Maduka: I’m One of Anambra’s Godfathers
Accord Party governorship candidate in Anambra State, Dr Godwin Maduka, tells Nseobong Okon-Ekong that given the opportunity to govern the state, his administration would go beyond perfunctory tasks to executing transformational projects in all spheres. E
How did you become the renowned physician that you are today?
Upon completion of my course, I went to Las Vegas where I was working as a Physiologist and doing minor surgeries. I had to leave after one year and a half to open my own practice called Las Vegas Pain Institute and Medical Centre. I was doing most of the minor surgeries, which entails pharmaceutical as well as surgical intervention to pain management. I ended up building six pain hospitals.
One of the things that helped me is that, when I was practising, I was gaining results. One thing that doesn’t discriminate in human beings is health. If you have to get good healthcare from anybody, you don’t need to don’t care about the caregiver’s skin colour. So it was a zeal and I did it very well. At one point, I had to think of home. I decided to embark on developing this place.
How did you start?
I started with my home, my brothers and sisters. All of us were living in a five-story building, which at that point was the tallest in the whole local government. Upon completion of that, I embarked on building homes for the homeless, the widows and widowers and all the less privileged of this town. When I see a thatched house it has to come down. We gave them a new home. In two weeks they have a five-bedroom house. Also, I had to go into the educational system. At that time, we didn’t have a primary school, so we built a primary school and a secondary school and we gave it to a church to manage. We also built a hospital, which we also gave to a church to manage. We embarked on building a civic centre for assembly and worship. We also built homes for resident priests for the Anglican Church and the Catholic Church in the town. We embarked on building the roads and bridges. We took a while to build this, but from 2016 to 2018, it was a serious development. We started building that 17-floor pain centre about 16 years ago. While I was building it, something came up and I had to stop, do what I had to do and continue. It was like one year, one block but within that period, we were able to finish the 16 floors. We were also able to build the police stations with their barracks, the only one we have in Anambra State.
We went on to the Magistrate Court, but the place where it was so difficult to deal with is the High Court. Nobody ever told me that you have to build a high court at the headquarters. I was designing a city, so I had to build the high court in the town of Umuchukwu and it caused crisis. The neighbouring town that was supposed to be the headquarters said “how dare you build a high court in your town.” It took almost two years to open. Can you imagine spending close to N4 billion, to build a high court with majestic looking building for the judge? With the panelling, the US procured items of furniture, it is still the best high court in Anambra. It’s just like what happened to me now in the governorship race, I was humbled. Lucky enough, we were able to open it after some months. I lost my mind because I was trying to do good; they have congestion at Ekwulobia, cases are not being dispatched fast, so I thought it wise to build a high court to ease the workload but unfortunately, it became political. Anyway, it has been opened. We built the magistrate court too. We built homes for the monarchs both the dead one and the new one. They are very happy about it and now we have 82% of graduates in this town. I grew up in a town where the majority of us were underprivileged. Funny enough, where I built our monastery was where I fell from a palm tree.
Can you walk us through your early life and educational background?
I grew up in this village, Umuchukwu in Anambra State. I was born in 1959, and in 1982, I migrated to America. I had a rough childhood.
For some of us that were born around that time, we didn’t start school till age 11. I migrated to America after gaining a scholarship and I was lucky enough to finish a four-year course in one year and six months.
You finished a four-year course in one year and six months?
Yes. Because then, for WAEC, GCE, we used to read above and beyond the course of study. Upon migrating to the US it was so easy to go to class and they were able to test me from freshman to sophomore and junior. In the middle of my junior year, that was when I stopped. So within two weeks of being in the US, I’d already read two and half years. After that I was lucky enough to enter for Doctorate programme in Pharmacy and in 1988, I got my Doctorate in Pharmacy. In 1989, I entered the Doctor of Medicine programme and finished. In 1992-1993, I finished my internship. I was lucky enough to enter Harvard School of Medicine to study Medicine, which was where I did my four-year course in Anesthesiology, Critical Care, and Pain Management.
How did your sojourn into politics
start?
I used to be an APGA sympathiser. I was never a member. I watched them over the years. I saw the trend of APGA when they used to take Certificate of Return from people that won an election and give it to somebody else. At that point, I was like this is not happening. So, some of the people I helped during their campaign that were supposed to make it, didn’t. That is one of the things that made me start looking into this politics. At that point, I decided that PDP is the next thing. I entered PDP, and when it was time, I started running for the position of Governor of Anambra State. I had to overcome the stereotype about being from the US, but what happened is that they forgot the fact that I grew up here in the village. They also forgot the fact that I’ve been a philanthropist for more than 20 years. I had to come home more often than ever. I think I come home more often than people that live in Abuja or Lagos because sometimes I come home two or three times a year and sometimes, I stay for one month. I started coming home in 1997 and there has always been construction or something important going on. That is what made it possible for me to coordinate this level of development in this town. So I joined PDP, and I won the primary election going by the nomination, anybody can check it out, I had the majority of the adhoc statutory delegates. We bonded, they loved the Okonkwo in ‘Things Fall Apart’ by Chinua Achebe. I made sure that I continued my philanthropy using the statutory adhoc delegates. I enlightened them on what I intend to do when I become governor.
What are some of those things you intend to do as governor?
From building pharmaceutical industries without sugar pills to building roads and bridges, modernising and upgrading the airport, bringing the seaport to Onitsha, from the Atlantic Ocean straight into Onitsha so we can clear our containers easily; no more Tincan or Apapa. I’m also going to build 21 emergency rooms in 21 Local Government areas. So that whenever you have an emergency like, heart attack or stroke you would not have to run helter-skelter, you would have a place to run to where they would recognise the signs and symptoms that would save your life, because nobody is free. If you have a cut in America, they would get the wound and patch the ruptured vessels. In America, if you have a stroke, there is an emergency centre that would take care of it and you would be free. All you need to do is manage and get to the nearest local government emergency centre where there are 24 hours running staff. That is what I plan to do in terms of medicine with all other kinds of stuff that I have been doing. In terms of education, I also promised to build 21 university campuses in 21 local governments in the state by looking at what the local government is known for.
For instance, in Onitsha, I would build the department of Legal Studies; they have more lawyers than any other town in Anambra State. So, since that’s what they are known for we would build it for them. We can build a Marine Biology campus for people in Ogbaru Area such that ‘keke’ drivers can go for their formal routine in the morning and in the evening they go to a class. I promise to increase the percentage of literate people in Anambra to a level that surpasses any other state in this country, after all, that is what I’m known for. I also told them we are going to bring technology. Anambra would probably be the first state to build a phone. We all know that if you need a phone it is possible to go to Aba and get a phone coupled for you. But, why is it that our people would not do that? It is all greed-driven. I also promised that we would have religious tolerance. The white people came here and taught us that instead of going to the Umo, the shrine, instead of circumcising women, and other similar kinds of stuff, like ‘juju’, there are better ways of doing things. Our people went through all that and I feel that we need to change this country for the better. More so, I don’t like the fact that black is being painted as inferior. In as much as I attended college in the US, when George Floyd was killed like a little bird on the streets, our people should have to take note of that so that we can develop our own country. So religious tolerance should be there. You don’t have to be Catholic, Anglican, Deeper Life or traditional worshipper. As long as you are praying to God, it is all fine and one shouldn’t touch that part. There should be women and youth empowerment but how many other women and youth get that? Sometimes you feel bad for our graduates something has to be done. The next mass protest would be worse than ‘EndSars’. I’m telling you. If we don’t intervene now, this nation is going to explode. What is bothering me more is the women, they go to school do the NYSC and there is no job. What do you expect her to do? It bothers me a lot. The wastage in this country is beyond imagination. That is why I’m here to change things.
I can tell you that 30-40 percent of that Internally Generation Revenue in Lagos is from the Igbos. The point is that our people that are the Igbos are taking over the trade in Lagos. That’s why I am trying to encourage our people to come home here and start building the factories. Let’s start building Anambra