SIMON IBE, Group Political Editor
GOVERNOR Chimaroke Nnamani of Enugu State has said that the intense and widespread pressure on him to join the presidential race was a restatement of the fact that he has done well and a call for him to repeat what he has done in Enugu State at the federal level.
The governor, who addressed journalists in Enugu at the weekend said, however, that he would after critical analysis of the calls by virtually every segment of society, react very soon.
Dr. Nnamani, who would onWednesday, deliver a lecture on poverty in the country at the College of Medicine, University of Lagos, Idi-Araba, entitled "Poverty in the land: Our gods must hear of it" said that presently, what was more important was the celebration of the successes of the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration.
"We are talking about succession but let’s also talk about success. Let us celebrate the big masquerade first," he said, stressing that Obasanjo’s monumental achievements within the last seven and half years have been grossly under-celebrated.
He identified, for instance, the achievements in telecommunications, the banking sector, conflict resolution within the continent and sub-region, debt relief, the deal with the Chinese on railway revolution and liberalization of the energy and petroleum sectors noting that these achievements have moved the country far away from "ground zero."
According to him, whoever would take over from Obasanjo next year can only consolidate on the achievements that have so far been recorded, insisting that only such a person that understands and can build on the vision of the president and who can run with the vision should be allowed to occupy the seat from May 29, next year.
He said that he believes in the phenomenon of collectivism, or group interest in politics as opposed to individual interest, pointing out that the collective to which he belongs would decide who would fly the flag of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the December 16 national convention of the party.
He said that notwithstanding the number of people presently jostling for the ticket of the party, before the convention, there would be a machinery through which the number would be trimmed down.
"I subscribe to the collective, to the group interest, symbolized by the PDP headed by President Obasanjo. My interest and my people’s interest will still be subsumed within the interest of the collective. You don’t just come out , it is the political collective that decides. If I emerge as the symbol of that collective, we’ll say to God be the glory," he said.
The governor said that by May next year he would have played his part in Enugu state, assuring that all the projects that he has all over the state, most of which are 80 – 90 per cent completed would have been fully finished, including the Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT) which is now in use, the university’s Medical School/Teaching Hospital which is already in use, the state of the art fully computerized Judiciary headquarters and the Ebeano tunnel which are equally in use as well as the International Conference Centre (ICC) which is almost completed.
He said that by March next year they would also have discharged their loans and overdrafts stressing that he would also ensure that a member of the state’s collective represented by the Ebeano family who understands the vision of the collective taxes over from him to continue with the vision.
He said the visit of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to the state taught them some lessons especially at it helped them to examine themselves and their activities which they still have done before handover.
Insisting that the report of the commission exonerated the state, he stressed that they were not intimidated but that their position as a transparent and prudent government was re-inforced by the agency’s report.
The governor in his lecture is expected to articulate matters President Olusegun Obasanjo’s poverty reduction programmes, implementation of which had seemed circuitous, with highly controversial results.
Nnamani is believed to be gearing to clear the air and help his professional colleagues set the path in keying into the seeming complexities of poverty incidences and policy actions in the last seven years.
Initially contending that widespread lack and system decay had affected the moral foundation of medical practice in Nigeria prior to 1999, the governor who is billed to give the Horatio Oritshejolomi Memerial Lecture of the College of Medicine, University of Lagos, is believed to have planned to boldly confront the subject from both the perspectives of ethics and incidences arising from social institutions.
According to sources close to the governor’s office, Nnamani, who has given over 10 other lectures on the subject – among other 30 lectures on diverse national issues - is believed to have planned to articulate an expansion of the concept from confusing reports of incidences, to broad strategies propelling higher moral foundation.
It is believed that having earlier articulated the various planks of the presidential poverty reduction schemes, the governor may be gearing to shock his audience with easy but relatively latent patterns some of which he smoothly exploited in the implementation of his Enugu State’s version of National Environmental and Economic Development Strategies (NEEDS).
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