By Levinus Nwabughiogu
A member of the House of Representatives representing Idemili North and Idemili South Federal Constituency, Mr. Obinna Chidoka, in this interview, speaks on his return to the House via a court judgement, his fears about conduct of elections, and early passage of 2020 budget among other issues.
READ ALSO:Dotts Media emerges best digital, marketing influencer in 2019(Opens in a new browser tab)
The Ninth Assembly passed a budget within a short time. How did it happen this fast?
I will commend the National Assembly for the quick passage of the 2020 Appropriation Bill. There are other issues about the 2020 Appropriation Bill that are not within the purview of the House like the budget estimates prepared by the executive. If the executive brings the proposals on time, starting from the medium-term expenditure framework, it gives us an outlook of what the budget would look like. Once that is done, they can bring the main budget by August or September. That will give the National Assembly enough time to look at it. The budget is such that we need to look at it item-by-item. I must say that the House in collaboration with the Executive has done well to pass the budget. The budget needs to return to the January-December cycle and I know that this House headed by Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila is bent on seeing that the budget cycle returns to the January- December budget cycle.
Many opposition lawmakers are not happy with the timing because they feel there could be some errors just as you remarked. What do you think as an opposition member?
I think we have to start from somewhere by trying to reverse that trend. Like I said the Executive has to make sure they start sending budget proposals early. In the House, there wasn’t enough time to actually look at the budget and what is contained therein. What we are saying is that they should bring it on time so that we can have enough time to be able to sit down and look at the budget estimate because the budget belongs to all Nigerians. The budget is not for the PDP or the APC, but Nigerians.
Are you satisfied with you the appropriation for capital projects?
We need to reverse the trend and we need to do something very drastic. A budget that is having a capital expenditure of about 24 percent of aggregate projected expenditure is nothing to write home about. It cannot work because the infrastructure in the country needs to be upgraded urgently.
We need to allocate more funds to capital projects and that would mean looking at the overhead to make sure we ensure that those areas that are not necessary are not considered. Nigerians should know that the poor economic outlook is not only peculiar to Nigeria. Countries are moving away from a mono-income economy to a diversified economy. We need to move a lot of people out of the civil service to perhaps agriculture so that the wage bill can reduce drastically. It would help us spend less money on running the government. They should adopt this thinking and that is why we need more proactive people in the executive. I want Nigerians to know that before we elect people, we need to look at their manifestos, we need to look at their background to know if they have a good understanding of the economy. Nigeria is back to the same vicious circle that promotes poverty and inactivity.
Most people believe the Ninth House lacks vibrant opposition…
Nation-building is a joint task but that does not mean we have to subsume our right to opposition on the floor of the House or anywhere in Nigeria. I believe the PDP is playing its role as an opposition party in the House. We are fighting the anomalies in government. PDP is still a very strong voice. We are here to make sure that we act as a watchdog to the main party and I think we are getting that job done.
The opposition seems to be in a quagmire at this time in the House. There are the Elumelu and Chinda factions. Why is the PDP fold still divided?
I was just sworn in on November 19. So, I am just getting to know what the issues are. I have read it as an outsider and if you are not here, it is so different from not being part of the process. I wasn’t part of the process that produced the minority leadership and the majority leadership. We need to know where the party is headed. I have read some of them in the news. I am yet to attend an enlarged meeting since I came in. I am sure the next PDP meeting would be taking place shortly to review and understand what is really going on. Today, on the floor of the House, Ndudi Elumelu is the Minority Leader.
It seems the PDP losing out completely in national politics with what happened in Bayelsa and Kogi states surprised. What do you think?
I think the APC has crafted and developed a very dangerous template in running elections. I think that is what they have done.
How do you mean?
It uses external forces to manipulate the elections, even when we have hopes that on the ground. Our party and its candidates are very popular. In most parts of Bayelsa State, there were no elections and as I said. It was a template that was used in Kogi and Bayelsa states. The same model was also used in the last election in Osun State. In Kogi State, it was a different matter altogether because of the number of deaths that took place there. The issues are in court and I’m certain the court would look at them dispassionately and give the right verdict. But they have no respect for the judiciary. They are trying to usurp the powers of the judiciary by invading the courts. With what has happened in Kogi and Bayelsa states, the future of democracy in this country is threatened. This dangerous template of trying to win elections at all cost is what APC has introduced.
Talking about the invasion of the court, the House has passed a resolution to investigate what really happened. How would you lend your voice to that?
Yes, I support that we need to investigate, this certain thing shouldn’t happen. You could remember there was an invasion of the National Assembly and what happened subsequently after that. If they invade the courts, we expect actions to be taken and if no action is taken, then where are we safe? Where do you run to when you have issues? If these men could have the guts to invade the courts, I think it is something that is unacceptable.
What are your perspectives on the Hate Speech and Social Media bills at the Senate?
I want to believe social media should not be a sanctuary for those that want to peddle falsehood, malign people’s character and disseminate information that can bring about disunity, disharmony and of course, cause embarrassment to people. I have been a victim of social media attack and they say that in cyberspace there is freedom. However, if there are provisions of the bill that are repugnant, they should be expunged completely. I think Nigerians sometimes in analysing the bill, have sensationalised it and the sensationalisation has become hate speech in itself.
How does it feel coming back after a long judicial battle?
It feels good being back. The election of February 23, 2019, was going on well when at about 5:30 or 6 pm, we started getting calls that my opponent Mr. Ifeanyi Ibezi who was the candidate of All Progressive Grand Alliance ,APGA, was going from polling unit to polling unit in a place called Awada in Obosi, taking electoral materials with thugs and destroying them. He had a lot of boys with him and he destroyed at least 13 Card Readers and some materials in about six to seven polling units. Also the same day, at about 10 pm, Ifeanyi Ibezi came to the Collation Centre in Obosi and the Divisional Police Officer ,DPO, accosted him at the gate of the Collation Centre in Obosi.
The DPO kept him outside and asked him what he was doing there, and said he wasn’t supposed to be there at that time of the night. Unknown to us, his thugs had gone through the back door of the collation centre and started shooting sporadically. They took some of electoral materials. We made our complaints to Independent Electoral Commission , INEC, and surprisingly, INEC said it was going to conduct a bye-election since they couldn’t find some of the result sheets. It went ahead and conducted a bye-election on March 9, 2019. However, I refused to participate in the so-called bye-election but remained very active during the election since my party was contesting the House of Assembly election. PDP won in the presidential and senatorial elections in my ward. Ifeanyi Ibezi knew that PDP was already winning with a huge margin during my election and he decided to deliberately destroy the materials. I have written a petition, not only to INEC, but also the police, European Union EU and US Embassy in Nigeria about the thuggery.
Police headquarters
During the House of Assembly election and so-called bye-election, the gallant DPO who stopped my opponent and his thugs from gaining entrance to the Collation Centre was removed from Obosi and sent to the Police Headquarters, Awka and a new DPO was brought in for the election.
Once the election was over and collation for the result for the House of Assembly was ongoing, Ifeanyi Ibezi drove into the Collation Centre with security escorts and shortly after, INEC insisted on moving the Collation Centre to Ogidi which is the headquarters of the local government. They were interested in the re-run results. Most people present started protesting the rationale behind the move and why Ifeanyi Ibezi should be allowed into the Collation Centre.
Due to the agitations, Ifeanyi Ibezi drove out of the Collation Centre and subsequently, INEC in possession of the election materials, escorted by the security agencies started making their way out of the Collation Centre and suddenly, there were gunshots everywhere and people ran for safety.
They went to Ogidi and announced Ifeanyi Ibezi as the winner of the said election and he was sworn in at the National Assembly. But I told them they were there just for a short while. We headed to the tribunal to seek redress. The tribunal didn’t agree with us but I knew I was going to win.
I was winning the election with almost 4,000 votes. The tribunal tried as much as possible to discountenance all those results but they admitted eight out of 25. If you read the judgement you will laugh. We expected them to add the eight polling units’ results to my votes but they declined. For that reason, my case failed and I laughed.
I took the matter to the Court of Appeal and even then as respondents, they filed a cross-appeal because there were certain areas of the judgement they did not agree with as well because the tribunal in a way to maneuver the matter couldn’t do them any justice. My appeal succeeded because they saw reasons with me that the results were genuine. INEC gave me Certificate of Return and I was sworn November 19, 2019. Incidentally, my opponent did the unthinkable by challenging the Appeal Court judgement which is the final court. The court sat on the matter and almost disrobed the lawyer who filed the case. He was fined N300,000 for bringing a frivolous action to the court.
One would have thought that in the spirit of sportsmanship you have moved on since victory has been won instead of recalling what happened…
Being magnanimous in victory is different from sending petitions to the tribunal because we do not want it to happen again. We don’t want a repeat what happened. Of course, I won’t keep running for elections, some other persons will run for other elections and we don’t want them to have our kind of experience. I have written to all of them and called those I could call. I have given Christmas gifts. I have asked them to join hands with me to work.
Now that you are back here, what does your coming back mean to your constituents?
I have never seen the amount of goodwill I have received from my people. I didn’t know that I was this loved by the people. When I won the election at the Court of Appeal, I didn’t anticipate the huge outpouring of love and joy. They expect me to work. They expect me to speak on their behalf. This is a different era and I’m here for three things.
First, is to make sure my people get employment and enact legislations that would create jobs. I would ensure we work on the health care sector and turn it around. That is why I chose the committee on health care services. We would upgrade our infrastructure. The Southeast is in dire need of infrastructure. I have a motion on the numerous roadblocks by security agencies leading to the Southeast. I was the Chairman of Environment Committee and when I saw the budget for environment, I knew the amount would not be enough to tackle the environmental degradation in the Southeast.
The Southeast is being swallowed by erosion and flood and if we can create a development commission, it will focus on it. Anambra alone has over 1000 sites of erosion.
The post APC has created dangerous model in conducting elections —Rep Chidoka appeared first on Vanguard News.
https://ift.tt/36a6t28 by Urowayino Jeremiah via Vanguard News Albert Einstein Fools of Fortune
Comments
Post a Comment