By Chuks Ogbu
Sometime in the first tenure of Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani as governor of Enugu State, a young man came seeking assistance to be able to secure a job at Standard Trust Bank. But he ultimately got a job as the Coordinator of the Community County Council initiative of that administration. He was later appointed Chief of Staff to the governor. And when Chief Olusegun Obasanjo accorded Dr. Nnanani the honour to nominate a minister after the 2003 elections, he put forward the then 38-year Frank Nweke.
Although Obasanjo initially rejected the nomination, as there was nothing in his CV to merit a ministerial position at the time, Nnamani took Nweke to Aso Villa and they both came out smiling. Also, when the Senator nearly turned down his nomination for the same reason of age and experience, Senator Ken Nnamani, who was an ordinary senator at the time, took it upon himself to defend the nomination. He analysed to his colleagues that analogue technology did not compare to digital technology in efficacy despite the former being much older.
Nweke served as Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Special Duties in 2003 and later as Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Special Duties and Youth Development; Minister of Information and National Orientation; and Minister of Information and Communication, which put him in firm control of one of the most sought after agencies- the National Communications Commission (NCC) and the Ecological Fund. Unfortunately, despite these over-promotions and opportunities, Nweke did not empower anyone outside his father’s house or have any major project to his name for the development of Enugu State. In fact, he put a wage between himself and his people. For instance, upon his emergence as Minister, the Abuja Branch of Ozalla Development Union (ODU) went to congratulate him. But he refused to see them, saying he was occupying a national office, not an Ozalla town union office. Except the narrow, surface-dressed rural access road he did to his father’s house from Four Corners Express Ozalla, and which washed off long ago, one cannot point at any projects that stand as a monument to his name as an Enugu-born minister; the same with employments. In fact, he was an island entire of itself, as it was all about him and his father’s house.
Something interesting played out recently when he went to Afor Agu market, Four Corners, Ozalla to market his governorship ambition. He moved randomly from table to table to woo the market women. But each person he asked if she knew him would innocently say she didn’t. He would then start introducing himself.
In his own immediate autonomous community, Franks’ arrogance and insistence on hijacking the traditional stool and town union structure has ensured that Ishi Ozalla has not enjoyed peace. It is even interesting that someone as supposedly exposed as him, will still degradingly regard and treat some people as slave born in this day and time, thus ensuring that Ishi Ozalla keeps boiling over.
Also, there is a standing regulation by the Catholic Church that everyone must bury his dead within a month. It is a way of moderating the usual long waits before burials by relatives in their bids to hold ostentatious funerals. But when his father, the late Igwe Frank Nweke died, Frank made sure he took some months. When the Church refused to bury the father, especially given the arrogant way he went about it, he brought an Anglican Church Bishop to oversee a funeral service in a Catholic Church.
But Ozalla community has not forgotten. Only recently, they served him an appetizer of the cold breakfast that awaits him in the governorship election. Frank had suddenly become nice due to his governorship ambition. He had gone round to ‘lobby’ some elders, asking for the community’s endorsement of his gubernatorial ambition. He bought and branded a Toyota Sienna, which he gave to them to present to him on the day of the self-sponsored endorsement. The people played along, but only to disappear on the D-Day. Just handful of people came together to retire the money he dolled out for the failed project.
But would you blame the same people he refused to connect with or see while he was Minister? Hopefully that “national office” he told them he occupied would vote for him come 11th March 2023. If he is also lucky, his retinue of women and baby mamas will also vote for him. Frank Nweke is known for his harem. Once he became politically successful, women became his real kinsmen and the real “national office”. It is not a hidden fact that there is hardly any state in Nigeria that Nweke does not have a child or baby mama to his name. A few years back, story was told how he denied one of his daughters. Frank was chilling out with his current wife at a lounge when one of the daughters from other women saw him and came to greet him. But to the daughter’s greatest shock, Frank practically denied ever knowing her.
Meanwhile, whereas Frank Nweke has been sweet-talking Enugu people on how he would turn the state around, laying claims to the leadership and managerial skills that he does not have, it is a fact of history that HiTV (High Television), the only major enterprise associated with him collapsed long ago. Founded 1st August 2007 after he left office in May 2007, Wikipedia says, “HiTV services were stopped in November 2011 due to financial difficulties”. So, how can he give to Enugu State what he does not have?
Worse still, Frank Nweke will also meet face to face with his history of betrayals and ingratitude. He is a known fair weather friend and does not hesitate to draw the sword from under his cloak against supposed allies and mentors. Examples abound. For instance, it is not a matter of conjecture that Chimaroke Nnamani practically made him. But when Nnamani had problem with the EFCC and could not immediately occupy his senatorial seat immediately after leaving office in 2007, Nweke pushed all the buttons he could to have his benefactor dislodged so he could replace him. He has also worked to undo Chimaroke on several election cycles. Note that this is not about whether Chimaroke Nnamani is a sinner or saint. It is about testimony to one of his character traits. It is about a moral burden of trust and gratitude.
Another example is the so-called forgery of NYSC allegation fabricated against the frontrunner gubernatorial candidate, Dr. Ndubuisi Mbah, of the PDP. It doesn’t take the crystal ball to know that aware that he stands no chance in the gubernatorial contest, Frank Nweke went as far as using his influence as former minister in charge of the NYSC to try to use the agency to bring Mbah down. He believes that if Mbah is disqualified, Nkanu people would now queue behind him as an alternative. But he must be dreaming.
Unfortunately, Nweke thinks too highly of himself and floats so high in the air to notice all these issues around him. But sometimes, electoral infatuation is a disease, which only the polling booths can heal; and it he will no doubt get his dose of it on 11th March.
Ogbu lives in Enugu
