Ekweremadu Snubs Constituents

The Deputy Senate president, as well as the Senator representing Enugu West Senatorial District, Chief Ike Ekweremadu, snubs an interactive session with his Ezeagu constituents, aimed at getting him and other elected representatives from the area to account for their stewardships in their respective elective offices.

The Ezeagu constituents in Enugu West Senatorial District of Enugu state, on August 7, in Enugu, waited endlessly, and with apprehension of a pregnant woman in a labor room, for their second-term serving senator, Chief Ike Ekweremadu.

The Assembly had, in a letter to that effect, dated July 7, 2010, offered Senator Ekweremadu the opportunity to address its membership on his activities at the nation's senate since 2003 he was elected into the senate. (Picture left shows Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu)

In particular, the constituents want the Deputy Senate President to meticulously brief them on how he has been spending their constituency allowances as well as the relevance of such constituency allowances to Ezeagu council area in particular since 2003 he went to the senate.

Ezeagu General Assembly, also, expected Senator Ekweremadu to, among other things, intimate its members on the constituency projects he had executed in the council, if any, as well as his political interest come 2011 and his expectations from the people of Ezeagu now and in future.

It is necessary to point out that the Ezeagu General Assembly is a non-partisan socio-economic cumulative cultural association of kit and kin from the Ezeagu Local Government Area, with the principal purpose of promoting good governance, engineering development and improving the lot of the people of the area.

In the letter to Senator Ekweremadu, signed by Prince Richard Ozobu, President-General, Ezeagu constituents said they would like to be acquainted with his achievements as one of their representatives in his current office as a senator representing their Enugu West Senatorial Zone, with also the most distinguished office of the Deputy Senate President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Aside Ekweremadu, the constituents had, also, invited their other elected representatives, including Chief Ogbuefi Ozomgbachi, a second term serving member of the Federal House of Representatives representing Oji/Ezeagu Federal Constituency, as well as Hon. Paul Anikwe representing Ezeagu State Constituency in Enugu State House of Assembly. Anikwe has, also, been Chairman of the House on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions.

Incidentally, as if in consultation with each other, none of the invitees, including Senator Ekweremadu himself, honored the invitations for the interactive session with their Ezeagu constituents.

Chief Oliver Ani, a political associate of Hon. Ozomgbachi, told the Assembly that he did not have the mandate to represent him (Ozomgbachi) in the meeting; nonetheless, Ani went on to enumerate what, he believed, were the achievements of Ozomgbachi in the Federal Constituency.

Reacting to the seemingly apparent boycott of their constituents' invitation to come forward and give them their accounts of stewardship, Prince Richard Ozobu, the President-General of the Assembly, said another invitation will be sent to the presumed honorable members as resolved by the Assembly.

Ozobu frowned at the attitude of the elected representatives, insisting that they all got the invitations, but decided to snub the constituents.

The President-General told Insider Weekly that this time around, rather than IFEX, the elected officials would be invited through the DHL Courier Services.
Ozobu, however, maintained that whether the elected representatives honor the second invitations or not, the Assembly would still legally go into enquiries concerning their activities since the mantle of leadership in the area fell on their robust and bulky shoulders. Fair-skinned trimmed Ozobu, specifically, described the attitude of the Deputy Senate President as ‘a snub’, contending that it is the constitutional right of the constituents to seek to know what their elected representatives are doing with their mandate.

‘The Deputy Senate President did not show up. The invitation was widely publicized, and he cannot pretend he did not know about it. I don’t think anybody can pretend he was not aware of our invitation to him. The General Assembly has directed me to give them reminders for our next meeting before we know the next thing to do. The treatment the Deputy Senate President (Ike Ekweremadu) gave to us is a snub. Let me send the second invitation first. Otherwise, we know our rights. If any of them fail to show up, we shall go in and get the information we require by any means legally possible’, Ozobu told Insider Weekly Magazine in an interview.

As it were, in his response, Senator Ekweremadu maintained that he was not duly invited before the Ezeagu General Assembly, let alone insinuating that he shunned the interactive session.

In a press release, dated August 9, 2010 , signed by Luke Mgbo, Special Assistant (Media and Communications) to the Deputy President of the Senate, Ekweremadu asserted that those peddling the story are being economical with the story, as no such invitation was received by his office, either in Abuja or Enugu Constituency Office.

In the logic of the DSP’s Special Assistant: 'There are official means of communicating with the Deputy Senate President when anybody or groups want to see him. Interestingly, the Deputy President of the Senate has assistants in his constituency offices and in all the Local Government Areas in his Senatorial District. For instance, his Special Adviser (Political), Hon. Emeka Ozoani, is from the area (Ezeagu) and a member of the Assembly but did not receive any invitation in that regards'.

Mgbo maintained that the Senate President, 'in his humane and characteristic manner, has an open door policy to all, both in his office, constituency offices and his private residence in Enugu, but considers the fact that the General Assembly chose the pages of newspapers and magazines to invite him as a cheap blackmail,..'
The release interestingly highlighted that the Deputy Senate President would, in no distant time, organize a Constituency Briefing where 'everybody will be invited, including our brothers and sisters in the Ezeagu General Assembly'.

On his part, Hon. Paul Anikwe, member representing Ezeagu State Constituency in Enugu State House of Assembly, willfully boycotted the interactive session.

‘We are in government. I cannot talk to you now. I will see you later', Anikwe quips in a telephone interview with Insider Weekly before he abruptly dropped the line.
It would be recalled that the Ezeagu General Assembly had, last month, July 7, 2010, invited its various elected representatives, including Senator Ekweremadu, Hon Ogbuefi Ozomgbachi and Paul Anikwe for an interaction session bothering on their accounts of stewardship so far in their respective offices of operation.

Another highlight of the foregoing is the issue of third term. A joint meeting of both the Ezeagu General Assembly and its neighboring and politically-coterminous Udi People's Assembly had, on the same day at Filbon Hotel, Enugu, ‘banned’ third term for any of their elected representatives. The argument is that although such a ban is unconstitutional, it can be conventional.

Like their Ezeagu General Assembly brethren, the Udi People's Assembly expressed its displeasure over the snub of the accountability invitations by their elected representatives.

For now, the constituents have fixed a new date for the stock-taking for Senator Ekweremadu and his co-elected servants of Enugu West Senatorial District.
Meanwhile, what is obvious is that the Deputy Senate President will never go down without a fight, especially, given the immense resources at his disposal. Presently, he is deploying all the arsenals in his political armory to return to the senate, the ‘ban’ by a joint session of Udi and Ezeagu notwithstanding.

Just recently, the Ikeoha assembled a political war team to go into the hinterlands of Enugu West Senatorial District, with a view to preparing the grounds for his third term emergence come 2011. Senator Ekweremadu thus appointed seven political war-horses, cutting across all the five local government areas of the senatorial district, including Aninri, Awgu, Oji River, Udi and Ezeagu. Among other things, he charged them to work hard to dismantle all the man-made obstacles that could stand on the way to his third term election into the senate.

Among the star studded political ‘war’ team, as learnt by Insider, are Emeka Ezenwugo (Udi); Augustine Chukwuobasi (Awgu); Mrs. Ada Ude, Special Assistant on Women Matters; Okey Ozoani (Ezeagu); Betty Onyefure (Oji River); Nick Ozonsi (Udi) among others. It was with this team, noted for their grassroots mastery and support that the Deputy Senate President, partly, intends to use to reinstall himself into the exalted office for the term, although he is yet to declare at any level of the party that he would running for senate again.

For now, the question remains: ‘Will Senator Ekweremadu and his fellow elected representatives turn up in the next postponed meeting of the Ezeagu General Assembly to interact with their constituents? Or will these 'Honorable Men' still treat their constituents with levity and disdain, and less reverently than cattle?

The answer to these posers is expected in the next general meeting of the Udis and the Ezeagus.


Culled from Insider Weekly Magazine