I can’t help but visit the Imo State House of Assembly in my quest to review political activities in the state. I have always resisted the temptation to engage in commentaries concerning the state legislature since I left the place four years ago, as the Chief Press to the Speaker.
However, in the midst of ridiculous tales and theatre of absurdities greeting the commencement of legislative business of the present Members, my views on their actions and inactions have become inevitable.
I will vividly recall that at the debut of this column in this tabloid in September 2011, I began with a post mortem of the activities of the House I served, which was under the leadership of Goodluck Nanah Opiah as Speaker. The highlight of that X-ray was that the Imo Assembly is a Jankara Market, courtesy of Mike Iheanaetu. Iheanaetu, popularly known as, Akwa Akwuru, is a ranking lawmaker and at present representing Aboh Mbaise State Constituency in the House of Assembly. Akwa Akwuru ironically represented his constituency from 2007 to 2011 before his second missionary journey in 2015. As one of the outspoken and firebrand legislators of that era which he has continued to showcase in the present dispensation as the Aboh Mbaise man in Owerri, Iheanatu can be hilarious with his submission. I was surprised in one of the discussions when he described the House as a “Jankara Market”. I have been told he has repeated the statement on the floor of the House during one of the plenary sessions few weeks ago.
Only those who had opportunities of residing in Lagos or have businesses to do in Lagos Island particularly, the area called Isale Eko, will know what Jankara Market means and possibly understand what it signifies when used figuratively. Simply put, Jankara business area is a market where you can purchase and have transactions of unimaginable things. For Akwa Akwuru, “anything can happen” in the House of Assembly as his idea of Jankara Market aptly fits into where he has secured a two-time mandate of his people to not only answer Honourable Member but also make laws and engage in oversight functions.
A precise review of activities that transpired in the House from that 2007 to 2011 he witnessed the first session, can prove Akwa Akwuru right in describing the Imo Assembly as a Jankara Market. But what has dominated proceedings in the legislative arm of government when he went on sabbatical from 2011 to 2015 he returned can no longer be equated to be Jankara philosophy as the vapid exigencies of the lawmakers who followed later, cannot be distanced from what late Afrobeat maestro, Fela Anikulapo Kuti in one of his famous lyrics dubbed “Zombie”.
If the present lawmakers were in the House of Assembly the same time Fela was upbeat in his satirical lyrics, they would have made the progenitor of the once famous Kalakuta Republic a proud man. The reason is that they would have been helpful in the dramatist quest to parody the characters of the soldiers used in the music that today made Zombie part of Nigerian indigenous vocabulary.
This inglorious transition of from a Jankara Market to Zombie enclave started few days to the end of the life of the Sixth Assembly of the House (2007-2011) when some suspected incensed renegades as the law court has proved them to have organised a coup d’état to wrongfully take over leadership of the House. The Gestapo style they applied for the illegal takeover, though overruled by the law court who ordered it illegal and a breach of the Constitution, is unknown in the history of the state legislature. Backed by the new government which took over power on May 29, 2011, the state legislature lost its steam and became an instant appendage of the executive arm of the state government from Monday, 31st May 2011. In a jiffy, the lawmakers who spent not less than 650 days, an average of 161 days for each legislative year of four, within four days of sheer display of legislative rascality under the leadership of some behemoth and power-swanky politicians, turned Imo State laws upside down.
For the sake of unfulfilled promises extended to them during that era, they became willing tools in the hands of the executive who induced them into abolishing the standing House Rules that only Okays ranking lawmakers to hold principal office positions of Speaker, Deputy, etc. Because the governor was accused of rooting for his favourites to be at the helm of affairs, the overriding procedures for elections of principal officers were jettisoned. However, indications that the House members who took part in that infamous May 31st 2011, show of shame is not worth more or less than the Zimbabwean Dollar, in the eyes of their paymaster emerged as government boards and commissions members they had invited for questioning were being dissolved as they sat in the chamber of the House to perfect their illegalities. Today, the partakers need no soothsayer to tell them that they had played “losers game”
A good number of them, if not all, who were hoodwinked into the undemocratic acts have nothing today to show for their unruly displays. While two were unceremoniously sacked from the agency they were appointed into by the governor, one heading a parastatal abandoned the position midway and went into self exile. The remaining person who managed to benefit from the reward is managing to keep faith with the “Oga at the top” as he was asked to take a toothless bulldog to hunting. I will stop at this stage because their stories in the hands of the “Oga on Top” have since become the butt of ribald jokes.
This dangerous precedence was inherited by the incoming House members that took over immediately. Though a tinge of drama heralded their inauguration when few who got their mandate from a particular party joined the party of the Oga on Top, many of those who were part of that ship have unprintable tale of woes to recount. From being entangled in the repealed and controversial abortion law, to the oath-taking scandal that found them dragging the Oga to court, to protect their threatened mandate, am aware that a peep into their memoirs as House Members between 2011 and 2015 will have contents of regrets. While I still inquire if they have received all their full entitlements which they vigorously fought for when the hands of their clock tickled towards exit, I can realize why they stuck to their guns at the dying minutes by refusing to cow to the demands of the Oga on Top, not to once again, relax the law on ranking for principal positions.
No wander they battled to ensure the mistakes of the past were not repeated, even as their leaders became sole beneficiaries of the abolition of the ranking rule in the House. By now, majority of the ex-lawmakers who could not return to the House after the 2015 elections, if given another chance would not risk approving a rather monstrous four-year rolling plan budget and also join the governor to toy with the establishment of a fruitless Community Government Council, CGC government. Even the ones that turned out to be overnight road contractors via executive fiat of the Oga, are still explaining to their constituents why the much vaunted kilometers of road for each LGA are either enmeshed in vain glory or rubbished by poor finishing.
Interestingly, in the present dispensation, the statutory functions of the members appear to have no space in the House Rules, thereby giving way to the abuse of legislative guidelines and regulations that are sacrosanct.
Watchers of political development in the state were stunned when the local media became awash with reports alleging that the Speaker, Acho Ihim has become the headman of motor parks and other members assigned other specific roles as Task Force Committee Members. In a new formula akin to the fast fading CGC, Okorocha invented the formation of task forces and committees to manage government ministries, agencies and parastatals as well as other informal units like Motor Parks, cleansing of gutters and refuse dumps. Few members of the House were appointed and given the charge to steer the ship of their respective committees. The Speaker, Ihim and his Deputy, Ugonna Ozuruigbo including the member representing Ideato South, Ikechukwu Amuka were handed Motor Parks, Sports and Stadium Management, Waste Management, leadership respectively, while Chukwuemeka Lolyd of Owerri North joined the Speaker in the management of Motor Parks. Others mainly of the APC also took charge of the LGA management committees. I was not surprised when one of the tabloids in the state in its recent front page report described the Speaker as the head of the “Agberos”.
From all indications, the state lawmakers, piloted by Ihim may have not had time to perfectly go through the Constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria to ascertain their provided roles in the country’s nascent democracy. Their decision to also pick Local Government Management Committee jobs is another anathema that speaks volumes of the flagrant neglect of the Constitutional roles expected of them as lawmakers. Incidentally, it is only in Imo State where a Member of the House will abandon his role as a legislator, and delve into the third arm of government, by functioning as LGA committee members as well as taking up duties of the executive through appointments as pseudo commissioners in charge of ministries.
A look at the Constitution further shows that the lawmakers may have been induced to abandon their statutory roles of making laws for the good of the people, and oversight functions that would have acted as the needed and necessary check on other arms of government. For lack of space the work continues next week
