Nnamani' s Legacy of Fraud

Architect Nnaemeka Nnamani, outgoing Chairman of Nkanu West Local Government Area of Enugu State, is accused of corrupt practices.

Less than a month to the expiration of his tenure, Architect Nnaermeka Nnamani, Chairman of Nkanu West Local Government Area of Enugu state, is enmeshed in financial scandals. Nnamani is one of the five council chairmen who lost their second term bids in the forthcoming council polls in the state on the platform of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP). (Picture shows Architect Nnaemeka Nnamani, outgoing Chairman of Nkanu West Council)

Nkanu West is the council area of origin of Senator Chimaroke Nnamani, former governor of the state, Chief Ken Nnamani, former Senate President, Chief Jim Nwobodo, former governor of old Anambra state, and Chief Onyemauche Nnamani, former Secretary to State Government (SSG) among others.

Architect Nnamani’s troubles began when he recently embarked on a controversial reallocation of stalls at the famous Agbani market (Eke Agbani), located in the headquarters of the council.

Apart from alleged ejection of the original traders in the market, and re-allocating same to, mostly, his favorites, Nnamani stands accused of embezzling the council’s funds to the tune of N77 million. The Architect-turned politician, it was alleged, collected the sum of N133, 000.00 per stall from each of the allottees, but issued a receipt of only N3, 300.00 to them.

Incidentally, the alleged fraud is a subject of a suit pending before an Agbani High Court. The suit, numbered: AGB/HAGB/13m/2009, has as plaintiffs, Chika Chukwu, Chukwuma Ani, Okpogu Nnaji, Emmanuel Mebuge, Nwanosike Okenwa, Comfort Onu, Oko Ogbodo, Roseline
Nkanu West Council and Chief Ude Okoh, Chairman, Agbani Power of Attorneys

The suit, brought in form of Motion on Notice, listed conditions which the council authority outlined for the stalls reallocation to include: N130, 000.00 for decked stores in respect of which only N3,000.00 receipt would be issued; N80,000.00 for undecked ones with similar conditions. The council, the suit pointed out, insisted on cash payment for the re-allocated stores.
While the decked stores are said to be 260 in number, the undecked ones are 140.

It is, therefore, the contention of the suit that the decked stores would, at the rate of N130, 000.00 per stall, fetch Architect Nnamani’s administration N33.8million. It is, also, estimated that the council would wreck in N11.2million from the undecked stores of N140 at the rate of N80, 000.00. The suit sums up receipts from both the decked and the undecked stores to be N45million, adding that, out this amount, Nnamani’s regime would declare only N1.2million for the local government treasury.

This is not all! The suit maintained that the 700 open stores in the market would attract for reallocation the sum of N50, 000.00 per store, and that N35million is the expected yield from the open stores. Nnamani’s administration, the suit adds, would, out of this sum, declare only N2.1million for the council.

Thus the traders’ suit summarizes: “The full financial implication is that the first defendant would have extracted from the community on full allocation, the sum of N80million out of which N3.3million would be declared for the government, thus leaving for the incumbent politicians of the first defendant N76,700,000.00”.

The suit, filed on behalf of the traders by their counsel, J.O. Emodi (Esq) of Dr. Z. Chukwuemeka Anyogu & Associates, Enugu, sought an interlocutory injunction restraining Nnamani’s council and others involved from re-allocating stores at the market pending its determination.
The suit, also, prays the court for a declaration that consistent with their stalls allocation letters and payments of their stallage fees, the defendants lack the capacity/vires, unilaterally or in concert with one another to void or reallocate their stores at the market. The reliefs include a declaration that consistent with the allocation letters, the plaintiffs are the bonafide allottees to their respective stores in the market.

It would be recalled that the suit was preceded by a pre-action notice which, the traders alleged, was snubbed by the council chairman who, alongside his political thugs, soldiers and policemen, invaded the market and broke into their shops. The traders lament that even when the incumbent Chairman, Architect Nnamani, did not, within his two years in office, improve the market in anyway, he still wanted to eject the traders and reallocate their stores to himself and his cronies.

Chukwu Chika, Coordinator, Eke Agbani Traders Association (alias Integrity Group), told THEWEEK that it was the administration of Barrister Jerry Ene in the council that started the transformation of Eke Agbani into a modern market. Ene’s tenure spanned from 1999 to 2001. Chukwu maintained that development in the market had stopped where Ene left it in 2001 when he left office.

“The market’s development was left where Hon. Barrister Jerry Ene left it over eight years ago. Till now, no succeeding council chairman, including Architect Nnaemeka Nnamani, was able to even put a block on top of another in the market”, Chukwu quipped.

Speaking in the same vein, a prominent indigene of the area, Chief David Onyeabo, said the sudden reallocation of stalls in the market seems politically motivated, warning that the exercise, if allowed to go on, would have plunged the traders into untold hardship.

Also speaking, Hon. Augustine Nnaji, a community leader, condemned Nnamani’s meddlesomeness in the market. Hon. Nnaji lamented that the market does not even have conveniences while most traders do their business under the scorching sun and rain, yet Architect Nnamani cared a hoot.

Said Nnaji, “Our position in Agbani is that stalls should not be reallocated until development of the the market is completed. For now, the market has not even reached 50 percent completion”.
It has to be noted that the allegations against Nnamani did not stop at stalls allocation fraud only. A petition earlier addressed to the local government’s councilors by Eke Agbani Market Women Association, accused the Nnamani’s administration of complicity in unduly levying the traders. These alleged illegal levies range from N1, 000.00 development levy, N600.00 annual rate for 2008, N500.00 burial levy, as well as N1, 200.00 and N600.00 for 2009 rent among others.
The petition, signed by Mrs. Okochi Sussan and Amushi Rose, Coordinator and Secretary respectively, urged the legislators to investigate the stalls allocation and the rampant cases of illegal levies in the market by Architect Nnamani’s leadership.

In response to the appeal by the women group, the council’s legislative council, on July 2 this year, passed a resolution urging the executive to suspend every action as regards the sale of stalls at the market pending outcome of investigation by the committee set up by the council’s legislature. The legislative council’s resolution was signed by Hon. Godwin Nwatu (Leader) and Mrs. Ani M.N, Clerk of the House.

THEWEEK was told that Nnamani’s administration snubbed both the traders’ appeals/litigation, as well as the resolution passed by his councilors, and went ahead with the ejection of the traders and reallocation of their stalls.

Thus on November 18, Nnamani, reportedly accompanied by Mike Onuh, Agbani Divisional Police Officer (DPO) and Sunday Nnamani, the council’s Supervisor for Finance, stormed the market with a retinue of political thugs, soldiers and police to break into the traders’ stalls. The traders claimed that the invaders, who welded all sorts of cutting instruments, went into the market, cut keys to the stalls, and destroyed and, in some cases, carted away goods belonging in the traders. Over 1000 stalls were reported to have been so looted!
As a result of the foregoing, the traders went on strike, and shut down the market. After their three days strike which ended on November 21, the restive traders poured out into the streets in protests against the reallocation of their stores by Nnamani’s council.
It was the intervention of Governor Sullivan Chime that, eventually, brought the situation to normalcy.

Following a petition sent to the Governor on behalf of the traders by Dr. Z. Chukwuemeka Anyogu, their counsel, dated November 19, 2009, the Governor sent a delegation, led by Chief Onyemuche Nnamani, former SSG, to intervene and quell the crisis. Chime’s government, also, announced the cancellation of all the allocations already made by Architect Nnamani’s administration. It was learnt that part of the instruction was that all the allottees should be reimbursed their monies.

Efforts to get Nnamani to react to the allegations were fruitless.

For now, it is peace of the grave yard until the exit of Architect Nnamani from the council.
END.