State, I was invited to the State House to see one Luke Okonkwo, Akonobi’s Man Friday. A quick review of security report revealed that I was a refuznik of ASUU elongated salary scale strike. The chain-smoking Okonkwo blatantly told me that “the quota for Udi people is full” -- and I never told him where in the world my traceable ancestors anchored! I shrugged it off and drove over to the British Council in GRA and asked for my Commonwealth scholarship papers: I left the country within two months for postgraduate studies in England.
Will this second visit mark a reversal, a return to my city of birth, where I was bred and buttered?
I looked at the photographs of past tenants of the Lion Building. I didn’t miss Akonobi, the man who had ordered my arrest, as the Secretary of Academic Staff Union, for refusing to call off an industrial action. That was then Anambra State; this was now Enugu State. The policeman at the outer room of the inner offices ushered me into yet another room, a waiting surprisingly small room. A young fellow with a metal scanner wondered what kept me, since His Excellency had waited for me since 9:00 AM. Again, I calmly explained that we had a time range; it was still 9:25 AM or thereabouts. He looked like he wanted to argue that it was supposed to be a 30-minute meeting (between 9:00 – 9:30 AM), but I looked and sounded too sure of myself. He backed off and assured me that the Governor would see me after an ongoing meeting.
He better, I chuckled to myself.
The silly smile I wore must have raised his security suspicion. “Are those gifts for the Governor?” He asked.
“Gifts? Oh, just my latest publications and….”
“It’s our rule to inspect all gifts,” he assured me as he went flipped through a copy of Blighted Blues and Kolanut: Food of the Gods. I wanted to explain that the only thing fit for the acclaimed cerebral citizen is more food for the milk monitor, but I didn't want crack jokes he wouldn't grasp.
As I waited, I wanted to read the dailies. I asked to have a look at one of the papers in the pile of dailies on his table. He hesitated, not sure what to say. “Ah, don’t worry: they are for His Excellency, and security stipulates that….”
He nodded with a visible relief, probably because I was seemingly so understanding. He did not refuse, and I did not insist on having access to the dailies.
I waited.
A little bit after 10:00 AM, a flurry of activities and the stern salutation of a police orderly announced the return of the man of the moment.
“Your Excellency,” I greeted. “MOE.”
“My brother, you are welcome.”
Momentarily,
he turned back to get something or issue some instructions. We walked into his
office, the two of us -- no hangers-on and no security details. It was a
spacious working office. Let’s leave it at that. He offered me a cozy cushioned
chair with the back to the door. We exchanged pleasantries, and he asked about
my trip. I offered it in a compound sentence: I was in the village over the
weekend to participate in the continued funeral rites for my Grandpa, who had
passed on September 1, and the Commonwealth-sponsored conference in Abuja the
week before was a success. He expressed his sincere sympathy and candid
congratulations.
Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani, I must admit, was very pleasant. He had a pleasant demeanor too, a welcoming face that was not lacking in depth, and the aura of an honest hard worker. There was the Clintonesque caring conduct that convinces you that he genuinely means what he is saying. Of course, there was no room for doubt; after all, nothing compelled him to extend the invitation. The Governor is gifted, no doubt about it. He has the gift of garb and the gift of electric elocution. Decked out in suit, he exudes the confidence of a captain in-charge, of a man on a mission and with style -- no matter how anyone sees it.
Chima, as his friends call him, is indeed in control of Enugu political pulse, and he knows it. The pros and cons of such a situation is for political scientists and historians to discern, but I know he got to this position by a combination of factors and events; the most important being that along the way he beat the political so-called “Enugu elites” black and blue. I saw his unchallenged supremacy coming. I told whomever would listen that he was playing all the right cards at the right times. His opponents, many of whom were erstwhile political partners, took a crude chance and crumbled on the altar of pathetic political personage, a goofy godfatherism that had passed its sell-by-date. So, when it comes to politics in Enugu, PDP is it. And Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani’s political structure is Enugu State PDP. Now you know why the State government is clean of the club of crème de la crème, unlike others who found openings for even diaspora representations.
I took in the new environment as my host asked how I had been coping with the stay, what worked and what didn’t work. Since it is not every day that one sees an eagle, the royal bird, it is important that we toast one when we see it. I started by congratulating Dr. Nnamani on the various projects he was executing or had executed. I was in Abuja, and I drove from my Nicon Hilton room to see the architectural masterpiece of Enugu State House in the same upscale Maitama district on the foot of Aso Rock. It is in a class of its own, and it takes a pride of place amongst the indescribable architecture of other state houses in the area. I was impressed.
I expressed special congratulations for the state-end of Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway. It made my coming back from Aba at about 10 PM the night before less nightmarish. The Chime Avenue dualization was a fait accompli. I mentioned the now much-talked-about projects in various stages of completion: the permanent site of Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT) the Conference Centre, the Ogui Road Tunnel, the ESUT Medical College, the Loma Linda Estate—through which I had driven in, the Judicial HQ, etc. He reminded me of others that I missed, such as the New Haven-Independence Layout link road. He was impressed that I took time to see the new campus of ESUT and its Teaching Hospital at Park Lane. Sadly, I couldn’t make it to the Law School. On the internationalization of Dr. Akanu Ibiam Airport, the jury was still out. I let that be for now.
The first question I had for him came at this point: “Where is the money coming from?” He shrugged with a humble demeanor that said he didn’t want to blow his own trumpet. He was sure I knew he didn’t travel out to launder money and that he did not have a foreign bank account or buy up choice properties abroad. I was not going into all that; I decided to push it further. I told him what people said in the streets. Dr Nnamani knew all that. He felt disappointed that his opponents, while agreeing that he was doing so much for the State, spread the rumors that he owned the Italian company that was executing the projects. To his detractors, there was no way a construction company would embark on such monumental projects and deliver on time without the Governor being a shareholder. Well, he said he was not a shareholder.
Left or right, that was not of utmost importance; I just didn’t want a situation where the State stretched itself thin to the point of not meeting other obligations, especially paying of salaries. As is well known, Enugu is a civil service town; more than anything else, non-payment of salaries regularly affects the socioeconomic wellbeing of the people. He assured me that the State Government would not let the execution of the projects affect the wellbeing of workers or the laudable, 18-month-old School Meal Plus Program or the waste-management program geared towards poverty alleviation. I didn’t want to drag it, but I cautioned that his published promises might not hold because the projects were just not deliverable in months. He looked up from a file with a “wanna bet” glance.
Now, since he was receptive to criticisms, I pushed the envelope to specifics: “Don’t you think you are really promising a lot more than you can deliver. I have seen the ESUT campus at Ebeano City; it is the sort of project the Federal Government would execute in ten years; yet you are throwing six months around.”
He smiled and assured me that all the projects would be completed before he leaves office in 2007. Now that sounds better, but I decided to move on.
“You are leaving in 2007?” I asked and added lightheartedly: “Haven’t you heard of the move to extend the PDP national show by two years or do an entirely new, nonrenewable six-year term? Wouldn’t you jump at it and solidify the lasting legacies of Ebeano epoch?”
He smiled and reassured me that eight years would be a blessing, that it would be “To God be the Glory” in 2007. In other words, he would walk while the ovation is loudest.
I pushed on: “What about a higher or lower office: Senate, VP… why not the Presidency?”
He wouldn’t be drawn into specifics, but he made it clear to me that the earlier published pronouncements on his political future had not changed. I got the impression that after eight years, he would be doing something different, that he would sit back and watch the seeds he sowed germinate and thrive. A return to medical practice or some teaching looked likely, but I doubt that he would walk away from Enugu politics, the face of which he was changing drastically. I could see him doing the lecture circuits for fat fees, which would be a new high in Nigerian political practice.
As is well-known, Dr. Nnamani has lined up mostly younger politicians to take over the baton. So, naturally, I asked: “Are you then going to become the political godfather of Enugu State?”
The term “political godfather” didn’t sit quite well with him; in fact, he was uncomfortable with the term. I understood him, but I was not shaking -- to borrow his lingo; it was not as if I was shopping for a godfather or trying to be one to anybody; partisan politics is not in my immediate-future radar. Mine was purely academic, and I know my host relishes intellectual intercourse. They do not call him "The Cerebral Governor" for the heck of it. Of course, I have read his lecture on the issue of godfathers in politics. [See www.ebeano.org]
So I explained: “There is nothing wrong with being a political godfather; in fact, it is desirable in politics to have a go-to person… someone who would be there to help in smoothening frayed nerves, someone who would be an anchor, someone whose voice of reason would anchor runaway republicanism of younger politicians.”
He appreciated my understanding of his concern for such an appellation because Nigeria's godfatherism is a different calabash of carbide. He reminded me that he would have no need to pressure his successor for anything. He would be content with his personal, professional, and political accomplishments. So, even though he had said he was not grooming any successor, he admitted that he would work to get the right person elected by the people to become the new tenant of Lion Building in 2007.
The discussion veered into serious national political matters, but I was not there to talk politics; also, forget drinks and forget food. I am not a practicing politician, and I was not going to dwell on the bolts and nuts of current affairs. It didn’t matter what Abia Governor Orji Uzor Kalu said about President Olusegun Obasanjo, and it didn’t matter whatsoever whether VP Atiku Abubakar was going to jump or was waiting to be pushed. So, since I had no shopping list, I decided to dwell on some concrete matters with expected concrete outcomes. You see, it is not everyday that one climbs the iroko tree. Once up there, one must gather enough firewood to last the cold and dehydrated harshness of harmattan.
I gathered enough to tell a story.