Senator Chris Ngige, former Anambra State Governor and Labour and Employment Minister, reflects on his time in the Government House and lamented how his successor, Mr. Peter Obi, who inherited many of his projects, failed to give him any credit. NICHOLAS KALU reports
You have been Governor, senator and minister. Can you walk us through your journey through public service and politics?
My journey to the Government House did not just start and I did not dropped from heaven and became a Minister. I did my primary school at St. Patrick’s Ogbete, Enugu. I went to St. John’s Secondary School, Alor. I was by the grace of God the school captain. I also had the second best result of school certificate from the school. I later went to University of Nigeria, Nsukka where I studied medicine. I did my prelim medicine in Nsukka campus in 1973 September to June of 1974. And thereafter, I had my MBBS degree in Medicine and Surgery in 1979. From there, I went to Onitsha General Hospital for my housemanship and I did my NYSC in 1980 to 1981. Thereafter I was employed into the National Assembly Service, the National Assembly Service Commission in 1981.
Later on I was posted to the office of the Senate President as the 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 to be dissolved. And we were then absorbed into the Federal Civil Service. I alongside other colleagues became medical officers in the Federal Ministry of Health. After that, I was in the Federal Government Special Guest House Clinic.
At one time I had a stint in Dodan Barack’s Clinic. And from there, I went on a course to Pakistan and did a System and Hospital Administration. I came back and went to the Ministry of Health headquarters as an Assistant Director and Consultant IV. And later on, I was promoted to Deputy Director. As we are doing that, the civilian regime was being formed by Abdulsalam Abubakar in 1998 and I decided to join partisan politics.
At what point did you join politics?
I joined the partisan politicians and I became a mentee of the late Dr. Alex Ekwueme, who was the brain box and the architect of G34. G34 also now formed the nucleus of the PDP. The 34 members, apart from about one, two, three of them, all others were members of the formation of the People’s Democratic Party.
And like 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. I am a founding member of PDP. Pa Solomon Lar was then elected by the Caucus. When democracy was full blown and the PDP had produced a president and National Assembly members, the other parties ANPP and AD also produced National Assembly members but they didn’t win the big trophy which is the presidential seat. Olusegun Obasanjo, our candidate and he won.
I was elected as the National Secretary of the PDP and the Zonal Secretary for the South East Zone. We started that and served diligently again. From there, when the appraisals of governors were done in 2002, the party found the then Governor of Anambra State, the late Chinwoke Mbadinuju wanting and did not want to support him. So they didn’t give him an automatic ticket.
Then, a group from Aka Ikenga in Lagos and Mbgoko Igbo in Lagos fused. But some people at home were pushing for my candidacy. I contested and won the primaries. To be a governor was not my first choice. My first choice was to be a senator.
My journey through the government house is 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 know that I was the first governor to be removed by the court in Nigeria. At that time, governorship election petitions abated and stopped at the Court of Appeal level so it was easy for my traducers to do what they wanted to do. I had to leave honourably so that there would be no bloodshed in Anambra because the people were in a very bad mood. Yet, the people rallied around me and showed it in 2007, which the courts nullified. They also showed it in a 2010 governorship election. Again, some mysterious hands walked against me coming back and my votes were balkanized and a lot of them declared illicit. I moved from over 147,000 votes to I think they gave me either 87 or 88 thousand. And the winner of the election won with 96,000 votes and was declared winner. Professor Soludo came third after me with 85,000 votes.
So, I took it again with equanimity, no hassles, and I won the contest for Senate in 2011, four years after. Because I won the senate seat, again, there was a very heavy backward push from INEC. INEC has always been the problem in Nigeria’s electoral process. All said and done, I won the majority of votes against the late Professor Dora Akunyili and I was sworn in as Senator for Anambra Central and I served from 2011 to 2015, four years. And after that, I couldn’t pass through for a second term in the Senate. But by then, we had formed the All Progressives Congress and I was the Campaign Deputy Director General in charge of the Southeast. So I was Zonal DG and after that, I was appointed Minister in the cabinet of late President Muhammadu Buhari.
I was reappointed after four years when he came for his second term in 2019. And I served again from 2019 to May 2023 when the administration came to an end. And since then, I’ve been a private person trying to rebuild my life, my family life in particular because not being near home affected some of the family needs, bonding with children and so on.
How have you impacted on the lives of the people of the state and the country in general?
I had done a civil service job in the Department of Hospital Services of the Ministry. That department is in charge of medical practice in the teaching hospitals, federal medical centers, federal staff clinics, dental centers, and psychiatric centers all over Nigeria. And then the centers of excellence that were being established also served as units for specialization. I was in that department, like I said before, after my training in Hospital Administration and System Management. But before that I was in the clinics. I served in the National Assembly Clinic in 1004. So the legislators’ families were coming to me. One thing stands out for me. Whenever I was in the clinic, you will see a long line of patients wanting to see me. They didn’t want to go into other consulting rooms. I didn’t know why, but it happened. From practice, when I was in the Federal Government Special Guest House, I was the same. I was treating foreign patients and people like the former Liberian President, Samuel Doe and Charles Taylor. They were all patients. Even when Nelson Mandela visited Nigeria, I was officially attached to him because I was in charge of the Federal Government Special Guest House. Even the late M.K.O. Abiola, I was his doctor for the period 21 days when we were in Indonesia and Malaysia under the G15 Economic Cooperation Council, which Babangida initiated for us.
In my handover note to Mr. Peter Obi, they affirmed that I had N13.8 billion left in all the various accounts. Obi is not the only person who left money. I left money for him, but he’s not talking about it, and that is not good. I left money for him in all those accounts. Also, I did articulated education, joining up 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, was my idea. I was the one who paid for HFP computers. I paid for 2,000. I renovated many hospitals. I’m a doctor. The Onitsha General Hospital didn’t have good theaters by the time I came back as governor. We had two theaters operating while I was there. When I came back, I put up three new theaters. I ordered for medical equipment because I wanted Onitsha to become a specialist hospital, which the Federal Government can take to be a medical center, which is what has happened now.
What did you do differently with Ekwenugwokeke Polytechnic?
From Ekwenugwokeke Polytechnic, my predecessor said it was Anambra State University with seven buildings. So what did I do? Luckily, they had awarded contracts for those who will build faculty buildings, but no payments had been made. They couldn’t mobilize the contractors. I brought them back, mobilized them and they did faculty buildings immediately. When I came, there was no budget for them because it was May. So I did an extra budget for them and by 2004, we had invited the National University Commission (NUC) to come for accreditation. 60 courses were accredited in one fell swoop. Over 30 of them were full accreditation. In 2005, again, we did the same and they got full accreditation for those that had partial accreditation. By then we already had over 100 courses. Before I left, we had gotten the Council for Legal Education to approve their Law Faculty. Also, before we left, UBEC had conducted what they call an appraisal of schools that were under UBEC and 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. So, the accolades went to my successor. But 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 then Commissioner of Education, Professor Leonard Moghalu, who is a Professor of Education. So we did a lot of work. Maybe my successor built them, but he’s saying he built them from ground zero, which is not good, which is not true. I have to talk about it now, because the government is a continuum and you need to give honor to whom honor is due. The money I left was construction money, majorly, because I have an account called Infrastructure Account. In that one, we had about N8.7 billion left there. Then the one in the CBN, we had over N1.7 billion, which I encumbered.
Then the ones I left in other banks, Bank PHB and Zenith Bank and the rest of them are accounted for the other funds. My investments were not talked about. I invested in Orange Petroleum. I was the one who paid. I was also the one who got the land, the acreage Anambra State Government gave them to be monetized as our investment.
Even though Orange Petroleum is not doing too well today, I made investments and Madame Etiaba also made her own investments into it. The bank debts, I paid them all off. I paid them all off. I didn’t owe any bank. The gratuities to civil servants who were there served and reached their retirement age, which is like severance, I paid all. Nobody was owed gratuity by the time I left. So, anybody claiming he paid all gratuities is not speaking the truth. I paid off everything as well as the pensions. The pension I didn’t pay is a component that is of old Anambra. I didn’t I pay because reconciliation and verification were needed. But once you are an Anambra person, and you’re a pensioner, I started giving them 142 % rise. I was the second state to do it in Nigeria. Peter Odili in Rivers started, then Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in Lagos. We paid 142 % rise. So pensioners, who were supposed to be paid 10,000 naira as pension, were getting 30,000 under my command in Anambra.
I was also the governor who put salaries on the first line charge. You don’t need to see anybody before your salary is paid. Anambra is an economically commercial state. Their markets are their strength, starting from Onitsha Main Market, the Nnewi Market. Then after Onitsha Main Market, you now have Onitsha building materials and others.
Were you able to deliver urban renewal projects in some of the cities?
I decongested Onitsha and sent out the people selling building materials and brought them to a land belonging to Ogidi, Nkpor, and Ogbunike. If you are driving into Onitsha from Okah end, you will see the building materials on both sides. Otherwise, they were in Onitsha, in William Street and Ozomagala Street and they were blocking the place. So I moved them. I moved the people selling electrical to Oba. Others selling stationeries and paper near QRC and CKC were moved to Onitsha. I decongested Onitsha and they started tarring the roads and opening them up. From the Onitsha Township Roads, we reticulated the roads into the hinterland of Anambra. 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 who bought shops in that place that I relocated them to, paid just over N1 million. Those shops are costing N300 million today. And there are a lot of them. So I made their money to be big investments. I made their trade flourish. I made it for other Nigerians to come into Onitsha and buy. So I did all those.
What impact did you make on the civil service?
But again, people will not know that I restructured the civil service in Anambra State. I was the one who 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 at the federal level because I sat for exams. For the appointment of permanent secretary, I introduced exams, too. This was done on the whims and caprices of the governor.
I encouraged the judiciary too to do that. In the appointment of judges, even though they were not writing exams, they did something near it. If you’re a 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. And I was satisfied with what he was doing. The first judges were appointed. We appointed 10 new judges, young men. Two of them are going to the Court of Appeal. One is the Chief Judge of Anambra State 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. For the other people who had cars that had been broken down, we sat with these people and then we came back to those who had cars before that now needed 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 were riding on okada. I was the first governor to do that. I was the first also to allow the Chief Judge to operate a budget. They weren’t operating on a budget. They were coming to the Governor’s Office for everything. 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 a deficit element, we must give them the 60 % at least, which we were sure were 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 were so many other things we did in Anambra State which I cannot say but I was happy that I opened up the place.
I did several road projects and the least of them was 20 kilometres. 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.
Do you have any regrets leaving medicine for politics?
I have not left medicine. Medicine is like an art. You learn it. It is like an art. You learn it. That’s why my three children are medical doctors. If the profession is not good, I won’t allow them to go there. I encourage them. So medicine is a noble profession. It’s a noble profession. And it has a way of taming you. Especially if you’re schooled in medical school in Nigeria here, you will be tamed, whether you like it or not. The exams will tame you.
Through your professional and political life, what has been your guiding philosophy and what would you want to be remembered for after leaving the stage?
Well, my guiding philosophy is that I want a lot of people, the generality of people to be happy. That is why I did medicine in the first instance because I wanted to alleviate pain. And of course I did some unionism with medicine. I flouted instructions from my superiors.
You have not followed your friends to the African Democratic Congress (ADC). Why is that? Also what are your fears about the upcoming Anambra elections especially against the background of escalating insecurity in the state?
I am not going to ADC. I am still a member of APC. But I watch what they’re doing. And so as somebody on political sabbatical, I am like a spectator now, watching people play football in the field, and I get excited and I laugh. Some mistakes here and there. Even my own party makes their mistakes too. ADC people are seasoned politicians and to me what they are doing, they have a right to form their own party, but they have succeeded in dragging out my people to start contestations with them too early in the day. That’s what they have succeeded in doing.
On the Anambra elections, I have no fear about that. What fears? There will be free and fair elections in Anambra state. Those who say they will write the results, whether you are a Labour or you are APC or you are APGA or PDP, nobody can write results in Anambra State. We are a different state. Nobody will write a result in Anambra state. Enough of those talk about writing results. They will not have the leeway to write results in Anambra State. It’s not possible.
