A Thieving Mayor?

Chief Chris Mba, Secretary of Amankanu Development Forum (ADF) in Nkanu East Local Government Area of Enugu State, recently, secured his freedom from police detention. A battery of policemen had, in the early hours of Sunday August 2, whisked Mba from his New Haven residence, and hauled him into detention on charges of threat to life and malicious damage. (Pictures, left and right, show Hon. Ejike Ani, Chairman, Nkanu East Local Government Area of Enugu State) 

Arrested and detained alongside Mba on the fateful day were some of his Amankanu kinsmen, including Benneth Ikenna and his son, Tochukwu, Uchenna Mba, Simeon Akaeme, Patty Okoh, Monday Agbo and Samuel Ikenna.

Mba and his co-accused were nabbed following a case incidented against them by Hon. Ejike Ani, incidentally, chairman of their council, Nkanu East. The detainees did not breathe the air of freedom until the following day, Monday August 3, when orders from above led to release. The arrest and detention of the hapless indigenes was despite their plea for innocence.

The duo of Mba and Ikenna narrated that it was as a result of their crusade for good governance, probity and accountability in the council that Ani, the council’s chairman, procured the police to intimidate and clobber them into silence.

As part of his good governance crusade, Mba, particularly, fired a petition to the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) on June 14 this year, accusing Ani of monumental corruption in the running of the council. Mba, also, sent the petition to Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for necessary action.

The petition, entitled: ‘Report on Corruption and Abuse of Office of a Public Officer; Re: Hon. Ejike Ani, Chairman, Nkanu East L.G.A’, alleged that Ani has been siphoning the resources of the council through false claims and direct labor without due process.

Mba’s petition is, indeed, anchored on a report which the council boss, in February this year, submitted to Enugu State House of Assembly Committee on Local Government. And Ani had, in the said report, claimed that he built a mobile police post at Amechi Idodo community in the council at the cost of N3.4 million (N3,354,000.00).

But the petition contended that ‘the container he (Ani) dropped at the police post cannot worth more than N0.2 million (N200, 000.00)’. The petition, also, faulted the council chairman’s claim that he built a six classroom block in his Oruku community at the cost of N17 million (N17, 044,000.00), as well as constructed the Nyaba Bridge along Amagunze-Akpawfu-Oruku-Afor Ezza Road with 443 million (442,964,754.54).

Mba’s petition, further, alleged that the Mayor uses his personal friend and driver to carry out direct labor contract under the cover of Manifest International Limited. The cost of the project, which involved lateriting and grading of some community roads in the council, is put at a whopping N20 million.
Part of the accusation against Ani is favoritism in the running of the council. According to the petition, Ani only appointed his friends and kinsmen, to the exclusion of other stake-holders, into positions of authority in the council in disregard of geographical spread, arguably, the hallmark of democracy.

For instance, the council chairman allegedly appointed his younger cousin, simply called Inyaba, hitherto a gate man in the Ministry of Rural Development, the council’s Supervisor for Works. Other alleged favored appointments included Okoh Dennis, his uncle, (Education Secretary), Charlie Nnaji, his maternal uncle (Media Consultant), and Ikechukwu Agomuo, his Imo state friend, (Personal driver) among numerous others. In the main, the petition contended that Ani uses the appointments as a cover to loot the council’s funds.

Mba’s petition to anti-corruption bodies is just one out of legion travails of Ani. At the moment, the embattled chairman faces stiff opposition to his second term bid by a cross section of his kinsmen, who deprecate his style of leadership. Consequently, in a recent function of the Vita Abba-led state chapter of People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the angry stake-holders demanded the replacement of Ani with a candidate with ‘a human face’. The group, even, followed up this demand with petitions to Governor Chime, Hon. Eugene Odo, Speaker, State House of Assembly and the state PDP Chairman respectively.

Among other things, the group argued that the council needs a chairman who will ‘develop the entire grassroots communities instead of buying radio stations to tell lies; a non-discriminatory chairman; a chairman who is not proud and arrogant; a chairman who would not spend N19 million for consultancy on a bridge that never be, and a chairman who will not spend N17 million on a 6-bedroom block.’

In the petition to Governor Chime, dated July 29, 2009, entitled: ‘Passionate Appeal for Change of Leadership in Nkanu East Local Government Area’, the stake-holders, cutting across all the wards in the council, reiterated the ‘sins’ of Mayor Ani, and begged Chime to grant them his replacement in the forth-coming December 5 local government election in Enugu state.

Some of the 43 signatories to the petition to Governor Chime included Chief Hon. John Nwatu (South-East Zonal PDP Ex-Officio member from Ihuokpara Ward); Anthony Okey Mba (Managing Director, Enugu State Transport Company (ENTRACO), Isienu/Akpawfu Ward); Ralph Nwoye, former Caretaker Chairman, Nara Ward); Emeka Igweshi (Esq), (State Legal Adviser, PDP, Isienu/Akpawfu Ward); Sam Iyiogwe, (Member, Federal Board of Parastatals, Ubahu/Amankanu Ward); Alex Mba (Esq) (VIP Stake-Holder, Obinagu Ugbawka Ward); Patty Okoh (Liaison Officer to the Governor, Amafor Ugbawka Ward) and Alhaji Uche Mba (former member, Presidential Hajj Committee 2008, Isienu/Akpawfu Ward).

Others were Maurice Ede (former commissioner in the state, Idodo/Oruku Ward), Akaeme Simeon (Ubahu/Amankanu); Amos Ogwudire (Ihuokpara); Fidelis Arum (Isienu/Akpawfu); James Agwuegbu (Isienu/Akpawfu); Jerome Ede (Amafor Ugbawka); Felix Nweze (Nkerefi); Ogbu Sylvanus (Amechi/Idodo) and Thomas Ugwu (Ubahu/Amankanu) among others.

Urging Governor Chime to save them from the ‘fangs of a looting monster who is a dictator’, the stake-holders appealed to him (Chime) to allow them to pick a grassroots politician to fly the party’s flag in the council in the forthcoming poll. The stake-holders, specifically, want the chairmanship post to rotate from its present North to the southern part of the council.

“We agreed on rotation and, without mincing words, it is the turn of the southern part of Nkanu East, as the incumbent chairman comes from the Northern part of Nkanu East Local Area”, the petition stated.

As it were, several efforts to get the council boss to react to the allegations were unsuccessful. Ani neither picked calls from our correspondent, nor accepted an interview appointment as communicated him through a message sent to his mobile telephone handset.

For now, the people, especially, those opposed to Ani’s style of administration, look up to a trio of Governor Chime, the state PDP chapter, as well as anti-corruption agencies to dispassionately inquire into the council’s management, with a view to ensuring justice and equity to all.