By Dr. Chuks Osuji
Just as the fifth legislature started four years ago, a political earthquake occurred when five members of PDP suddenly defected to give the then APGA the majority number in the House, leading to that party producing five key principal officers- Speaker, Deputy Speaker Majority Leader, Deputy Majority Leader and Chief Whip. This was brought about by the Governor pulling out what many saw as political surprise. Of course, there had been a lot of speculations as to how they were able to purchase in one swoop four members of the PDP to tilt the balance in favour of the then APGA.
By that arrangement, the House invariably threw overboard the standing convention which respects the concept of ranking members in the choice of Principal Officers. With that deal sealed, the fate of the 5th House of Assembly was sealed and delivered. The House for four good years merely served as an extension of Douglas House, because, the Governor as a master planner in the arts of politics, used the House most of the time for his bidding.
I recalled one of my rare articles on the House entitled, “Uwajimogwu and Political History of Imo State,” I concluded that giving the way he was running the House of the principle of “buying and selling,” he and that house would go down in history as the worst Imo State house of Assembly. Up till today, I have no reason to change that postulation. Time will tell.
Now it is time for the State House of Assembly to pick another set of Principal Officers, the new members have been placed in a dilemma as to whom to choose for the Speakership and other key officers.
The issue at stake is whether Acho Ihim from Okigwe LGA or Chinedu Ofor from Onuimo should be the Speaker. Of course, Acho Ihim is a ranking member, returning to the house for another term. But Chinedu is a fresh member who has not been groomed in the legislative niceties or unpredictability.
But he is such a bright and brilliant youngman with exposure to world affairs, having worked for the Voice of America for several years.
Many political watchers including myself believe that Owelle must have talked him into leaving his juicy Job in the Voice of America to return to this country. In fact, from the look of things, Owelle has not disappointed him. First, he made him Senior special Assistant, Media. But before he had learnt this job, he was moved out to become the Honourable Commissioner for Information and Strategy.
Not quite surprisingly either because he was under or over performing, he was removed from there and sent to the Government House as the Chief of Staff II or so. In fact, not much was heard of him while in that position. It is on record that he probably travelled to the USA a couple of times with Owelle. That is evidence of his being admired by Owelle.
Now, without any iota of grassroots legitimacy or hold, he was helped to get the APC ticket to run for the House of Assembly and surprisingly, he won.
Now with this deep and incontestable fact that he is Owelle’s man through and through, the Governor has put him forward to run for the Speakership.
As at the time this piece was being put together, Owelle had almost exhausted all his political magic wands to get both the old and returning APC member to accept him to be the Speaker but it appears this has not worked as majority of members as insisting on ranking concepts.
Unfortunately for the Governor, his choice has a lot of political inadequacies of being the first man member known in the American political lexicon as “a freshman member.”
However, the case for the advocates of ranking members has not been strengthened by the fact that Acho Ihim, although a ranking member appears to have some political and social image problems, many of his critics continue to say. One of the fears of the Governor in supporting him is the issue of his political unreliability. Because, one may reason, if he was easily purchased to join APGA, who is sure that when the chips are down he would not pull out a surprise to impeach the Governor or do things to rattle him? This is the major drawback against him.
However, it must be made clear that this is no win for either the Governor or advocates of ranking member concept.
If the Governor gets his way to get Ofor made the Speaker, chances are that he is likely to make costly legislative mistakes which may garner members to throw him out quite easily. But on the other hand, the Governor could stick with him by using all kinds of means in the name of “positive lobbying techniques” to be supporting him. But for how long? Because this House contains some embittered members who are either returning to the House to settle some political scores or have other political issues to settle and therefore may not be as docile as the last legislature which was rendered completely legislatively incompetent and ineffective, because of the type of “father child relationship” which prevailed between Owelle and the Speaker.
On the other hand, if the Governor did not get his wish to install Chinedu, it could be well be because of the type of acidic and sometimes perplexing personalities which Acho Ihim sometimes exhibits. This may throw the House into permanent legislative belligerency which is likely to hurt Governance in the State. But it must be said that while Owelle as the Governor has the right to see if he can install a Speaker who can help him with this programmes, but he must understand that he does not have the right to see it as a matter of political do or die. He must be made to understand after all that no matter how not suitable Acho Ihim may be alleged to be, he should remember the saying that “monkey said that her child is very ugly, yet she must have it as her child.” Furthermore, there is another Igbo proverb which says, “The owl has confirmed that her child has scaring eyeballs which make her afraid, but she must still keep her as her own child.”
If Owelle sees the issue of the selection of Speakership from this perspective including the fact that the legislature is independent of the Executive, he could begin to see how best to manage Acho Ihim with all his alleged inadequacies or potential legislative rascality.
Thus, both Owelle and members of the Legislature must see this as buying from Jankara market in which they must accept whatever commodity they buy that may not have a re-sale value and must stick with it. A word is enough for any listening Governor or President.
