Dr. Chris Nwabueze Ngige, who represents Anambra Central
Senatorial District at the National Assembly, can hardly be
described as neophyte in the slippery politics of Anambra
State. Rather, he has a name which he earned from his people-
oriented governance when he was governor between 2003
and 2006. Ngige, a Medical Doctor turned politician, has
announced his intentions to run in the November 16, 2013,
governorship election in the state, on the platform of his All
Progressives Congress (APC). In this engaging interview, he
tells IKECHUKWU AMAECHI, Editor (Daily), and EMEKA ALEX
DURU, Features Editor, the reasons behind his aspiration and
how he intends to go about achieving it. Excerpts:
•Ngige
•Ngige
What did you forget at the Anambra Government House that
you want to go back for?
I forgot a lot of things in Anambra Government House and
outside the Government House and we need to retrieve those
things. Majorly is my blueprint or what you can call a work
plan which I had made for the people of Anambra State in
2003, precisely 29th May, 2003, when I was sworn in. A major
part of that blue print has not been achieved in Anambra. I
had a blueprint on my inauguration. I enunciated some of
them publicly for the people of Anambra. Some were not made
public. They were in that work plan and, as at today, only 30
percent of that blueprint has been achieved and out of that 30
percent, 23 percent were achieved during my tenure. I stayed
in Anambra as governor for two years and nine months. It was
during that period that I achieved the 23 percent of the work
plan. The incumbent administration in Anambra State, after
seven years, has done about seven percent of my own work
plan; my own blueprint. Mark you, the word is my own, not
theirs. Out of the 23 percent I did, you could see that road
construction formed about 10 percent. The other 13 percent
were in other areas. And as we speak, Anambra has not gotten
to the level of development that I have in that work plan. I
want to go back to Anambra Government House and bring
back that my work plan, dust it up and see what I can do for
the people of Anambra in the next four years. Today in
Nigeria, we have massive infrastructure dilapidation; we have
gargantuan lack of security of lives and property,
monumental. So I want to get back to Anambra to restore
security of lives and property, develop dilapidated
infrastructure, face youth unemployment with an agrarian
revolution, bring up the psyche of the people back, rejuvenate
the belief in government business and secure their lives and
property. By the time I do that, Anambra will be an oasis in the
desert. The desert in this context is Nigeria because all these
things I have mentioned afflict the Nigerian structure.
You had four-year tenure and you were only able to achieve
23 percent in three years. Is that not an indictment on your
part?
I didn’t do three years. I did two years and nine months, and
do not forget that I was fighting and doing my work. I should
have, as a matter of fact, not performed if you put into the
context that I was in a fight with the federal government that
period. I had suffered some inhibition which was due to the
Federal Government’s policy tendencies towards the people
of Anambra State, myself and my government. If I had no such
distraction in two years and nine months, I would have done
over 60 percent. All the things I have done in Anambra State,
payment of pensioners, liquidation of arrears of salaries of civil
servants, improving the lives of pensioners, massive road
construction, rehabilitation of existing healthcare facilities and
upgrading some like we did at Onitsha General Hospital and a
programme to rehabilitate and accredit three more after
Onitsha General Hospital, speak for us. There were also our
programmes on education, rehabilitation of schools,
employment of new teachers. I was the first governor to
employ new teachers in the State and since I left, I don’t
know whether new ones have been employed or not. We even
offered employment to youths and had the civil service
employ fresh hands. There were also the issues of securing
their lives and property and my agrarian policy. We bought
tractors, we brought in fertilisers for farmers and started
encouraging the farm settlement schemes to come back alive.
We started first by going to the agrarian areas, and giving
back life to farming. It was manual farming but we introduced
tractor hire service. We wanted to establish a School of
Agriculture with a farm settlement and students hostel, and
we wanted a youth empowerment programme in agriculture
by which we would employ youths, put them in the hostels,
give them farming equipment for mechanised farming, pay
them stipends and buy back their products.
How could you have accomplished all these given the
complaints by your predecessors that Anambra was not
financially buoyant?
By their own standard, we were not financially buoyant but
you need to be a good manager of men and material. Human
resources abound in Anambra State and, by some kind of
financial engineering, we could start. They were not building
roads because they said there was no money to build roads
but I built roads and I used first class contractors, and I was
able to pay them. I didn’t owe them. No certificate was
owed. When you manage your contracts well, contractors will
come. They will not inflate the contracts if they are sure that
their money will be paid. It is not wonderfully true that the
finances of that state could not carry them. It depends on how
you do your financial engineering and this is one way I used
the state’s funds. I used it also to rehabilitate schools. Let me
tell you what I did with the rehabilitation of schools. With the
UBE programme of the Federal Government, it was like a 50/50
thing with the State Government. I first sat down, read the
structure of the UBE programme. I turned that to primary
education but they now moved into syndication and
articulation of the JSS when I was there. Immediately I saw it, I
jumped at it and I called the commissioner for education and I
said, we are entering this programme, many states were
running from it, because I know I can get funds for it. I started
paying. By the time I left, I had about N1.6bn in that account
for the rehabilitation of schools and manpower development
which includes training teachers. A lot of those who want to
be governors are not experienced. They don’t know what
public service is like not to talk about the civil service. Some of
them have not read files in their lives. Some of them don’t
know how the files move; some of them don’t even know
what a memorandum means, they don’t know the type of
memos we are talking about. Some of them don’t know
about budgeting. You cannot be a Chief Executive Officer of
people when you don’t know how to guide them. You are
not supposed to be an expert but you must have knowledge
of all these. If you are not knowledgeable, you cannot lead. A
Governor is a Chief Executive Officer. He is a leader of the team.
You must be jack of all trades and master of all. And these are
acquired by the fact that you must be educated, you must go
to school, you must know how to read and write, you must
have the vision. You must be a good visionary to carry people
along with you. You must also be courageous to take certain
decisions. To take certain decisions, you must step on some
toes. Once that decision is for the overall good, of the masses
or the populace, do not hesitate to take it. These are the
attributes one must put in leadership to be a Chief Executive
Officer of a State or, even a country, or a club.
Your successor may dispute most of these claims. He has often
said that all the achievements you made were in road
construction and that he has done more roads than you ever
did and that the cost of your roads was exorbitant –
Did he say that really? I will take the issues one after the
other. One, it is not true that I did only road construction. You
didn’t also add that he said that I did all my roads in Idemili
Area and that they were localised in my village area and local
government of Idemili North and Idemili South. He said so. I
didn’t do only road construction. Road construction is such a
thing that is very visible any day so people can point at it and
say these were done at this particular time. That is why they
cannot dispute that and that is why they hung unto that and
said it was the only thing I did. I have told you what I did in
education. They are verifiable and the UBE scheme gave
Anambra State a prize as the best UBE programme facilitator in
the South East for over three years and the award was given
in 2006. I was governor in 2003, 2004, 2005 and part of 2006.
So who is to get that award? The award was given as a trophy
and cash prize. Governor Obi received it on behalf of the state
but he knows he wasn’t the one, because it was a three-
year plan rolled backwards. It was for my period. I entered
that scheme when no governor was touching it. I was the first
person in the South East to enter that programme and by the
time I left, like I said, I had about N1.6bn in that account.
General Hospital Onitsha was accredited in May 2006. I left as
Governor in March 17, 2006. The result of visits, inspection and
evaluation for accreditation were released May/June 2006. My
successor said it was due to his effort. I don’t know which
hospital can be accredited with a two or three months stay,
especially when no visit was undertaken in the person’s
tenure. So, it is preposterous for somebody to say that he
came in March and accreditation was done in May/June. They
announced that I was sleeping as a Medical Doctor and I did
nothing but, of course, those who know me know that if I put
my hands on the plough, I do it to the best. When they say
Ngige did nothing in health, I just laugh. This is a familiar
terrain. In fact, that is my major constituency. It doesn’t fit. I
let them be because I don’t want to enter into altercations
with the government that succeeded me. Any advice I try to
give them, they say it is criticism and they would shout it on
the radio and television that I have come back with trouble.
So, I let them be. I was the first person to employ doctors for
local governments so that they can go to the health centres in
rural areas, and for them also to do some local government
management at the local government headquarters. I was to
increase them to 42, that is, two for each local government.
We had done interviews and employed the first batch and we
were paying them. As a matter of fact, by the time we came,
doctors were on strike. I brought them back. We employed the
first batch of nurses in the State, we employed doctors and we
paid all their allowances. They never went on strike for one
day. Since I left they have gone on strikes. In one of them,
they were on strike for almost 13 months. So it is not only
roads. I did health, I did education, I restructured the civil
service by bringing fresh hands, I paid civil servants their
salaries, I promoted them and, like I said, the roads were the
only thing they saw, but these roads are high quality roads. I
left office nearly 10 years ago. The roads I built are still there
and these roads are evenly distributed, not limited to Idemili,
my area.
There is this mantra of power shift to Anambra North. You are
from Anambra Central. How would you situate your
aspirations within that which has come to be the current
opinion?
It is not the current opinion. This is what I can say. First and
foremost, I want to point out that there has never been a
consensus among the political leaders, among the
stakeholders in Anambra State, on power shift to any part.
There has never been such a meeting and even when some of
us have called for such a meeting, nobody had listened to us.
The people of Anambra state have never, at any time, during
the contest for governorship, said that any zone should not
contest. That is why, from 1998 to the present time, with
practical illustrations, we can show you that political
gladiators have always come from the southern districts of
Anambra State, from the central and from the north. In 1999,
Dr. Chinwoke Mbadinuju was in the PDP. Other gladiators that
came at that time included Dr. Obinna Uzoh. From the central
you Dr. Anaeze Chinwuba and others. From the North, in fact, I
think the North had a greater number of aspirants and
candidates. After Dr. Chinwoke Mbadinuju, in 2003, the race
was called again. I became Governor from the Central
Senatorial District. The incumbent was also from central. Okey
Nwosu from Central vied under UNPP. He was in APGA when
the ticket was taken away from him. From the South, we had
Dr. Chinwoke Mbadinuju. He ended up vying under Alliance for
Democracy. We had Obinna Uzoh from PDP. He ended up vying
with one other party. Even from Central, we had Chudi Ofodile
who vied. But at the end of the day, I became Governor and
after that Peter Obi came in. Nobody says nobody from the
North should contest. But we had always done our things on
merit. Anambra abounds with a lot of intellectuals, abounds
with a lot of good people, abounds with a lot of men who
could be governor. We had never labeled anybody as a rooster
in the political leadership. It is absurd that it is at this time that
the governor and others are taking that stand. If I take you
back to memory lane, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the Owelle of
Onitsha, our revered father nationally, was presidential
material before the military coup. But before then, he had won
election in the western region. He left Western Regional House
of Assembly and became NCNC leader and from there, Premier.
He governed the former Eastern Region from 1950 to 1960
when he went to Lagos to become Governor-General; from
Governor-General to President of Senate; from President of
Senate to President of the Federal Republic. He was from
Anambra North, Onitsha. In 1967, after the Military
Government in Nigeria under Gowon declared police action
and later total action against the then Biafra, they appointed
Ukpabi Asika as Sole Administrator and he was in charge from
1967 to 1975 when Gowon’s government was overthrown.
After the war in 1970, he controlled what is now the entire
South Eastern States. He ruled and reigned totally because
there was no legislature, no parliament to check anything he
was doing. He made budgets as he pleased, at his whims and
caprices, made his appointments and cleared with nobody. No
House of Assembly to approve commissioners or approve
appointments of Chief Judge to the extent that, at the time, he
was administrator, he appointed an Onitsha man as Chief
Justice of Eastern Central State. In fact, the first 10 judges were
from Onitsha. He even appointed commissioners from Onitsha.
We are one people; we regard ourselves as one. The people of
Anambra State have always regarded ourselves that we
always give the best in whatever appointment or position we
find ourselves. We have never segregated, we have never
discriminated. The rule of the game in Anambra State is that
we have been using merit and we have been using who can be
effective and who can deliver to us, even in appointment of
ministers. We never discriminate about that. Our last two
ministers are from the north of Anambra State. Nobody is
talking about it. So this question of north or south is of no
value and nobody from Anambra will bring that kind of
challenge.
Many people see your party, the APC, as being a Yoruba party.
How do you address that?
I don’t know how you want me to address this except that I
have to be my own man and say that which I have always said,
that a party is a vehicle that takes you to your destination.
And when you get to the destination, you disembark and do
the business that you are asked to do. You want to be
governor, the constitution says that you must be sponsored
by a political party, if you want to be a senator, you must be
sponsored by a political party. Any elective office holder who
wants to go to a destination must do so under a political party
but the primary thing there, the cardinal issue there, is the
worth of that person. Parties are like transporters. They might
all get you to your destination but some might get you to a
bridge and dump you inside the water and people will get
drowned. What is written on the vehicle, as the Igbo would
say, is not the primary thing. It is immaterial. I am an APC
Senator today, but I speak for the Igbo of the South East, I
speak for the Igbo of Anambra and I speak for the Igbo of
Anambra Central in particular. They are the people who sent
me there. I am not going there to move a motion for the
people of Ondo Central or the people of Oyo West. I won’t
do that. They have their own senators. If I become governor, I
will be governor of Anambra State. Make no mistake about it,
the people you think don’t know, they know. That is why
they sent me to the Senate on the platform of ACN. Even when
the propaganda of ACN being a Yoruba party was being
bandied by the government of the day, it was unfortunate
because the Yoruba are people that are most friendly to the
Igbo. They don’t kill us. Our people have never run home to
say that they were being killed or that their shops were being
looted. I feel pained when this blackmail is being done just for
political ends. For example, the Governor of Anambra State has
all his businesses here in Lagos. His company, Next
International, is based in Lagos. That is where they are
trading. All his containers come from here but the same man
will sit down and tell people I am from a Yoruba party. It is not
fair. Why would somebody tell me that I should not associate
with Yoruba. I want you to know that those who are shouting
All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) today do not know that
the intention of our founding fathers when they formed
United Progressive Grand Alliance (UPGA), led by Dr. M.I Okpara
and Chief Obafemi Awolowo, was a good handshake across the
Niger, between the East and the West, a good handshake
across Benue; between the East-West and Benue. That was
why we had Okpara from the East, Awolowo from the West,
Joseph Tarka from Benue as frontline leaders, Mallam Aminu
Kano, northern leader. So it was a fusion of NCNC of old which
was predominantly Igbo; Action Group of old, which was
predominantly Yoruba; UNDP, which was predominantly Tiv
and Idoma people; NEPU, predominantly Hausa talakawas, and
the other party in the north east of Nigeria. For people to say
they are forming APGA and that it is an Igbo party means that
they are hijacking that original UPGA and that they are
divorcing the intent, the motto of the old UPGA, and they do
so because of selfish ends. A lot of them that parade APGA
today don’t know how it was formed. They don’t know
the people that promoted it. I know that one day, the truth
will be told.