THE story of Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani’s emergence in the political space of Enugu state could be likened to the emergence of Col. Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire. Sometime in the mid 1960’s, Mobutu executed a Coup d’état against the government of Patrice Lumumba, one of Africa’s most cerebral nationalists. As usual with Africans’ predilection to herald an upstage, the coup was overwhelming welcomed. Pronto he announced there would be a national rally at the country’s national stadium to mark the take-off of his regime, and the exultant crowd lined the streets leading to the venue, all chanting hilarious praises proclaiming ‘viva Mobutu’, ‘viva Mobutu’! Midway to the venue, he suddenly halted his convoy and ordered that ten young men in the midst of the hilarious crowd should be commandeered to the stadium. In a bizarre display of brutality, and what turned out to be a foretaste of what was to define his regime, Mobutu ordered that they be tied to the stakes, after which he announced to the filled stadium that they would witness the shortest rally in the history of the country. He ordered that these men be shot immediately and the soldiers promptly obeyed! He then turned to the bewildered crowd and announced: “you see these men who have just been executed? They did not offend me in any way. Indeed I do not even know them! If anything, I should consider them my supporters. But if I could do this to such that have done no harm to me; you can now imagine the fate of anyone who would dare me in any way”! He entered his vehicle and that was the end of the rally!From the labyrinths of obscurity, and against all known conventional political interests, Chimaroke was hauled to the high office of governor of Enugu State by his former godfather, Chief Jim Nwobodo. As events would prove, it was evident Jim did not know him; so to speak. He was never a member of Jim’s ‘political family’, and was not known to have held any political office in the past against which backdrop one could have assumed his tract records ensured his choice. Yet, Jim preferred him to such other political loyalists of his like the late Engr. Okey Igwe, the late Chief Silas Ilo, Nduka Agu or even Chief Richard Nnamani, who had all declared interest in the race. But the honeymoon did not last long. No sooner had Chimaroke been sworn in as governor than he would dramatize his love for the Mobutu way. His godfather, Jim was singled out for decimation! Before anyone could yep, Jim, the then charismatic, undisputed and authentic godfather of Enugu politics had been reduced to ordinary. He had received blows from all corners and lost all that made him thick, including the Savanna Bank. The rest, as they say, is now history.
Dr. Nnamani’s ruthless profile was not lost on anyone thereafter. But much unlike Mobutu, he did not wait to be dared by anyone as he effortlessly invented his victims. The Catholic Church under the leadership of the irrepressible Fr. Ejike Mbaka was not left out, neither were the founding fathers and political leaders of the state, including the likes of Chiefs C.C. Onoh, Okwesileze Nwodo, Nnia Nwodo, Senators Ken Nnamani and Fidelis Okoro, among others. The younger elements like the Nwabueze Ugwus, Nana Ogbodos, and wait for it: 16 out of the 24 members of the State House of Assembly all had telling tales of our own version of oriental despotism! Thus, by 2007 when he was leaving office, after a gruesome eight years, not a few indigenes of the state were clamouring that the buffeting cup of his presence in the political space of the state should pass over them! At the 2007 senatorial contest between him and his erstwhile aide, Nana Ogbodo, not a few residents of Enugu was convinced that whereas Ogbodo might have won the popular votes, Dr. Nnamani had merely clinched the do-or-die victory.
As governor for eight years, Dr. Nnamani did leave no one in doubt that although he comes from the East senatorial zone, which rotational turn he occupied, he was no more than a supine irredentist of his tiny home town, Agbani, and that other local governments and or towns that make up the zone were mere statistical components. Almost all projects that could be credited to him and his administration were sited in his Agbani community, composed of no more than 5,000 persons, and localized within a geographical radius of no more than 5 kilometers. As the governor who was to decide where the Enugu Campus of the Nigeria Law School was to be located, he chose Agbani, and named after his uncle, the late Justice Augustine Nnamani, JSC. Ditto the campus of Nigeria Air force Secondary School Enugu which is directly behind his palatial country home at Agbani. The Enugu State University of Science and Technology was relocated from Enugu to Agbani too. He also built the Special Science School for Boys and the one for girls, all located at Agbani. There is yet a special secondary school for the talented, also at Agbani. All his personal investments, including the elitist Mea Mater Elizabeth College and Renaissance University are all located at Agbani! Beyond this, virtually all track roads in Agbani were tarred including the ones leading to nowhere, just like electrification and water projects. If this is juxtaposed to the fate of people from other local governments, especially Isi Uzo and Nkanu East, it now beggars reason why anyone would suggest that Dr. Nnamani could genuinely expect to win any votes from these areas. For the eight long years Nnamani was in power, it did not matter to him that during the rainy seasons such that we are in now, no indigene of these local governments ventured travel home: the roads were all beyond description!
Notwithstanding all these, Dr. Nnamani was even to do the most egregious as a senator representing the zone between 2007 and 2011. He was able to prove that a Leopard can hardly change its colours, and that a man convinced against his will, would still be of the same opinion. He attracted only six motorized water boreholes in the four years of his sojourn at the senate, which number suggested that each of the six local government areas that make up the zone should, at least, have benefited from it. But he sited all in his Oji Agu Agbani village, within a one kilometer radius. In a full page advertorial by the Anambra-Imo River Basin Authority, published at page 64 of Thisday newspaper of July 25, 2011; the following projects were listed, including, Lot A32 at Ferguson Avenue (named after his father, Ferguson Nnamani); Lot A33, at Elizabeth Square (named after his mother, Elizabeth Nnamani); Lot A34, at Renaissance University, (his private University); Lot A35, at Mea Mater Elizabeth (his private secondary school, also named after his mother); Lot A36, at Ebeano Square, (named after his band); and Lot A37, at Igwe Sampson Nnamani Square (named after his uncle, Chief Sampson Nnamani); all within a tiny village known as Ojiagu Agbani!
It is therefore preposterous for anyone to seek to cloth Dr. Nnamani in the garb of the most loved politician of the senatorial zone! The effort of one Dan Nwome in this regard, (Daily Sun, September 21, 2015) draws the art of promotion of a principal to a ridiculous limit. In a piece which habours no respect for the exalted limitations of sub-judice in matters that are still before a court or tribunal, the author sought, howbeit vainly, to present Nnamani as a victim of electoral heist perpetrated by the PDP. But he forgets that even when he still had some clout left of him, he was roundly defeated by the same Senator Gilbert Nnaji in 2011. Today, arising from a combination of factors, Nnamani has lost so much of his reflexes.
In any case, it should not be forgotten that the same Senator Nnaji had defeated him at the 2011 contest. Nothing has changed that would have put Dr. Nnamani ahead except that he has seemingly refused to acknowledge that his relevance has grossly waned in Enugu politics.
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