Chukwuma’s Political Trajectory and Quest to Govern Anambra

Former National Auditor of All Progressives Congress and Pro-Chancellor of Olivia University in Bujumbura, Burundi, Sir Paul Chukwuma, recently told the story of his life and why he wants to be governor of Anambra State. David-Chyddy Eleke was there.

Alook at Sir Paul Chukwuma will leave one with the impression that he is a priest of the Catholic Church. He carries with himself the thoroughness, polished and bright look of Catholic priests. Of course, he was studying to be one, but circumstances forced him to dump the ambition.

According to him: “I was in the seminary, and had already progressed very well towards priesthood before I changed my mind. First, we were told that going into priesthood means living a life of selflessness. You won’t marry, you may also have to endure poverty, and I looked at some of these conditions and said no.

“That was how I left the seminary. I was sure I wanted to get married. I also had a vow to be rich. I’m very happy that I went to the seminary, 90 percent of what I am today is because I went to the seminary. I’m proud of that very background.

“After I left the seminary, I went to University of Nigeria, Nsukka and finished my degree. I read Philosophy, and I graduated with first class honours. When I finished, my department retained me as a graduate assistant and then I started acknowledging another level of poverty. One of the things that pushed me out of priesthood was hatred for poverty, and here as a lecturer, I started facing poverty again, and I said no.

“Then, you will walk a very short distance and you will be seeing cars parked along the roadside. They are broken down cars, belonging to lecturers. Some were dumped because the owners could not as little as fuel them. And I started saying to myself, is this the kind of life I’m coming to face? They said they will give me a car loan, and I said no, I abandoned the job and left.

“When I went for youth service, I was posted to Benin, and I was posted to a town called Oghenevode for teaching. It was a very interior village and I started wondering if I can ever work myself out of poverty if I remained in this town. So, one day I saw a woman where Catholic corpers were holding their prayer meetings and told her I wanted to be reposted to Abuja. I didn’t know her, but she said she would see what she can do, and on the day people were being handed their posting letters, I received mine and was redeployed to Abuja. I was so happy, and I parked my bag and moved to Abuja.”

The businessman and politician said his redeployment to Abuja was the beginning of the turning around of things in his life.

He said: “Then, it was the very first set of lawmakers in the early dispensation of our political era. I was posted to National Assembly, and if you know how the National Assembly works, it is with committees of the House and Senate. Chuba Okadigbo was still in the Senate then, and he was a great inspiration for those of us who came from this area. I met Okadigbo and I was given my primary posting.

“During my days in the seminary, I was the deputy editor of my school magazine, and later became the Editor. So I already knew one or two things about writing. In fact, the first career I was exposed to was journalism, so at the National Assembly, I was posted to one of the committees. As a corper then, we didn’t have too much work to do. Sometimes they just assign us clerical jobs to do, but I told myself that I was far more than those clerical works, with the experiences I had already garnered.

“So, one day I came to work and saw the committee secretary preparing reports of the committee, and I approached him and told him I could help him do this report since he was busy with other things. He said the report was needed for submission on the floor of the House of Representatives the next morning, and I said yes, that I could fix it. He reluctantly left me to do it. He asked if I could use computer and I said yes and he agreed for me to do it. I finished it very late in the night, printed a copy and wrote on it asking that he could read before I make the final copy. I dropped it on his table, saved the work in the system and passworded it.

“The next morning, the man came and saw the report and said he was not sure I was the one who did it. He said it was perfect, but since I had already written on the copy, I should go and print a fresh one and make photocopies. The staff in the office wanted to take credit for the report, and the man tended to believe them.

So when they were asked to make more copies, they went to the computer and could not find it, so the man asked me if I was truly the one who wrote the letter I should prove it by taking the computer and printing more copies. I immediately took the computer and printed it. That was how the man started liking me. He lashed his staff for being unable to find a simple document on the system, and gradually I started shining.

“When the material was presented to the chairman of the committee, the members were so happy, and they said the report was excellent, that it didn’t used to be so before. They enquired to know who did the report and I was presented to the committee, and they were so happy. Some gave me cash gift of N1,000, others gave me N2,000 and so on. That was when I told myself that I had arrived Abuja. I later told the man that I can also write minutes, so henceforth, I was always brought into the committee meetings.

“This afforded me the opportunity to know a lot about governance, and also make connections. Sometimes when there are supplies to be made, I convinced them that I can supply them, and they will give me money and I will use night bus to go to Lagos and buy things at a very cheap price and bring them to Abuja. These were small items that were given as LPO to some people and they don’t deliver. I didn’t want poverty, so I was doing these things diligently and making money.

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