I was not surprised to read a rejoinder from Fidelis Nwakwesili, Press Secretary to the docile Speaker of Anambra State house of Assembly to the masterful critique written by Dr Owen Ozue and published on 247ureports.com ; ‘Before Anambra State House of Assembly returns from South Africa’ in January.. That the rejoinder came nearly a month after bespeaks the message that Dr Ozue, a well known media analyst and commentator; a household name to all who follow the written and spoken words in newspapers, on the internet and in television houses strongly, but politely passed on in his beautiful piece.
But Nwakwesili says he is faceless and I am not surprised that Dr Ozue considers it beneath his current preoccupation to further respond. Ozue has of late softened on national and international issues that gave him prominence to concentrate on critical writing to enthrone governance in the South East of Nigeria. ‘If I write again people will confuse me for apolitician,when I have made my point and moved on ‘ he told me emphatically when I drew his attention to the rejoinder that entertained us in his Nnewi office for its nuisance value. ‘When we get it right on free and fair elections such reminders wont come, because they will murder the principal politically’
Ozue has lived of 17 years in Nnewi town and I have known him for 11 of those years. That knowledge was enough for me to conclude that he was not going to pay another attention to that rejoinder, even when he acknowledged the flaws and the falsehoods therein. He might well be right. In between the article and the windy rejoinder, the House of Assembly through Hon Polly Onyeka, had at least attempted to address a few of the core issues raised by Ozue, without acknowledging him.
The burden of rebutting the lies and ‘mis-thoughts’ of Mr Nwakwesili, paid with Anambra State funds to defend the indefensible then fell on me. But the rat race and if you like procrastination took over, until I was gain inspired ,reminded and jolted into action by another recently public article by Ozue-; ‘INEC’s fast lane to Utopia’.
There are at least three reasons why I owe it as a duty to the general public, particularly Anambra State to refute the lies and straighten the records polluted by Speaker Nwaebili’s response through Nwakwesili.
. First my non-governmental organisation Anambra Integrated Rights (AIR) was the one who drew Dr Owen’s esteemed attention to the facts that led to his expressive article, following our visit to Amansea to get a first hand feel of the locus inquo in the crime committed against humanity by those suspected to be state operators; where conservatively over 50 bodies were seen floating on the Ezu River .Shortly after that visit we went to the House of Assembly and were told that the house was on break. We repeated one week after and the situation had not changed and so we started asking questions to led us to shocking details, most of which have not been touched by Ozue, a writer with decent language.
Second, If those statements by Nwakwesili are not responded to and clarified, members of the public would think that they are true and it will mislead our understanding of issues
Thirdly, we owe it as a duty to encourage those who stand up for the truth with all its attendant sacrifices, in a region (South East) where people just whine or take isolated action against individuals, but no collegiate action against ailing institutions, which has a toll on the performance of those in authority.
Mrs Chinwe Nwaebili writing through Nwakwesili understandably did not address the issues of late budgets and travelling when the budget was supposed to be expeditiously treated. The article did not say anything about what the house has done, is doing, or will do about Anambra State assets being frittered away by individuals in executive arm of Anambra State government. It in fact does not consider the disaster in Ezu River worth it attention from the point of view of justice, even belatedly. And no one is surprised that Nwaebili did not consider it part of his duty to Anambra State to x-ray that foreign visit, because it does have a good smell.
Anyway, let us deal with the issues that the selected.
When governor Peter Obi drove straight from the airport to Amansea on January 21, 2013, the speaker of the House was not with him. He enjoyed maximum television coverage. H e made a N5 million cash offer to anyone with useful information and he took any other actions which featured well and long on the tubes. Now Nwakwesili indirectly brings his principal down when he assumes that the head of the legislature in the state could have been in Amansea unnoticed by the horde of journalist here. He ought to have found another lie, because the television footages are now posted on U-tube ,not necessarily to prove that the speaker was not there, but by angry journalists who reported the deposit of fresh blood on the bridge and the Anambra State Police Comissioner claimed his men ‘have not found any’. But it serves also to cleanse our ears of Nwakwesili’s white lie.
But even then, must the speaker be there is person if the schedule does not permit? Personally I do not think so. Her physical presence is not as important as insisting that the relevant committee heads-security,health,water resources( by whatever name called),infrastructure, interstate relations etc should be there to scoop first-hand details, while the disaster is still fresh. Then the information is processed for urgent action of the House. Then the speaker would shine.
Nwakwesili says the Fifth house has passed more bills than any other previous house would have passed in the same period . Yet he stops short of using statistics. It is either he does not have them,or he is lying, or he doe not see the power of conviction that lies in facts and figures. Each of the three options will portray him, his speaker and the house in bad light.
The rejoinder also claims that it is on record that the current Anambra State House of Assembly is the most peaceful in the country. Again he asserts but does not prove. Why do you evoke the name of records, but would not cite it. N any case, this makes him agree with Ozue in interpretation. Are there gun-shots in other houses of Assembly? What he describes as peace is the silent acquiescence to the execitve’s excesses by wiping the house out of plenary session in favour of all-round executive sessions, so that they can be properly teleguided. That is why the house did not sit up to the constitutional requirement of 180 days of sitting in 2012 and so had to sit virtually every day in the second half of November and everyday in the first half of December last year ,for ten minutes to make up. Yet, they ‘passed more bills than previous house sin the same period’.
Who is fooling Ndi Anambra? Does plenary sessions of the house not have records any more?
The house is at peace because they agreed to nominate transition members into local government areas instead of taking position to enforce the conduct of local government elections and being beneficiaries of the state executives continued suffocation of local government through the seizure of their money, why would they not be at peace.
Take the message! When hot arguments mount the plenary and the press on main issues within the state, the public will know that the house has come alive to its duties and it will reflect in their lives because the house was not set up to have one viewpoint in spite of diverse constituencies, diverse challenges and diverse political divides. Was it not this crime co-operation of the peaceful house that threw up such temporary heads of local government Mrs Joy Enweluzor of Awka North, who could not satisfy a visiting National Assembly committee team that she understands what her responsibilities are in the local government,particularly as it affects burial of unidentified corpses. How come that fact coming to life has not embarrassed the house which ought to have screened her, if not for ‘peaceful’ dealing with the executive?
Then the writer gladly acknowledged N36 million as the amount spent by the house to travel to South Africa, ‘because it was written before’. Never mind that the write up accused the speaker of cornering N24million there from. But Dr Owen is a research-prone writer, who never relies on media speculations. So he acknowledges that there was a N36 million, but insists that that is not all. That amount is just the cost of logistics of aircraft charter and other logistics. What about the permanent gifts bought in South Africa? What did the trip to Canada before then where one legislator met a husband cost? Nwakwesili has unwittingly started a battle he cannot finish, because he may not even know all the facts, knowing how opaquely government business is conducted in our part of the world..
When my NGO unfolds the facts we are currently compiling, then the press secretary or house member sin charge of media, the speaker and all of them will have enough to keep them busy, particularly now that we have someone specifically watching the house in our operations. Then there will be a face for the faceless.
For now it is just okay to say that we welcome the suggestion that we should be investigated on Ezu River, because we are looking for every opportunity to speak and express ourselves on that calamity, until the injustice is addressed, if not by an unconcerned House of Assembly, by concerned National and international bodies.
And when that happens, the opening line of Nwakwesili’s reminder will not be lost on them: ‘’One will be inclined to believe that the so-called faceless article purported to have written by one Owen Ozue from Nnewi and posted on the internet should be seen as the position of those lunatics that have been leaching may helm in various parts of the state and which the present administration has successfully caged to avoid further havoc and taking the state back to the dark ages’’ Nwakwesili wrote.
Certainly Anambra State, Nigeria and the world would love to know from him those who are causing mayhem, that have been caged, and how that connects to the human disaster of Ezu River, and what it has to do with the conspiracy of silence from the speaker and the house.
Vague insinuation may not suffice.
