Dr. Chris Ngige is a standout who does not actually need any introduction, having distinguished himself in the areas of medicine and politics over many years. Speaking to Romanus Ugwu and Ndubisi Orji on his 73rd birthday, he went down memory lane into the making of a man who has built himself into an asset, reflecting on the unfortunate circumstances that resulted in his removal as governor of Anambra State, and his foray into politics on the national stage, among other issues.
You have been a director in the Federal Ministry of Health, governor, senator and minister; can you give us a history of your journey in politics and Anambra State Government House?
My journey to the Government House didn’t just start, that I dropped from heaven and became a minister. I did my primary school at St. Patrick, Ogbete, Enugu. So, I was an Enugu boy; brought up there. And I went to St. John’s Secondary School, Alor. It was ‘bush Secondary School,’ but one of the first 11 secondary school in the former Eastern Region.
I was, by the grace of God, the school captain. And I also had second best result, in terms of school certificates from the school, having scored Division One distinction. I later on found myself in University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
In those days, during our time, you could take entrance exams into multiple universities. So, I did Nsukka, Lagos and University of Ibadan. And I had admission into the three. I chose to go to University of Nigeria Medical School. I did my prelim medicine in the Nsukka campus.
Thereafter, I had my MBBS degree in Medicine and Surgery in 1979, six-year course. From there, I went to Onitsha General Hospital for my one-year hosemanship, 1979 to 1980 and I did my NYSC, ’80 to ’81. My NYSC was at the National Assembly Clinic. I was a corps member doctor. I had my mates then, Dr. Asemota, Dr. Ndubuizu, Dr. Sada and, thereafter, we were employed into the National Assembly Service by the National Assembly Service Commission in 1981.
Later on, I was posted to the office of the Senate President, as Senate President’s physician. And, not long after that, I did that job for just one year, the military struck in December 1983 and the National Assembly was the first casualty. It was dissolved. We were absorbed into the Federal Civil Service. We found ourselves in the Federal Ministry of Health as medical officers.
We were consulting in the same National Assembly Clinic, for a start. And thereafter, we did postings. I was in the clinic in Ijora, National Theatre. After that, I went to Federal Government Special Guest House Clinic, where visiting Heads of State were kept, visiting ministers of government and VIPs of the Federal Government, Federal Military Government then.
I had a stint in Dodan Barracks Clinic. And from there, I went on a course to Pakistan and did a System and Hospital Administration programme, came back and went to Ministry of Health headquarters as assistant director and consultant. My mates then were Dr. Awe, Dr. (Mrs.) Topp, and Dr. Ulubibi.
And later on, I was promoted to deputy director; as we were doing that, the civilian regime was being formed by Abdulsalam Abubakar in 1998 and I decided to enter partisan politics. Not that I wasn’t doing politics before then. I was into politics but I was not partisan. Because, in 1991, I was the president of Aka Ikenga, the think-tank group for Igbos in academia, banking, commerce and the rest of them all.
So, I had the knowledge of what the Igbos needed because Aka Ikenga was affiliated to Ohanaeze as a think-tank group. And we successfully organized the Mkpoko Igbo conference in Enugu in 1994, 1995, from where we selected the board delegates to the Abacha Constitutional Conference.
I joined the partisan politicians and became a mentee of the late Dr. Alex Ekwueme, who was the brain box and the architect of G34. It formed the nucleus of the party called Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The 34 members, apart from one, two, three of them, all others were members of the formation of the PDP.
As I said, I was new in partisan politics. So, we had to do tutelage under Dr. Alex Ekwueme. We carried his bag to meetings, as politicians would call it. You must carry bag. So, Professor ABC Nwosu and myself carried bags for him. ABC Nwosu was older in partisan politics than me, but we were all mentees of Dr. Alex Ekwueme.
I am a founding member of PDP. I attended all the meetings in Jerry Gana’s house for the formation with Dr. Alex Ekwueme and I kept my minutes for him so that, before the next meeting, me and ABC Nwosu would draw out the full minutes and give him.
Many Nigerians don’t know, he (Ekwueme) was the first interim chairman of the PDP. A position he had to relinquish to enable him run for the presidential primary of the PDP. And that was how Pa Solomon Lar was then elected by the caucus to be the national chairman. All this happened with me participating when democracy was full-blown and the party, PDP, had produced a President and National Assembly members.
The other parties, APP and AD, also produced National Assembly members but they didn’t win the big trophy, which was the presidential seat. Olusegun Obasanjo was our flag-bearer. We did our second convention to elect party officers in December 1999 at Eagle Square. I was elected Assistant National Secretary of the PDP and the Zonal Secretary for the South East. We started and served diligently.
From there, when the appraisal of governance were done in 2002, the party found then Governor of Anambra State, the late Chinwoke Mbadinuju, wanting and did not want to support him (for a second term). So, they didn’t give him an automatic ticket, even though nobody was given automatic ticket, they threw the nomination open.
A casual group from Aka Ikenga and from Mkpoko Igbo, all in Lagos, fused, and, with some people at home, pushed for my candidacy in the primaries. I won the primaries, even though that was not my first choice. My first choice was to be a senator. Even when they were pushing for me to go and become a governorship candidate, I was dodging it.
The dodging didn’t last too long. In fact, the end of the journey of dodging was when I didn’t present myself for the Governorship Screening Committee that held in Presidential Hotel, in December of 2022. That panel was led by Brigadier General Sabo. Lots of people just jostling for governorship ticket were happy. But the then President, Olusegun Obasanjo, told the working committee that I absented myself for reasons best known to me. And they should list me and screen me.
Chief Audu Ogbe and Vincent Ogbulafor were chairman and secretary of PDP, respectively. Bode George was the national vice chairman, South West. And my friend, the late Dokubo, was vice chairman, South South. They convened an extraordinary National Working Committee meeting and screened me in Abuja on December 28.
Everybody had to be recalled from home, including me. And from the screening, we did the primaries in January, and I won the primaries and from there to the election. We got to the election, and I was sworn in May 29, 2003, as governor of Anambra State.
My journey through the Government House was another kettle of fish, another big story. But I put in my best for the people of Anambra State. And from there, the court removed me. It’s important to note that I was the first governor to be removed by a court in Nigeria. At that time, governorship election petitions abated and stopped at the Court of Appeal level.
It was easy for my traducers to do what they wanted to do, instead of ordering for a fresh election in consonance with the Electoral Act, which says that if there is no substantial compliance, a fresh election should be conducted. Also, due to the Supreme Court decision on Nwobodo and Onoh that tribunal courts are not supposed to count the votes. They should look into substantial compliance situation.
But I had to leave honourably so that there would be no bloodshed in Anambra, because the people were in a very bad mood. They knew my traducers and they knew that I was serving them diligently and that most of the fight I did were for them. They rallied around me and they showed it, even in the election that took place in 2007, which the courts nullified.
They also showed it in the 2010 guber election. Again, some mysterious hands worked against me coming back and my votes were balkanised and a lot of them declared illicit. And the winner of the election won with 96,000 votes and was declared. Prof. Soludo came third after me with 85,000 votes. I took it again with equanimity, no hassles, and I went and contested for Senate in 2011.
I won the senior seat. Again, there was a very heavy backward push from INEC. INEC has always been the problem in Nigeria’s electoral process. I won the majority of votes against the late Prof. Dora Akunyili and I was sworn in as senator for Central. And I served from 2011 to 2015, four years.
After that, I couldn’t pass through for a second term in the Senate. But by then, we had formed the All Progressives Congress (APC). I was the campaign Deputy Director General in charge of South East. After that, I was appointed minister in the cabinet of President Muhammadu Buhari. I was reappointed after four years when he came for his second term in 2019.
I served again from 2019 to May 2023, when the administration came to an end. And since then, I have been a private person. I have taken a sabbatical from partisan politics for now, maybe next year, under an agreement I have with them.
At 73, you have been a director in the Ministry, Governor, Senator and Minister, how has it impacted on the people around you and the country in general?
I was a practicing medical doctor making people healthy when they got sick. You know God creates, but doctors keep healthy. That’s for man. A doctor cannot raise somebody from the dead. But a doctor can reduce pain and make you whole again after a disease condition. I served in National Assembly clinic. The legislators’ families were coming to me for medical treatment.
I built a bond of friendship with a lot of legislators then and even their families. Some of that friendship is still on. Somebody like Senator Roland Owie, he was a House of Representatives member under UPN. He was representing Benin. That time they were under Bendel State.
We became very good friends. That is lasting till today. I have other friends I made there. One thing stood out for me. Whenever I am in the clinic, you would see a long line of patients wanting to see me. They didn’t want to go into other consulting rooms. I don’t know why, but it happened.
From practice, when I was at Federal Government Special Guest House, it was the same. I was treating foreign patients and people like the former Liberian presidents, Doe and Taylor. Even when Nelson Mandela visited Nigeria, I was the physician attached to him, because I was in charge of the Federal Government Special Guest House. By that time, the health headquarters had designated me to be in charge of outdoor medical services. I had a wonderful time practicing.
Even the late M.K.O. Abiola, I was his doctor. For the 21 days, when we were in Indonesia and Malaysia under the G15 Economic Cooperation Council, which Babangida initiated for Nigeria to understudy the Asian Tigers on what they did to be where they were, increase their GDP and revolutionize agriculture and self-sufficiency in food, in medicine and other things.
I was there with the group and I became an automatic member of the Nigeria G15 and Abiola was our boss, our chairman and the late Sunny Odogwu was the deputy. The head of the government side, Dr. Chu Okongwu, was the coordinator. We built a bond and formed that council that time.
That council would have sent Nigeria up, because we learnt a lot there. But everything was jettisoned. You can see I was drawing experiences, variegated experiences, even though I was a medical doctor. Those were the things that stimulated my interest in serving people generally.
When I became governor, which was the first major public office I held, I brought my experience from the Federal Ministry of Health and as a former civil servant to bear on the job given to me.
At one point, when I was in charge of hospital administration in the headquarters, supervision of projects in the teaching hospitals, especially the new ones that were supposed to get to new sites, ABU, their new site in Zaria, Enugu, UNTH, their new site in ItukuOzalla, BUK, Kano, their teaching hospital, I and Dr. Awe were in charge of them.
We went to monitor infrastructural projects, roads that were being constructed there, buildings, electricity, water supply, of course, with the engineers from the Federal Ministry of Works supervising the contractors; we became the overall supervisors because those engineers would send their reports to us and we would forward the reports to the minister because the Ministry of Health was the paying authority for those projects.
I had big experience in terms of infrastructure before I came to be governor; coupled with the fact that I also knew how civil servants cut corners. It was easy for me to manage Anambra State.
It was easy for me to save money for projects because I knew where the things were buried, the dark spots in government service. I inherited a state that was in debt. Teachers were not paid for one year. Doctors were on strike. Before I came, they were owed one year. Pensioners were not paid. Gratuities were outstanding.
Things were not normal there. There was a lot of absenteeism. Also, the state had been blacklisted by donors, international donors, UNICEF, Health System, Ford, World Bank, the DFID and the rest. The state was not paying up counterpart funds, so it was blacklisted. Even in education, UBEC blacklisted the state before I came.
I came and turned around all these things, and paid all outstanding counterpart funding that were required and brought back all these donor agencies. Because with these agencies, the counterpart funding you pay is like a commitment to make sure you are serious. I paid them. Even in UBEC, that’s universal basic education, I paid, I paid up. Immediately, before I left, I had about N2.5 billion in that account. It was the same in the health system. We turned around a lot of things in Anambra.
I left money while going. The Justice Anunuba committee that looked into all the accounts of Anambra State, and in my handover note to Mr. Peter Obi, they affirmed that I had N13.8 billion there in all the various accounts.
Obi is not the only person who left money. I left money for him, but he is not talking about it, which is not good. I left money for him, in all those accounts, even some accounts in CBN, which were encumbered under people who were taking Irrevocable Standing Payment Order, called ISPO, for work not done, like construction of Government House, like construction of some roads.
Some people went and deviously got ISPO. I stopped them all and became their enemy, but I didn’t mind because it was Anambra people’s money. In education, I did articulation, joining JSS up to JSS3 into UBEC. That was the idea of UBEC. Some of my secondary schools got new classrooms, new equipment.
As a matter of fact, the computer system donation, which Obi did later were my own. I was the one who paid for HFP computers. I paid for 2,000. They are still there. Their lady representative knows, I can’t remember her name now, but she was a representative of HFP West Africa.
I renovated many hospitals. I refurbished them. Umuleri General Hospital, Awka, the one that is known as a teaching hospital, Amaku, I upgraded it. Onitsha General Hospital, where I did my house job, I upgraded it. They didn’t have good theatres by the time I came back as governor. And I said no. We had two theatres operating while I was there. One was for surgery and one was for orthopaedic.
But surgery and OBGYN and the others were sharing one theatre, which was not right. When I came back, I put up three new theatres and ordered for medical equipment because I wanted Onitsha to become a specialist hospital, which Federal Government could take to make a Medical Centre, which is what has happened now; because you have to get your own up to a certain level.
Even the Amaku hospital is now the Teaching Hospital for Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University. By the way, the university was a glorified secondary school by the time I came. They had no single storey building there. It was just some high bungalows, about seven or so, and they called it Ekwunugo Okeke Polytechnic.
The day I visited and looked at all those things, I said in my mind that I had to change things. From the polytechnic, my predecessor said it was now Anambra State University, seven high buildings. So what did I do?
Luckily, they had awarded contracts for those who would build faculty buildings, but no payments. They couldn’t mobilize the contractors. I brought them back. I brought the contractors back. Jimbaz Nigeria Limited, there was Architect Umenyiora and his company, and so many of them. I mobilized them, and they did faculty buildings immediately.
Immediately they were done, intakes commenced. I got the Pro-Chancellor then, who was a former registrar of WAEC, Professor Chukwuemeka Ike, to do a task force. We set up a task force reporting directly to the governor’s office. By the time I came, there was no budget for them because it was May.
I did an extra budget for them. And by 2004, we invited the National Universities Commission to come for accreditation. And we were credited for over 60 courses in one fell swoop. Over 30 of them got full accreditation, another 30, partial accreditation.
In 2005, again, we did the same thing and they got full accreditation for those that had partial accreditation, and accredited others. We had over 100 courses then. And by the time I was leaving, we had gotten the Council for Legal Education to approve the law faculty.
The council is in charge of accrediting you for you to come to law school. You could do your BL law, they won’t tell you anything, that falls on the report of NUC. But for that, you must get their own accreditation. Just like in medicine, you would get accreditation of Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria.
We got this accreditation from them before I left. And before I left also, UBEB had conducted what they called an appraisal of schools under UBEC. Anambra, my state, won. They won three trophies. But by the time the trophies were being presented in December of 2006 or so, I had left office. Accolades went to my successor.
But governance is a continuum. I didn’t bother. Where I bother is that there is no mention that these things were done before my successor came. It is not right. There was also no mention that I had handed over schools to the missions in 2005, 95 schools, primary and secondary. The records are there. I did my broadcast, handed over the schools on October 1, 2005, under the supervision of my then Commissioner of Education, Prof. Leonard Moghalu.
We did a lot of work. Maybe my successor built on them, but he is saying he built on them from ground zero, which is not good, which is not true. I have to talk about it now, because government is a continuum. The government is continuing and you need to give honour to whom honour is due.
The money I left was construction money, majorly, because I had an account called Infrastructure Account. In that one, we had about N8.7 billion. Then the one in the CBN was N1.7 billion, which was encumbered. The ones I left in other banks, Bank PHB and Zenith Bank and the rest of them, were accounted for.
My investments were not talked about. I invested in Orient Petroleum. I was the one who paid. I was also the one who got the land; the Anambra State Government gave them to be monetized as our investment. Even though the Orient Petroleum is not doing too well today, I did the investment and Madam Etiaba also did her own investment into it.
The bank debts, I paid them all off. I didn’t owe any bank. The gratuities due to civil servants who had served and reached their retirement age, which is like severance, I paid all. Nobody was owed gratuity by the time I left. Anybody who is saying he paid off gratuity is not speaking the truth. I paid off all.
I was the first governor to bring the list of pensioners from both the old Anambra State, because in the new Anambra State, they serve in Enugu. We made sure that those whose pension was the Anambra component were paid off. And the remaining pensioners from Enugu needed to just reconcile their account.
We needed to, even in all these areas of discrepancy; the pension I didn’t pay was a component that was of old Anambra. Why didn’t I pay? It was because reconciliation and verification were needed. But once you were an Anambra person and you were a pensioner, I started giving them 142% raise. Mine was the second state to do it in Nigeria. Rivers started, Peter Odili, then Asiwaju Tinubu in Lagos. We paid 142% raise.
Pensioners who were supposed to be paid N10,000 as pension were getting N30,000 under my leadership in Anambra State. I was also the governor who put salaries on first line charge. You don’t need to see anybody before your salary is paid. Same with gratuity, they are on first line charge.
Anambra is a commercial state. Their markets are their strength, starting from Onitsha Main Market, then Nnewi Market. After Onitsha Men Market, you have Onitsha Building Materials and others. I decongested Onitsha and relocated the building materials market.
I moved people of electrical to Oba. I moved people of stationery and paper. They were there blocking the side. I decongested Onitsha and then started tarring the roads, opening up the Onitsha township roads.
From Onitsha township road, we reticulated the roads into the hinterland, going to the northern part, to central, Nkpor, through there to Nnobi, then to Ekwulobia. Then the other one going through to Nnewi. We constructed a total of about 600 kilometers of roads. And when I say 600 kilometers of roads, I mean first-class roads that are still standing today. They are still standing, all of them. They were constructed by first-class contractors.
Those people who bought shops in that place that I relocated them to. They bought on the shops at just over N1 million, those shops are costing N300 million today. A lot of them. So I made their money to be big investments. I made their trade flourish. I made for other Nigerians to come into Onitsha and be buying. So I did all those. But again, people will not know that I restructured the civil service in Anambra State.
I was the one we introduced the clocking in system for work. I was also the one who put in promotion of civil servants by written exam and oral exam. It was absent until I came. I got that from my time in the Federal level because I sat for exams. For the appointment of permanent secretary introduced the exams too before it was done on the whims and caprices of the governor.
I encouraged the judiciary too to do that. Appointment of judges, even though they were not writing exams, but they did something near it. If you’re lawyer who wants to be a judge, your chamber will be evaluated by a special team. My then Chief Judge told me that I had to stay clear from that area for him. So I didn’t interfere. But he showed me what he was doing.
I was satisfied with what he was doing. So the first judges were appointed. We appointed 10 new judges, young men. One of them, two of them, is going to Court of Appeal. One is the Chief Judge of Anambra Stone now. They were young. They were in their 30s. The eldest was in their 40s. They were firebrand boys. We had to make them judges.
We also gave the judiciary new buildings, renovated their old ones. I gave them cars. I started the cars with my 10 judges because they were the newest. The other people who had cars that had been broken down, I said, we sat with these people and then we came back to those who had cars before that now needs to be replaced. The magistrates also got cars from me. I didn’t want magistrates to be standing in bus stops with their gown and all.
Some of them riding on okada, I said no, we got them in vehicles. I was the first governor to do that. So we encouraged the judiciary, even though there is separation. But he must encourage them. And I was the first also to allow the chief judge to operate a budget. They weren’t operating budget.
They were coming to the governor’s office for anything. I said, Accounting General, whatever we are budgeting for the judiciary, even though we are sure our money wouldn’t be 100% complete in the budget because there must be deficit element, we must give them the 60% at least which we are sure we are going to have in budget implementations. We moved up 60% to the Chief Judge’s office. So we gave the judiciary independence so to say.
And there are so many other things we did in Anambra State which I cannot say but I was happy that I opened up the place. Today, see governors go and say that commissioning or flagging off road of five or 10 kilometres, and I’m wondering, what is the big deal about this one? Some also said paying salary, but salary is given. It’s not a new thing but where people where people were owed salaries and clean them or clear them that’s an achievement.
The roads I built, none of them is less than 20km. I give you two examples. I had a road built from Otucha Aguleri that is Obiano’s hometown, moving it to Umuleri. From Umuleri, that road went into Nteje. From Nteje, it went into Okuzu, from Okuzu we went into Ifitedunu.
From Ifitedunu, we bypassed Ukpo and came to Uyaguabagana. Dropping at Uyaguabagana, people thought we would stop there. No, we passed through Eziowelle-Munachi into Abatete and from Abatete, then Udani Uke. We dropped it there. That road is about 57 kilometres.
We did another one starting from Igbuku by Orierie through Ezinifite, from Ezinifite to Uga Junction, from Uga Junction, Amuesi, from Amuesi to Umuchu, from there to Umunze and from there we started another journey into Ogbunka, from there to Owerre-Ezukala and from there to Isuochi in Abia State. I dropped it there because governors of Southeast had agreed to do interstate roads to come up and help our people. So I dropped that one there.
I dropped another one at Iseke from 52 kilometres through Nnewi, through Osumowo to another town. From there we dropped it for Imo governor to join. I did another one on the northern flank to go into Enugu State through Nsukka.
They are all federal roads and we did them and the successive government of Anambra got the refund for the federal roads I did. The then federal government didn’t give me a refund. They didn’t like my face. But they gave to my successor, Peter Obi, the sum of N15 billion. I want governors to know that they are serving their people and do infrastructure. They should be inspecting and monitoring them.
If they can’t do it alone because their knowledge is not there, they should go with their Commissioner for Works, who in the first place should be somebody in that mould. The person should be an engineer or an architect or a quantity surveyor – people who know about the construction industry. For governors coming to Abuja to stay for one week or two weeks is not right. You are being unfair to your people.
Looking back especially the circumstances that led to your leaving the office, what are those things you wished you would have done differently?
There was nothing I would have done differently. In fact, I am very happy with all that transpired because that is how God willed it. It is God’s will fulfilled. I am a very good Christian, but I also believe in predestination. God wants all these things to happen.
As a good Catholic, I know that nothing happens to you in your own life that is done for your own good. So, if it is what people would call a bad situation, because I know that when I was removed as the governor, somebody came to me crying and said that if it were him, he would commit suicide.
He said that he cannot bear it. And I told him, fine. I can go and get rope for you to go and do so. He was shocked because he did not know that it is what God wants. He willed it and allowed it to happen to me. So, where will I have my regrets?
The only one that people regretted about is that I was removed by the court. I don’t have any regret at all because if I don’t want to removed, I know those who are removing me, they show their hands, they give me conditions, but they are conditions I don’t want to do. And they say I won’t do them.
Even when the late Ibrahim Mantu, my friend told me the things I am supposed to do. He said that somebody sent him. I told his okay but tell the person that I won’t do it. He came back and pleaded that we go and meet the person.
We did and the person told me that the major condition would be that I should make Chris Obah as my deputy governor as the condition for me to stay on that seat.
I told them, well, I am sorry, let the seat go because I will not make him deputy governor for two reasons. They asked what your reasons are. I said that making him deputy governor will confer immunity on him and he can come into my office and shoot me. And if he does that, he is immune to prosecution. Nothing will happen. Stories will be told that maybe my Orderly shot me in an accidental discharge. I told them that is my reason.
And again, if I make him deputy governor, Anambra people will revolt against me. That is even the more important one. Because the Anambra people have seen all those people and they didn’t hide themselves. They came and burned down the state.
They burnt down the House of Assembly, the Government’s office, Anambra Broadcasting Service, burned down the Anambra Education Commission headquarters, and so many things. It was arson and the people did not hide themselves. They even made a broadcast on AIT and said that I should not enter the state again, that they have taken over.
So I to turn around and tell them that these people who said they are taking over and bound the place are not the people who should come and govern you. I said no. You can take my seat. No problem. God is in charge. And they were taking them back that somebody can say that.
Of course I left the office. Like I keep on telling people, I wasn’t born a governor. I was born Nwabueze Ngige, son of a carpenter. My father was a carpenter, foreman of works in PWD.
Do you have any regret leaving medicine, your professional discipline to venture into politics?
Who told you I have left medicine to politics? When I was a Minister, a cabinet member consulted me to inform me that he was going to Turkish hospital but I discouraged him and advised him to change this drug to that drug. He took the drugs and told me that there was a change.
Medicine is like an art. You learn it and that is why my three children are medical doctors. If the profession is not good, I won’t allow them to go there. I encourage them. In fact, the one who said he was a digital man, I encouraged him to start with medicine before changing to digital technology and software. He has finished. And he is going to digital. But now he is going to digital health.
Medicine is a noble profession. And it has a way of taming you, especially if you are schooled in medical school in Nigeria. You will be tamed, whether you like it or not. The exams will tame you. When we met at UNN medical school, some of the students who came from Government Colleges as superman in education had reference in our prelim medicine, resulting in some of them failing second MB, woefully.
In fact, one of them failed two papers and it was like the world has ended because he had aggregate eight in school certificates. And then came to medicine. Medicine is a discipline that you must read because there is no syllabus to say that you have finished reading everything. The human body is your syllabus and you can never finish it. Anatomy and physiology of man being and biochemistry of the liquid and everything that flows in your vein and artery are things you must know. Every liquid coming out from your body should be analysed.
What has been your guiding philosophy and what would you like to be remembered for after you left the stage?
Well, my guiding philosophy is that I want a lot of people, generality of people to be happy. I like it when the general people are happy. That is why I read medicine in first instance because I want to alleviate pain. And, of course, I did some unionism with medicine.
I flouted instructions from my superiors, especially in those my clinics that are special clinics. It’s not supposed to be the general public because it is for civil servants, but non-civil servants come there. For example, some students from the Nigerian law school came there. There are lecturers in the Nigerian Law School that came there because it was near the school.
At one time, they wrote a petition against me accusing me of opening up the place to non-qualified persons to come and seek medical attention. They said the clinic is for servant only but I said no, it can’t be for them only but also their family.
So, when women come with their children, other doctors refused to see them, they will come and line up on my area. And I will treat them and they collect drugs. They even wrote another petition against me saying that the drugs finish quickly because I would gather families.
When the matter came up, we had a Minister of Health, Prof Ransom Kuti, amiable and lover of people, who intervened and threw away the case and warned my director against bringing such a case up again to top management committee. That what I did was right. He must save life first before talking about referral and not referral.
It gives me joy that I practice my medicine and touched a lot of people. The same way, when I was the governor or when I was a Senator, I believed that I am for service to serve and touch people, to uplift them. When I was Minister the same thing. I was interested in skill acquisition and programmes to ensure people have some employment and skills so that they don’t go and join Boko Haram or bandits. They are easy recruits for bandits.
Why did you follow your political associates to the ADC?
I am not going to join the ADC because I am still a member of the APC. However, I watch what that they are doing but like someone on sabbatical, I am like a spectator and like watching the people playing football on the field, I get excited and laugh. There are some mistakes here and there. And even my own party makes mistakes too.
The ADC chieftains are seasoned politicians and have the right to form their own party but they have succeeded in dragging out my people to start contestation too early in the day. We are only watching now and will keep on watching till I come out of sabbatical to join the major players. I will definitely join the game.
What are your fears for the forthcoming Anambra governorship election?
I have no fear about Anambra election. Why should I have fears? There will be a free and fair election in Anambra state. Those who say they will write a result, whether they are in LP, or APC or APGA or PDP, nobody can write a result in Anambra state. We are an entirely different state.
Nobody will write any result in the state. Enough of those talk about writing results because they will not write it. They will not have the leeway to write results in Anambra state. It is not going to be possible.
What about the escalating insecurity in the state?
I don’t want to agree with you that there is escalating insecurity in the state. If anything, it is on the deep. It is going down drastically because the governor is now doing something about it that my successor did not do. Security is money. To secure your place requires money. And that is why the originators of budget did what they call security votes.
But many governors and chief executives of states and even their deputies think that security vote is pocket money. No. I will give you a typical example. I took a bill to the Anambra House of Assembly in 2003 as I resumed, to constitute a Vigilante in every community.
The House under Belonwu, who I was at loggerhead with over my kidnapping and resigning and not resigning, but we have become friends now, to even having dinner together two times a month. And we discuss everything about the state, passed it.
Each community in Anambra state should give us men, including those that are bad boys. We told them to write out the name of bad boys separately and then write out the names of those who want us to employ. They did. We gave employment to all of them and showed the bad boys the list, warned the bad boys that they will be killed if there is any false movement.
We told them that they owe us a duty to show us other bad boys, even those who have committed crime and left the state. And they complied. We paid them handsome amount of money, N30,000 in 2003, 2004, 2005, which was an equivalent of about N3 million now.
We fed them two times a day, provided them with buses, recharge card money. So the people were ready to defend their state. In fact, when my police were withdrawn, they made the security available for me. They did it. They secure their state. Sometimes they go on operation to hotels in Aba and Lagos to catch people who have committed crime in Anambra before.
That is what the Security Vote is all about. But many governments don’t spend the security votes because for them it is pocket money for them. It is money for buying property.
As somebody very close to late Buhari, didn’t you see his death coming last month and how did you receive it?
Buhari did not die at the time I thought he would die. That was what gave me sadness and sorrow. We expected this bad news in 2016/2017 when he went for that long medical treatment period when he came and went back. He said he had never been sick like this in his life when he came back.
As a physician, I looked at everything then and I knew he was doing a narrow escape. But this time, before he left for that treatment, I spoke with him. He was in the UK. To the best of my knowledge, he didn’t even go to UK because he was sick. He went for his check-up, which made me to receive the news with a lot of sadness.
But, like as a stoic philosopher and believer that is his time. He has played his own part, and God now wills him to come back. And that is what he has done without notice to a lot of people. I used to talk to him, maybe once in a fortnight, I would speak to protocol.
Even when he came to Kaduna, I didn’t go to Daura because I didn’t believe in going to suffer myself on those roads to Daura for obvious reasons, I was looking forward to seeing him, because I was abroad when he moved to Kaduna. I was away from Nigeria for up to three months.
So, the news of his death was like a jolt from the blues for me. But again, that was God’s will that it should happen at this time. We have to wish him well because it is one man who also wished Nigerians well, especially the downthrown. I know the fight that went on throughout his eight years on the issue of devaluation of the Naira. He was very opposed to it, fought it with all his strength. He doesn’t want to hear evaluation.
What will tell people that felt that he disappointed you because you were among the Igbo sons who visited him to request for the release of Nnamdi Kanu?
I was disappointed and I told him because in 2022, I organised Igbo leaders to meet him. I went to meet him with Igbo leaders like late Chief Mbazubika Amaechi, who led a delegation of led Chukwemake Ezeife, Bishop Onuoha, Chief Uwazurike, former President of Akaikenga, Ogbonnia Onu, was involved but he was a very young governor then, among others.
We requested that he should be released to us but Buhari said that it is s very difficult request that we made to him. And when he was saying it, you could see pain on his face. And I knew that he was in a difficult situation. But, we, at least got his approval to have access to Nnamdi Kanu but I did not have access to where he was kept at the DSS facility.
I stayed behind at DSS Director’s office while they went and chatted with him. From then, access was given to more people unlike before. I went back to the President, because as you said, he listened to me, I don’t deceive people, I talk frankly like my father. We talk frankly and leave the rest to God.
So when I went back and told him that the difficult request got difficult answer, he said yes, but that I should realize that it involves judicial and security. He said that I should honestly tell him what I want him to do. I said, what I want him to do is to invoke the Constitution on the prerogative of mercy, which permits a sitting president to pardon somebody who has committed an offense and have been jailed or have been fined or somebody who is on a trial for a criminal offense. He will use pardon to balance sand wash everything out.
I told him that he can do that through the Office of the Attorney General by giving instructions to him. So, I told him that was what I expect him to do. Even till date, I believe that the issue of Nnamdi Kanu requires political solution. I want to appeal to the President of the country to show magnanimity because the economy of the South East is been threatened by the issue of sit-at-home.
And I don’t know whether people know that the removing of Monday in the working and business days of South East is part of what leads to poverty in the zone for a large number of persons, especially those who are self-employed, called the informal sector. The sector doesn’t work, don’t sell and don’t go the market.
So, they are now left with about three functional days, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, because by design, commission or mission, Fridays have been dedicated to burials in the South East. Anybody you ask for in his office or in place of work and he is not there, they will tell you he has gone for burial.
So, it is only three days and I am appealing to Mr. President Tinubu to give us a gift so that we can allow the young men in the South East to start their life afresh.
A lot of them are not doing anything now because they will tell you that their leader is in jail in Abuja. And they will quote the court ruling which said he was unjustly apprehended and sent back to Nigeria. They will even quote for you the Kenyan High Court ruling to back up their claims.
