Ngige: Why he fought godfathers

The two-time Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige has bagged the Igbo Royal title of “Onyili Mmagba,” meaning the man, who wrestled everybody to the ground, escaped and gave freedom to others,” from the of the traditional ruler of Ancient Awka Kingdom, Eze Uzu, Dr. Gibson Nwosu.                               
The monarch, had while conferring the chieftaincy title on Senator Ngige weekend, said the gesture was in recognition of good works Ngige did during his 34-month stint as the Governor of Anambra State, especially Awkacommunity. The minister while appreciating the bestowment prayed that God should bless the title for him to use it and work for Anambra State and Nigeria.

Speaking on why he fought godfatherism in the country, he said, “I decided to work for the people because that was the main crux of the problem. Will you stand and work for the people or the godfathers? So, I stood with the people and worked for them.

“Hitherto, Awka was a village but we transformed the village to a befitting capital city. We brought infrastructural development and introduced reforms in the public service. We tarred all the roads in the GRA Awka. We dualised Nnamdi Azikiwe Road and put streetlights on them. We repaired the water scheme and got water running in three quarters.

“We also improved electricity. The Agu Awka power station with a big 60KVA sub-injector station was brought during my time as Governor to complement the Nibo power station and we had electricity here in Awka.
We put up the Ngozika Housing Estate. We did the Housing Estate for workers. 

“We brought CBN to Awka. Before then, land-grabbers like the people who claim to be fighting for the traditional rulership of Awka had taken the land from CBN but we recovered and returned it to CBN. I also recovered the land near gulf course from the land grabbers and handed it over to NNPC and they brought mega station to us here in Awka. All these things made Awka a befitting state capital. These were the few things we were able to do in 34 months.”

Earlier, the Chairman of the occasion and former Governor of Anambra State, Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife, urged Ndigbo not to abandon their culture and tradition.