By Charly Udeh

It is a public knowledge that before the Enugu State Commissioner for Lands and Urban Development, Dr. Victor Nnam’s recent hasty and self-glorified resignation, which was to avoid sack and score cheap popularity, he had consistently been in the news for wrong reasons.

He had opened too many fights in his desperate bid to amass undue and illicit wealth through fraudulent land transactions. There were several complaints and petitions against him by organisations and people, including workers that bothered on arrogance, pomposity, high handedness, fraud, land racketeering and grabbing.

Sometime in September this year and to the surprise and disappointment of many and unbecoming of a high profile public officer like him, he took to social media platforms with an article maligning the leadership and members of Enugu State House of Assembly for inviting him to the House for questioning over several petitions against him and some senior workers in his Ministry alleged to be his partners in crime.

When it dawned on him that he had erred in law and that his innate ego, pride and exuberance had misled him, he apologetically honoured the invitation of the State House of Assembly and pleaded for forgiveness and promised to be of good behavior, after being found wanting.

Not convinced of his readiness and sincerity to turn a new leaf and live life befitting of his office, the House of Assembly recommended his sack to the Governor in writing. It was revealed that on hearing the recommendation of the House Members, he became a regular visitor to the Government House reaching out to prominent people in the state to plead with the Governor on his behalf, and promising to be of good conduct henceforth.

The Governor in his natural tact, reticent, and methodical adherence to due process allowed him to remain in office, while being investigated to avoid complaints of being witch-hunted, hounded out of office or not given fair hearing.

Realising that nothing will stop the state government from concluding investigations, and seeing that his alleged collaborators (workers) in the Ministry have been redeployed to pave way for thorough investigations, Dr. Nnam hurriedly penned down a poorly edited resignation letter, while his boss was away and put it in the media even before his boss, Governor Ugwuanyi could sight and read his letter.

This immature, dishonourable, belligerent and uncivilized mode of Dr. Nnam’s purported resignation from office speaks volumes of his personality. It has shown that he lacks character, decency and maturity expected of a public office holder at the of a Commissioner. This singular action and others before now have vindicated the people that he was more of a gangster, fraudster and pretender than a refined public office holder.

Why his sudden, media-hyped and unplanned resignation without waiting for investigations to be concluded? Why the hasty resignation if he is sure that he is innocent of the allegations leveled against him?

Now that the leadership of National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) had through a letter signed by its President Comrade Kenneth Emeka Ugwueze accused Dr. Nnam of using his front and purported Managing Director of HYMAC REAL LTD, Mr. Hyacinth Ayogu to attempt to grab their lands at Independence Layout, Enugu, it is expected that Dr. Nnam will be bold enough to submit himself for the ongoing investigations by the Enugu State Government and not resort to his usual arrogance and social media activism.

Anything short of this, will put Dr. Nnam on the public scale. He needs to prove his self-professed and acclaimed integrity, which he tried to use to hoodwink the unsuspecting public in his social media resignation letter.

It is not enough for him to just make his purported resignation public on social media to attract undue sympathy, blackmail government and gain cheap popularity. He needs to make himself available for the ongoing investigations and prove his innocence.

After all, he is not the first Commissioner to resign his position in the state and will not be the last. There wouldn’t have been any need for hullabaloo over his purported resignation, if not that he hurriedly threw in the towel when being investigated of various allegations that bothered on abuse of office and breach of public trust.

It is obvious that Dr. Nnam has a lot of questions to answer. He should handover properly, make himself available to account for his stewardship because his image is at stake now.