Some leaders of Southeast geo-political zone have expressed dissatisfaction over the quality of federal lawmakers that currently represent the zone. Chief Nana Ogbodo, the Director of Tropical Watch, a good governance and anti-corruption agency, in a chat with some journalists in Lagos, explains why the leaders are concerned, reports Associate Editor, Sam Egburonu
SOUTHEAST leaders have continued to express dissatisfaction with the quality of federal lawmakers representing the geo-political zone. One of the leaders is Chief Nana Ogbodo, the Director of Tropical Watch, a good governance and anti-corruption agency, who spoke to journalists in Lagos. Another top politician, who earlier expressed similar disappointment, is Senator Ike Ekweremadu, the Deputy Senate President.
Ogbodo said in the interview that the zone needs better representation at the centre. “I am not completely satisfied with the quality of representation the zone have had in recent times. There is no doubt that we have had some consummate and highly effective representatives; but the greater majority has not lived up to the billings at all. Even the inimitable Ike Ekweremadu has had cause to express his disgust at the quality of representatives that come from the Southeast. While delivering a lecture at Awka sometime in 2012, he expressed dismay that as educationally advanced as the Southeast could be, ‘we still send to the National Assembly some people who can barely write their names!’ This trend is particularly very worrisome for the zone. You see, people very often clamour for national conference while neglecting the one that is currently available and veritable enough. The National Assembly is a veritable platform for addressing most of the issues that bug us as a nation, that is, if we have the right people there. Unfortunately, most leaders of the zone whose privilege it has been to determine the choice of who wears the colours for the zone have largely seen representations at the National Assembly as a political patronage to be dispensed to their less endowed cronies rather than as a call to duty. They are so afraid to promote academically liberated and cerebral minds in their delirious hanker after timorous loyalty.”
Ogbodo is one of the leaders of PDP in Enugu who do not believe that APC could take over the state in 2019. Reminded of APC’s obvious determination to have a foothold in the East, including Enugu, he retorted: “I don’t think the APC has Enugu in mind in this agenda. But if indeed they do, then that would be one incident of wishful thinking. Our answer to it is the sterling performance of the governor, His Excellency, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi. He has done so very well in the last three and half years that it would be difficult for the opposition to fault his second term bid. He has employed silent dignity to achieve what noise of politics can never achieve. What message would they have for the masses of Enugu? Is it that he has not performed creditably, or that he has not been fair in the manner of its spread? Indeed, there is nowhere you can be in Enugu State today that you do not find the Ugwuanyi phenomenon staring at you in fact and in conscience. He stares at you by the quantum of infrastructural developments he has wrought in every nook and cranny of the state. He stares at you by the peace prevailing in the state. He stares at the civil servant by the regularity of his salary, which gets paid on the 24th of every month, whether that date falls on a Monday or a Saturday and whether there is allocation from the Federation Account or not, including the novelty of a 13th month salary!”
On Executive/Legislature feud, which has, for some time, defined Nigerian democratic experience, Ogbodo, himself a former aspirant for a federal legislative seat, said: “This trend is a reflection of the macho mental fixation of former military men in power. They don’t seem to have come to terms with the fact that there is a difference between their days as military heads of state and civilian presidents of a republic. We did not witness this feud during both Yar’adua and Goodluck Jonathan administrations. During Obasanjo’s administration, we literally lost count of how many Senate Presidents and Speakers of the House of Representatives we had. And under Buhari, it has been all a cat and mouse relationship. Old habits are difficult to unlearn. All the same, we must not lose sight of the fact that our democracy is still at its infancy. We are still learning the ropes, so to speak. I am sure that with time, most of these institutions will crystalize so well that inter-structural divisions and respect would be so well defined.”
He frowns at claims by some observers that Enugu’s political theatre is yet to be fully free from violence. As he puts it: “I don’t think it’s completely true to still say today that Enugu is associated with turbulent politics. Enugu is perhaps the most peaceful state in Nigeria. Yes, we have had our own baptisms, but the good Lord has delivered us. We now have in the saddle a man of peace who has refused to be overwhelmed by the violence of politics. Governor Ugwuanyi has been able to bind old wounds and reconcile the state. His life is a true portrait of dynamism; he knows when to take a stand and when to turn away; when to hold and when to fold. He reads succinctly the tea leaves, calculates cause and effects and distinguishes between fame and infamy. These are character traits forged by the harmer of experience upon the anvil of a patent mind. Able to sift the grain from the chaff, he effortlessly examines newfangled ideas and easily distinguishes the real from the unreal, the necessary from the needles. This is the secret behind the principle of the five loaves and two fishes, which is a graphic summation of the miracles ongoing in Enugu,” he said.