The Violence against Persons Prohibition Law which was signed exactly on the 2nd anniversary of Governor Okorochas Administration (i.e. 29th MAY, 2012) has been a subject of intense acrimony and recrimination among the citizenry in the last few weeks in Imo State. It is pertinent to emphasize that it took the people of IMO state over a year to know that a Law authorizing abortion was existing in the State. After laboring secretly to get the vexatious Bill signed into Law, both the Executive and the Legislature hid it from the prying eyes of the various segments of the society. However, in keeping with the maxim that you can deceive some of the people all the time but not all the s people all the time, the radar of the Catholic Archbishop of OWERRI Metropolitan intercepted the surreptitious move during a 2-day Pro-Life Summit on 3rd June, 2013.
What actually happened was that the Catholic Archbishop, His Grace A.J.V Obinna popularly called AMARACHI by his numerous admirers in Imo State hosted a two-day Pro-Life International Summit in Owerri on 3rd June .The guest of Honour was supposed to be His Excellency, the State Governor,Rochas Okorocha.However, he was represented by the Secretary to the State Government(SSG),Professor Anthony Anwuka.While delivering a speech on behalf of the State Governor, Professor Anwuka made some revelations which kept a cross section of the participants in suspense. He was vehement in faulting the inclusion of Section of Section 40(1)(i) of Imo State of Nigeria LAW No 12 which allows right to medical abortion by women who need it in IMO State. This salvo from the usually taciturn and laconic academic came to most people as an arrow from the dark. Exuding a swashbuckling, pugnacious and combative visage, the professor and former Vice Chancellor of Imo State University (IMSU) said:”As a Knight of Saint Mulumba(KSM)of the Catholic Church, I will ensure that this portion of the Law is expunged and abrogated soonest…”
He argued that Catholics must and should vote for Pro-Life and that no government should violate this right in whatever form including enactment of Laws. Hear PROF:”Every person should have the courage to preserve life rather than destroy it: medical doctors, pharmacists and all health care givers as well as governments should have a rethink because if they have a life, they should think only about how to keep other lives and not how to terminate these lives at whatever stage….”While he was firing the salvos, a cross section of the participants in the summit were adjusting their sitting postures in order to absorb the shockwaves which covered the venue of the summit like a halo. After his fiery speech, alarm bells started ringing at supra decibel in the nooks and crannies of the State. After stirring the hornets’ nest with his impassioned speech, there was a high degree of curiosity and inquisitiveness on a cross section of the populace to access the ABORTION LAW. So, it was Professor TONY Anwuka who put a pin in the Abortion Law balloon to deflate and defuse it and thus brought out the obnoxious law to the full glare of a citizenry who felt highly incensed that such a toxic law was secretly argued and signed into law without any input from the citizenry. On this occasion, the SSG was professorial as he shone like a thousand stars. He was the man of the PRO-Life Summit and this whistle blowing role of the SSG should be applauded by right thinking members of the society. But for this whist blowing role of the SSG, Archbishop Obinna’s radar would not have intercepted the toxic Law, after all, a similar Law which was signed in the Administration of Chief Achike Udenwa has eluded the prying eyes of the populace including, lawyers, journalists, clergy and others.
When the SSG concluded his fiery speech, His Grace Amarachi Obinna became visibly disorientated. In spite of his effort to maintain his monastic disposition, it was self evident that a battle line had been drawn against those who facilitated the passage of the controversial Law. Hear His Grace, Amarachi Obinna:”The assent of the Law by the Governor took the Catholic Church by surprise but we’ll do everything possible to protest against it until it is repealed”. So, dear reader, this is the genesis of the ongoing controversy in regard to “the Abortion Law”. Since the passage of this Law came to the public awareness, there has been an avalanche of attacks against the State Governor who many have called all manner of names. In a radio phone in programme in HOT FM Radio channel, Governor Okorocha was excoriated and pilloried as he was called such names as 666, Belzebub,advocate of same sex marriage, Illuminati and sundry shibboleths. The social media (internet, twitter, facebook and the like) have been feasting on this story with untrammeled zeal. A group posted on the social media that the next agenda of Governor Okorocha would be to sign a law to legalize same sex marriage in Imo State. Accorfing to this aggrieved blogger, he asked:”Why did Governor Okorocha keep silent when a popular newsmagazine did a front Page cover screaming headline to the effect that the Deputy Governor of Imo State, Prince Madumere, is a Homosexual addict.Imo State is the new Sodom and Gomorrah. If not, why did the editors of the over 20 local newspapers in Imo State fail to give this allegation of homosexuality adequate coverage? They are partnering with Okoroha to create a new Sodom and Gomorrah in Imo State”.
My personal grouse on governor Okorocha is that he was too quick to tell the global audience that he signed the law in error without understanding its contents or perhaps without reading the document at all. He does not have any justification to say so because, as stated above,some of his aides like Professor Tony Anwuka might have discussed the dangers inherent in signing the LAW. How can a State governor who appointed over 100 political aides, most of them are barristers, tell the world that he signed a law out of ignorance. In Governor Okorocha’ disbanded EXCO, there was an Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice; there was an SSA Legal who is a Law Professor and of course there was the 27 member House of Assembly which is a 100% Christian dominated Legislature. Even, the brand-new Attorney General Barrister Chukwuma Machukwu who was appointed a few days ago was a member of that expanded EXCO. So, with over 100 political appointees made up of all manner of people including comedians, Nolly wood celebrities, and professors of Law, Governor Okorocha’s apology of signing a law by mistake is provocative, unassailable and a barefaced violation of the Oath of Office he took.
A scenario where a governor or President would announce to the world that he signed a Law out of ignorance is scary as it is capable of catalyzing pandemonium and catastrophe in a political ambience. While it is a sign of maturity for politicians to apologize when they blunder, there are apologies and there are apologies. The apology of signing a Bill into Law out of ignorance is not the kind of apology that counts as a virtue. In the first place, we do not know how many of such toxic laws have been signed by Governor Okorocha since he was inaugurated Governor on May 29th, 2011.I am also afraid that there is no evidence to prove that both Chief Achike Udenwa and Chief Ikedi Ohakim were in a state of compos mentis when they appended their signatures to all the Laws they signed when they served as governors of IMO State. More worrisome is that present realities show that even the usually calm and humble Chief Achike Udenwa allegedly signed an abortion Law while he was in office and this fact has just been uncovered-over six years that he left office. If such a meek and humble person like Chief Udenwa could surreptitiously sign such a Law, it means that urgent steps should be taken to subject all the laws signed since May 29th, 1999 to date to stringent scrutiny in order to ascertain their integrity. I am now moving a motion that the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Imo State should set up a crack team of lawyers to screen these laws in order to accord them a certificate of integrity.
The imperatives of setting up such a task force becomes compelling when one considers the fact that the Bakassi people of Cross River State did not know that they were tenants on their own God –given land. If the people of Bakassi had known, they would have mobilized early enough to fight for their right of ownership of Bakassi Land. Today, they are settlers in Odukpani Local Government Area of Cross River State. It is pertinent to emphasize that Bakassi Land was ceded to the Cameroon Republic by General Yakubu Gowon (retd) and not General Olusegun Obasanjo (retd) as is being often reported by some misguided public commentators who probably have an axe to grind with Chief Obasanjo. Yakubu Gowon ceded the oil rich territories to Cameroon in a bid to encourage the Biafra Government from using that area to get military weaponry from the outside world.Again, the Civil War in Nigeria was caused by a communication gap between the Biafran Leader and his Nigerian Counterpart during the Aburi summit in Ghana. After they had agreed and signed to run a confederation system of government, the then Nigerian Head of State Gen Yakubu Gowon reneged on implementing the communiqué on the grounds that he did not understand the implications of the Aburi Accord which stipulated that Nigeria would be a confederation. These are just a few of the implications of signing into Law a Bill that was not properly scrutinized before being signed into Law. It was Senator Arthur Nzeribe who once said that only a fool does not know when to fight. We must gird our loins now and insist that a Think Tank of crack lawyers is set up to screen all the laws passed in Imo State since 29th May, 1999.If this is not done now ,we may find out to our chagrin that what happed to the nation of Bakassi may be our portion in the future. This is not a matter of “God Forbid”.
Another worrisome revelation in Governor Okorocha’s apology is his statement that he was apologizing because his political opponents had laid ambush to reap from the Abortion Law brouhaha. I was sad at this statement because it shows that Governor Okorocha’s apology did not come from a contrite and penitent heart. It was a ploy to save his neck from his political assailants who were bent on making political mileage out of the conflict. The scenario portrays the fact that Okorocha made the apology under the heat of passion; it also casts a pall of doubt on Governor Okorocha’s oft-repeated maxim: “Politicians think of the next election while leaders think of the next generation”. I do not want to go into the argument as to whether Governor Okorocha is the originator of that quotation. The reason for his apology- to avoid attack by his political opponents- shows that Governor Okorocha is more interested in the 2015 election instead of the next generation. If Governor Okorocha were a hardcore statesman/leader, he would not have swiftly tendered an apology which purpose is in order to please those who are planning to truncate his 2015 political agenda. The Owelle Okorocha we used to know would have damned the consequences and defended the Law he signed instead of acting like a bull in a China shop. The speed with which Governor Okorocha issued the apology gives the impression that he is under panic and this does not augur well for good governance. It was this panic that made him to issue an apology which has the capability of tarnishing the integrity of some top members of his former EXCO. Or how else do you explain a situation where his apology gives the impression that none of the over 100 members of his EXCO advised him that the Law he signed would generate controversy? On the strength of the point raised elsewhere in this text, can he also say that Professor Anwuka did not advise him? How about the Commissioner for Justice and Attorney General as well as the like of his SSA Legal, a senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN)? All Governor Okorocha needed do was to acknowledge the misgivings expressed about the Law by a section of the populace. He would then assure the people that what he signed was not an Abortion Law but that a forum would be created to enable the people to make an input .He did not need to go out there to tell a global audience that he did not understand the law he signed, more so, since records show that Governor Okorocha holds a Master’s Degree in Law. In a desperate bid to defuse the stratagems of his political opponents, he boxed himself into a corner. Since he is ASO-ROCK bound, how will he explain to Nigerians the reasons for appending his signature on a Law he did not read or cannot defend? As we approach 2015, he should get his reasons ready because his political enemies will feast on this undiplomatic comment. Next time, he should talk with caution, foresight and diplomacy. In my viewpoint entitled “Uwajumogu-led House of Assembly @ one month” I said that ‘Governor Okorocha sees politics as entertainment game”. I am vindicated.
Some of the attacks on Governor Okorocha have been carried to a level of absurdity. The major villain in all this so-called abortion Law is the Uwajumogu-led House of Assembly, who failed woefully to exercise their oversight function on Governor Okorocha. The founding fathers of Democracy knew full well that political leaders are prone to making unpopular or bad laws. It was on account of this that Baron Montesquieu introduced the doctrine of separation of powers. The principal role of the legislature is law making. According to John Stuart Mill, a British Philosopher and parliamentarian, “the legislature acts as the eyes, ears and voice of the people in a democracy”. A democracy thrives if it has an active and effective legislature. Here, in Imo State, we do not have an effective legislature. What we have in Imo State is a rubber stamp legislature which takes orders from the Executive Arm of Government. Had the Ben-Uwajumogu –led House of Assembly been a resourceful legislature, Governor Okorocha would not have found himself in the Abortion Law quagmire. In my viewpoint entitled “Challenges facing Imo Legislators” which was published on page 8 of the Weekend Nigerian Horn newspaper of August24-20, 2013 or you can Goggle the headline and read online ,I stated clearly that “Governor Okorocha’government is a one-man riot squod;what he forgets to do is left undone”.This is because we do not have an effective legislature in Imo State.
So, it is wrong to heap the entire blame on Governor Okorocha while leaving the legislators out of it. Again, the Clerics and Church leaders who are accusing Governor Okorocha of violating the scriptural teachings should come to terms with the reality that we are operating a democracy and not a Theocracy. Our Bishops should first excommunicate all their members in the House who introduced the Bill which is causing all the cacophony. The female legislator who introduced the Bill is not an atheist, and none of the members in the House is an atheist or even a pagan. So, let our spiritual leaders discipline their church members first before descending on Governor Ohakim.Over 90% of the bad politicians in Imo State today are from my Church-the Catholic Church and Anglican Church. They are Knights of all sorts and Papal Knights, yet they commit all kinds of scams and get away with them .They sit in the front pews in the churches and are decorated with all types of awards by the Bishops. These are the people that are causing all the crises in Imo State, They are members of the National Assembly, they are governors and former governors, commissioners and do all manner of jobs for politicians, yet our Bishops find no fault with them. Our ecclesiastical leaders dine and wine with these miscreants.So, Governor Okorocha should not be crucified as a result of the so-called Abortion Law which was introduced by Catholics and Anglicans in the State House of Assembly. Until our Anglican and Catholic Church leaders mete out punishment on these legislators who are top members of their churches, they lack the moral high ground to continue to attack Governor Okorocha for making a mistake of the head and not of the heart. This topic will be discussed elaborately in due course.
JOHN I. MGBE
08032722897
johnmgbe@yahoo.com
