By Onwuasoanya FCC Jones, 08035828819
My Governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha has a penchant for degrading institutions and insulting elected officials. Somehow, he believes that he is the only public official who deserves any modicum of respect, he operates like some form of despotic emperor whose words are laws. He exemplifies the legendary Ezeonyeagwalam,whom my grandfather told me was so intolerant of any form of opposition that his aides were forbidden from offering the most innocuous of advices. This Ezeonyeagwalam realized the foolishness of his intolerance, when his aides could only watch helplessly as he walked into an embarrassment as unimaginable for a King of those days as being bathed with faeces in the market place, by no other people but the women. This was Ezeonyeagwalam’s recompense for arrogant despotism. He was the kind of King who would wake up from sleep and begin to implement any idea that comes into his head, without the slightest wisdom of consulting any member of his cabinet. On this one, he thoughtlessly embarks on a visit to the market square while the women were still in pains over one of his callous policies. Had he being a listening leader, his aides who were mostly privy to the prevailing emotion of the market women, would have advised him to stay away from that market for the time being, but they were all afraid of what the consequences might be. As this King walked majestically into the market, he was greeted with buckets of fermented faeces.
In Imo State, my Governor has had similar experience in the past. He was pelted with sachets of water and stones in the run-up to the Oguta House of Assembly re-run election, because he deluded himself of some inexistent popularity. Some weeks ago, the people of Obiazu Mbieri had no option but to unleash the anger they have bottled for long against the Governor on their own son, who is the Deputy Governor. My informants are convinced that the people of Obazu Mbieri do not have any serious misgivings against their brother, but they are disappointed beyond words with the deceptive and dictatorial style of Owelle Rochas Okorocha’s government. Since their main target could not be seen, they turned their anger against their own brother.
Owelle Rochas Okorocha has a bloated estimation of his influence. He boasted during the Anambra governorship election held last year, that he was going to make sure his Party sweeps the polls, he was alleged to have taken billions of our money to sponsor that election, but Anambra people disappointed him. They collected our money from him and swept his candidate away from the State. I cannot remember the last time Dr. Chris Ngige was sighted anywhere near Anambra State. He is still licking the wounds of his defeat, and the Lagos made brooms have disappeared from every nook and cranny of Anambra State. Some of my Anambra friends blame two factors for Ngige’s disastrous outing in that election; first is his political Party which is seen as a kind of taboo in Igboland, second is the overbearing involvement of the Imo State Governor in his campaigns.
There is no doubt that our Governor has mostly succeeded at pocketing a good number of our State legislators. Most of them have turned themselves to his aides. I cannot confirm the allegation from one of my friends that some of these House members even stoop as low as doing some menial jobs for the Governor. But with the photograph of two of such members kneeling like some truant school boys before the Governor, I am reconsidering my doubt over the story that some of these House members even clean the Governor’s shoes for him. It is this unfortunate situation that makes the Governor think that he can also pocket members of the Nigerian House of Representatives. He has failed to understand that while a good number of the members of the Imo State House of Assembly are ignorant cowards, who do not appreciate their massive Constitutional powers, an encouraging majority of the members of the House of Representativesare well cooked in the art of legislative business. They understand the need to immune themselves from executive or any external influence. They also understand the need to protect their image as legislators.
This is why it is embarrassing to hear our Governor threaten the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representativeswith removal, if he does not defect to the All Progressives Congress (APC). I am even surprised that the House through its committee on ethics and discipline or other relevant in-house committees has not deemed it fit to summon the Governor and have him apologise to the honourable members for degrading their integrity and insulting their worth. How does the House leadership really become a business of this Governor? Is he the only APC Governor in this country. Even Governors who could be said to have more entrenched interests in the APC have respected themselves and stayed away from the business of the House. Responsible leaders should concentrate only on the things that guarantee the welfare and security of their people.
For a Governor whose State could be said to be on fire to abdicate from his responsibility to his people and embark on some embarrassing wild goose chase is disturbing. This is a man who has used the flimsiest excuse to be out of the country for the past three weeks, instead of him to concentrate on catching up with lost time, he jumps into the next available flight to Abuja, just to remove his our brother from his position as Deputy Governor. I thought leaders are supposed to maintain the highest sanity, but certain actions from some of our leaders get me wondering if they actually gauged their mental capacity before offering themselves for the seats they occupy.
Within the last four days in Imo State we have had serious emergencies that demanded the prompt and personal intervention of our Governor, but he does not care about us, he cares more about political vendetta and arrogant display of power. On Saturday, some hooligans gruesomely murdered Hon. Chief Brendan Oguinne, a pioneer chairman of Ikeduru L.G.A, while the community live in fear. just yesterday, some women from that community were on the streets of Owerri to demand for justice for perpetrators of this heinous crime. The women are genuinely afraid, because the documents which they demanded from the man and which he couldn’t give to them before they assassinated him, may still be with some other leaders in the community. Hence more of such deaths may still occur, if the government does not speedily intervene to resolve the Kingship tussle which is said to be behind the whole crisis. Between this last weekend and now, there have been incidents of kidnapping and missing children, yet our Governor whose house is on fire has gone chasing rats.
The very strong rumour that my Governor has splashed out an alleged whopping two billion Naira on the members of House of Reps to ensure the removal of our amiable Deputy Speaker, Rt. Hon. Emeka Ihedioha also needs to thoroughly investigated. But since our Constitution forbids the prosecution of sitting Governors and their deputies, we seem to meeting a dead end on that, since our House of Assembly seems to be occupied by the aides of the Governor. Yesterday, when Kelechi Nwachukwu posted it on his facebook wall that our Governor has spent about two billion Naira to bribe some House of Reps members towards ensuring the ouster of Ihedioha, it was a member of the House of Assembly, Ugonna Ozuruigbo, my respected friend who put up the most stringent defence for the Governor, acting as his de facto media spokesman. In a more sensible society, Hon. Ugonna Ozuruigbo would have seized the opportunity of that revelation to investigate the truth or otherwise of such claims. But this is not to be, as most of our House members have lost or never had any idea of whom a legislator should be and what the relationship between legislators and executive officials should be.
The unfortunate fact is that Governor Okorocha has the annoying belief that Nigerian legislators are a bunch of avaricious hustlers who can be bought over by the highest bidder. He does not reserve the slightest respect for our legislators. He may have succeeded in degrading the value of our congress men and women in the State, but he cannot succeed at the national level, especially with this crop of legislators at the House of Representatives. I am almost certain that the leadership of the House will remain intact till 2015. If there will be any change before then, it is mostly likely to be in favour of those who have remained faithful to the Peoples Democratic Party and not the other way round. Speaker Tambuwal who has continued to play a hide and seek with his APC friends must be the one to watch his back, because the PDP tsunami won’t be long in sweeping the recalcitrant ones out of the way.
I am watching to see what will be the reaction of my Governor by the time he fails to buy up enough votes against our Deputy Speaker. And come to think of it, a Governor who is this jittery because a man from his State is the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, may go on exile if that same man is elevated to the position of the Speaker of the House. And this is a very strong possibility. If those legislators must earn the respect of Nigerians, they must reward discipline, integrity and loyalty by directing their anger against those who have hurriedly abandoned their mother political Parties because of selfish considerations.Ihedioha has remained a consistent, committed and disciplined Party man and a model of democracy. He has always worked to uphold the principles of democratic politics and nationalistic ideals. He cannot be crucified for remaining true to his noble beliefs and principles.
