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 Daily
Independent Online.
* Monday,June 14, 2004.
Only detractors are against Igbo presidency - Ogunewe
At the twilight
of the last session of the National Assembly, precisely around June of
2002, Independence Ogunewe granted a full page interview to a national
newspaper, speaking among other issues on how his dream Mbaise will look
like if given focused and purposeful representation at the national
legislature. This may not have been news, but what was perhaps news was
that Ogunewe used that medium to sound out to the man representing his
constituency that time to remember that he would not be going back to the
House of Representatives at the end of his tenure. He was blunt to tell
the man to dust his bag preparatory to return at the end of the session.
Reason? The zoning formular of ‘our people must be respected”. Today the
young lawmaker has mounted the saddle to face the arduous task of
representing a very articulate people in the House of Representatives,
Ahiazu/Ezinihite Federal Constituency of Imo State. The man within the
first two months showed the spark that he is ready for the task ahead.
But again, Ogunewe is gradually picking the gauntlet of defending the
course of Ndigbo within the confines of the parliament. This he is doing carefully
without injuring the ego of any group.
In this interview with National Assembly Correspondent,
Uchenna Awom, Ogunewe bares his mind on the Senate Presidency of Adolphus
Wabara, and its many banana pills, particularly the recent attempt to
shove the man aside,
believed to have been championed by his Igbo brothers in the Senate. In fact, he was the only Igbo
member of the House of Representatives that stood up in stout defence of
Wabara. Also the lawmaker employed extensively his oratorical prowess to
defend the Speaker on the recent issues raised by some members on the
House’s 2004 budget that shook the House and its leadership. Of all this,
Ogunewe warned that the Igbo must this time be given the chance to rule
Nigeria, thus further amplifying the ongoing debate on which side of the
political divide will produce the man or woman who will succeed President
Olusegun Obasanjo in 2007. Excerpts:
Last few weeks witnessed a rancorous Senate and
recently there were reports of internal wrangling in the House of
Representatives over jumbo allocation to its leadership and some members.
Could you correlate this with that of the Senate? Do you still have
confidence in the House leadership?
First of
all I would like to state for the umpteenth time that I am happy and I
think the generality of Nigerians are happy that relative calm and peace
have returned to the Senate. We are happy also that our senior
colleagues, the Senators, in the interest of democracy and progress of
this country and also in the interest of the integrity of the Senate have
decided to toe the line of understanding and peace. We salute them, we
congratulate them, but I would however, want to state that my position then
when crisis was raging is still my position now, because then I did
mention the fact that if indeed the reason for which the distinguish
Senators would want to unseat the Senate President is bordering on
financial impropriety, that if the person of Wabara that I know even
before he became the Senate President, that those charges and the plot
will fall face flat.
Because he is a man I have
known over the years to possess some degree of integrity, particularly
when it has to do with public funds. I also pointed out then that
whenever you want to effect any manner of change, at whatever level, that
is always helped, what helps that cause the more is when your move is
anchored on hard facts, incontrovertible facts, facts that cannot be
assailed that when your reasons for which you want to carry out your
actions cannot pass the acid test of incontrovertibility, when they
cannot pass the test of unassailability, that the chances are so very
strong that you may not succeed. I spoke concerning several other issues
for which I thought then and I still think now and I still believe now,
that the move to unseat Wabara was not auspicious at the time and may not
even be auspicious in the future.
Thank God that most of the
papers carried the publication from one the most respected distinguished
Senators, one that I consider to be the doyen of the Nigerian Senate,
Chief Arthur Nzeribe, to the effect that the reasons for which Wabara was
to be unseated were all trumped-up charges. If understood very well, I
would want say they are reasons that were not founded and a clearer or a
deeper look into the accusation of financial impropriety had proven that
indeed the man was not guilty as charged.
So I feel vindicated by the
position of Senator Nzeribe, the fearless Senator that we all know.
Nzeribe’s statement seems to
be couched in controversy, there was this disclaimer of the origin of the
statement and again another statement disclaiming the earlier disclaimer.
Based on this, the Senate decided to probe his roles in the plot to
unseat Wabara. How do you reconcile these two extremes?
For me I
don’t see any confusion in the whole matter. I don’t see any mix up.
Somebody came and wrote his account of how the plot was hatched, and went
as far as saying that those reasons are trumped-up charges and another
publication came out claiming to be from him that he was disclaiming
the original publication and
he himself now in person came out to say “I did not write the disclaimer,
I stand by the original thing I wrote”, so he is not dead, he is there. I don’t
see any confusion in it.
As a prominent Igbo man and a
lawmaker, how do you see the role of your brother-Senators in the whole
saga? Does it speak well of Igbo politicians, even in the light the
agitation for Igbo President in 2007?
One thing I
have always not done and I will not do here is to discuss the affairs or
the conduct of my seniors on the pages of newspaper. They are my seniors
by age, they are my seniors by ranking, and they are my seniors according
to our culture and tradition. My tradition forbids me to speak
uncomplimentary or evil or in any manner concerning my superiors or my
seniors on the pages of newspaper. At appropriate fora, I have always
made my views known to them concerning how I feel, and I think they have
always also appreciated my viewpoint and I am happy that today the
South-East and indeed the Igboman is not a laughing stock in Nigeria,
that is enough.
Let us look at it
holistically; there is this insinuation that the Igboman may not be able
to handle the Presidency of this country if he eventually grabs it. Do
you see it as blackmail or that the Igbo people are themselves amplifying
that?
What you
should understand is this fact, that the highest office in the land that of the President is the one
that each of the six geo-political zones that constitute Nigeria would
want to occupy. And in the game of politics and in the game of power
according to the Machiavellian school of thought, at times blackmail
could be an instrument in the hand of the blackmailer to achieve his
aims. That is why Machiavellian said the ‘end justifies the means’. So
all of them who go amplifying the fact that the Igboman may not be able
to provide purposeful leadership because of what they perceive to be the
inability of the Igboman to handle the office of the Senate President in
the past, to my mind, is simply laughable.
I don’t even consider such
talks. What I have always done is to tell our leadership to be focused,
determine what we want, go out there and market Nigeria, present our
package to them as to why we think we can do it better.
If we get it I know we will
not disappoint. So all these stories you hear are the fabrications of our
detractors, those of them who would not want the Igboman to lead Nigeria,
who will stop at nothing to discredit the time-tested abilities of the
Igboman to lead, not necessarily to lead, but to provide purposeful
leadership, focused leadership, leadership that has content, leadership
that can produce.
The Igbo have demonstrated
that in business, they have demonstrated in politics, they have
demonstrated in the academia, they have demonstrated in all facets of
life. Point at any institution that was nose-diving and eventually found
an Igboman at the helm of affairs that did not turned around for the
better, just point one, then I will be lying. As a matter of fact, we
have always been called in when situations are terrible and bad to make
them better and on each occasion we have not failed. Go through the
industrial sector, go through the finance world, go through the academia,
go into business. Have you forgotten the miracle of our recovery after
the civil war? Have you forgotten the miracle of how we prosecuted even
the war itself? So you will know that these things have always created
fears in the minds and hearts of them who we are competing with for this
position and for lack
of any credible objective
reason for which they would want to deny the Igboman the opportunity to
provide this country with quality public leadership, they will just be
throwing mud.That is why I said forgive them for they know not what they
do.
Going by your avowed and
passionate position now, how do you see the position and the recent
comment made by the Northern Governors Forum that the South East should
forget the quest for 2007 presidency as the PDP, going by its zoning principle, has
zoned the office back to the North?
First of
all, I would like to state that as at today I am not aware that PDP has
zoned the presidency to the North. I am not aware. But still, I would
like to state that it is unfortunate that the governors from the northern
part of the country can come as a group to make that categorical
statement that a section of the country should forget their aspiration to
the highest office of the land which is that of providing leadership at
the presidential level. I repeat that it is an unfortunate kind of
situation. The constitution clearly spells out that any one can aspire to
any position in the land, so for any group of people to gather and come
with that position that the South, indeed, the South-East should forget
the presidency for now is to say the least embarrassing and most
disappointing and I must say it borders on the fringes of insult to the
good people of the South-East, in fact the Igbo.
Let’s go back to your
immediate constituency now as a lawmaker, the House of Representatives.
There was this report that one of your colleagues in the House, Bashir
Nadabo, wrote a letter to the Speaker, requesting him to furnish members
with the circumstances or what the balance of N8billion allocated to the
House in the 2004 budget was voted for. Would you align yourself with his
position or do you think he merely raised unnecessary question?
My answer
to that question is very simple. I read Hon. Nadabo’s letter, and I saw in that letter that it was
addressed to the Speaker and copied to the members of the House. There
was nowhere in that letter that he copied
the press. So I don’t even
know how the press came about that letter. I know that the Speaker must
have gotten that letter and because of the nature and the character of
the Speaker that we have, I also want to believe that
he is addressing the issues
that have been raised in that letter and he is addressing them for the
consumption of members of the National Assembly. And as I am speaking
with you, it has not been the issue of quarrel, for contention or for
disagreement.
So I would salute the courage
of Nadabo because in places or organizations like National Assembly, some
people must necessarily act as the conscience or the blood of the place
by constantly acting as the mirror to mirror the leadership how things
are going on.
I salute the maturity also of
Mr. Speaker, because I know some people in his shoes will rather be going
after Nadabo’s head by now, but I know in his characteristic calm and
matured manner that he must be addressing the
issues raised. But I totally
sold out to my colleagues, the members of the National Assembly for the
kind of maturity they have always displayed and is continually being
displayed. I know that we are waiting to hear from Mr. Speaker, a man we
love, a man we appreciate and we know that when he comes with
explanations to the issues raised in Nadabo’s letter to him and indeed to
us, that he will leave nobody in any doubt as to what had been done, what is being done and to what is
going to be done. And when he comes, if there are grey areas, we will
speak to him, and we know he will always listen so that in peace and in
an atmosphere of understanding, with the necessary corrections made, the National
Assembly, particularly the House of Reps, which has always been in the
lead providing legislative leadership to National Assembly to the benefit
of the entire country, to our progress, will continue in that light.
Are you saying the entire
members of the House are pleased with Masari’s style of leadership?
Now listen,
if the entire members, you see the language you used is ‘if the entire
members’ it will be the miracle of our time to have 359 members to be
pleased with the leadership of Aminu Bello Masari. Amongst the 12 that were with Jesus, one of them
was not even with him, he came to His own.
His own even rejected Him,
the prophet is not honoured in his own land. So it is not always that you
will always see. You see now, Bill Cosby was asked one question, ‘what is the secret of
success’?, he said he doesn’t know, but that he knows the secret of
failure, and they asked how? He said trying to please everybody at the
same time’ that is trying to make sure that everybody is in love with you, trying to
make sure that everybody appreciates you. It is impossible! So there is
no way 360 people, excluding the Speaker making us 359, will all be
acting in tandem in love with him.
But what we are saying is if
a reasonable majority of the members of that House according to the
dictates of democracy where majority carries the vote feels satisfied
with the way he is carrying on or at any point in time they don’t feel satisfied with
the way he had carried on, they come in humility and in love to point out
to him the they feel he may have erred. And if he is wise and courageous
enough to take such corrections, then the product must be a leadership
that must be excellent and distinguished. And it is not impossible that
is what we are experiencing in the House of Representatives.
Reactions to the reports by
the House spokesperson suggest that there are divisions in the House. Do
you see that as true in the present circumstance?
You said
the spokesperson of the House, well the spokesperson is first and
foremost a member of the House, and is not shielded from her own whims
and caprices. She must have her own weaknesses and high points and what
is more, she has certain
constitutional guaranteed rights which include that of holding and
expressing opinions. I want to believe this are some of her opinions
which she is guaranteed in the constitution. I want to also believe that perhaps she may have
issued the statement in her capacity as the spokesperson of the House,
which also she has the right to do. But the views I hold and canvass are
borne out of my own conviction because like I told you, I have read
Nadabo’s piece and he was magnanimous enough to address it to the Speaker
and members and stopped at that, he didn’t go holding a press conference,
he didn’t go giving it to the press. So, I want to believe that from the
point of view of Bashir Nadabo, he may have been acting believing that it
is a House. You know it is called House of Reps, one House.
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