By ENYIM ENYIM

FORMER Governor of Anambra State, Dr Chinwoke Mbadinuju, was recently in Awka to pick his gratuity and pension raising emotive issues concerning his own administration’s handling of pension issues. In an interview following the payment of his pension, the former governor justified his performance in office and  addressed what he described as the high level conspiracy against him and his dream to serve a second term. Excerpts:

Do you have any regrets over your actions as governor of Anambra State?
Well, my autobiography has covered everything you can think of what I did or even omitted to do, if any. I don’t think there is anything I did as Governor of Anambra State, which I can regret. I don’t remember one. When we came, the workers were down in spirit because when the military were leaving, they were being owed four months’ salary, I cleared those four months salary and began to pay them Christmas bonus, which no Governor has done till today.

I built the Judiciary headquarters, ABS, fully air-conditioned Women Development Centre of which I imported the upholstery from London. When Obasanjo came, after inspecting my infrastructure everywhere, he was marveled. He confessed, ‘I have come, I have seen, I have heard and I am satisfied with what I saw on the ground.’

He gave me  A-plus on infrastructure development. And when it came to second term, the man who praised me so much; he wrote in the News magazine of 27th December, 2004, that he, President Obasanjo, single handedly stopped my second term in office. He was the person who said I scored A-plus in infrastructure and when it came to peace and security, I got Gold cup in National Competition in Abuja and in infrastructural development, I got B, second position.

So in terms of working as a governor of a state nobody can challenge me. When I asked him in Awka when he came to raise Ngige’s hand, I said, ‘ah Baba, why do you raise Ngige’s hand now, (yet) you gave me A-plus in my work?”
He said, ‘Odera, it is politics.’ I said, ‘politics with my second term?’ So, I don’t know, it might be one of the reasons Baba was stopped from third term.

Recently you were at the Government Lodge, Awka. Why were you there?
Government Lodge is for Anambra State, although inhabited by a Governor at a time. I have not been here for long, I have not been in Anambra for long, I mean the Government Lodge as a place.

Though, it is a place I lived for four years, but there must be reason for everything, time for every purpose. It has to do with my pension, pension arrears. You know I disengaged in public service as a Governor in 2003 and for eight years now, I have not had my pension. It has been shrouded in controversy and surprisingly the Governor, Mr. Peter Obi, phoned me while I was in Abuja and said that I should come for my pension.

He was the man, who was quoted in the papers that I will not be paid because I didn’t pay others when I was Governor. It is not that I didn’t pay others really, there was no money budgeted from Abuja and sent to Anambra for pension, which we didn’t pay. The one they were talking about did not come.

Ex - Gov Mbadinuju

Even, they took us to ICPC,  but it was discovered that the money didn’t come to Anambra not to talk of misusing it. Surprisingly, the Governor said I should come and have my own and I have been here for few days, he is a busy man, we talk sometime in the morning and sometime in the evening.

The primary problem we had was that the civil servants  said that there was a pensions law passed in 2005 and then 2008 and that they were using that of 2008 to pay me, and I was trying to educate them that we made a law during my tenure in 2002/2003, the House of Assembly passed it and said only the Governor and Deputy can receive pension of 2003.

It is possible that Dr. Chris Ngige in 2005 made another pension law and expanded it in terms of people, who should benefit and then may be in 2008, there was one they were preparing under Governor Peter Obi of which Governor Obi has not shown interest in.

When I got here, we tried to let them know that during my tenure, there was a pension law, passed by the House of Assembly signed by the Governor, myself, and gazetted. So if any other person made law later, it was not annulling my own law. So for days we haggled and haggled over it, eventually everybody agreed that it should be 2003 and the Governor gave me a hefty package.

It was like manna from Heaven. I was saying at a time that I need help because the only thing you have after you have served is this pension. And part of the problem is that crooked people in Anambra said that I called pensioners “dead woods”. Dead wood is not my language.

I have sworn enough  that I didn’t use such language. I just finished writing my autobiography on how I governed Anambra State and this matter came up, I gave it time and discovered that there was no such thing. And the second point, is to deny before Anambra workers through the Governor that I didn’t have anything to do with Barnabas Igwe and his wife.

You know, because the rumor then was that this man you carry the Bible and kill people. Nothing like that. I never thought of it or asked anybody. When Igwe and his wife died, I was in Houston attending the World Igbo Congress and it was there I was given a call that they have killed this man and his wife. How could I have come from Houston to kill this man and gone back. It was physically and spiritually impossible.

How much is your pension?
No, it is not decent to disclose the amount but it is an amount appropriate for my position.

How do you feel about it?
For Governor to make out time to phone me in Abuja and say that I should come down for my pension, we never saw it before. After all, Dr. Ngige was there, he never even mentioned it.

Dr. Ngige was my man when I was Governor, he was the secretary of the party in Anambra and when he came to Abuja, I accommodated him, bought a new car and gave him to work. But when he became Governor, he colluded with my opponents “the Ubas” and tried to reverse everything I had done. He did his best to try to reverse them. It is not fair. So the fact that a sitting Governor called me and said I should come means that God is already in him.

The point I am making is that it was good that the Governor invited me not me now forcing myself and fighting over it. So it came to me normally and naturally and I used the opportunity to look at what the Governor has done. The State University, I established it but he has expanded it and I looked at his infrastructure development, they are good. The man is a gentle man and he is guided. I think he comes from a good Christian background and I think Governor Peter Obi is doing the will of God.

Do you still have the ambition to govern Anambra State?
I was like a baby who was sucking her mother’s breast. If you remove the baby’s mouth from the breast  by force, you know you are committing suicide. I wish President Obasanjo had left me because I won the primaries three times. He would have allowed me to go on. Rather than stopping me, he would have allowed me go through the process and then fail.

Let me tell you, I won the primaries three times and even if you conducted the main election three times, I would still have won because I had something on ground.

Look at the person who replaced me, Ngige, didn’t they fight throughout the two and something years? There was a list of eight governors from 1979 during the time of Jim Nwobodo till today; all ex-governors list was compiled.

I was the only ex-Governor from Anambra and then of course,  Okwadike (Chukwuemeka Ezeife).  Ngige was not in the list. Uba was not in the list. Don’t you see nemesis working?  Ngige and Uba are not in the list of Governors in Nigeria, so what did they get by fighting me? That is the way God does his own thing.

The ambition of being Governor is because the constitution guarantees you two  terms. Any Governor or any president has the constitutional right to go for second term. So as long as I am alive and interested in politics, I still have one term left.