The Enugu West People’s Forum has faulted the suggestion by a former member of the House of Representatives, Hon. USA Igweshi, that Governor Sullivan Chime should be compensated with the Enugu West Senatorial seat at the end of his eight years in office as the Governor of Enugu State.
The group bared its mind in a statement signed by its Director of Media and Publicity, Ugulu O. Ugulu while reacting to an interview published in a national daily on today.
The Forum stressed that while it had no problem with deserving former governors coming to the Senate through free and fair democratic contest, it was opposed to seeing legislative seats as a compensation or retirement benefit for former governors. It said that such was tantamount to assassination attempt on the nation’s democracy.
The group said that Hon. USA Igweshi did not speak as a former lawmaker when he claimed that Governor Sullivan Chime would outperform the incumbent Senator and the Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu if compensated for with the senatorial seat.
It wondered why a former Member of both the Enugu State House of Assembly and National Assembly feigned ignorance of the global parliamentary tradition called Ranking Rule, where experienced lawmakers take preeminence over newcomers.
The statement read in part: “In Nigeria for instance, Section 3(2) of the Senate Standing Rule clearly states that the‘nomination of senators to serve as presiding officers and appointments of principal officers and other officers of the senate or on any parliamentary delegations shall be in accordance with the ranking of senators’;
“It further states that ‘In determining ranking, the following order shall apply: (i) senators returning based on number of times re-elected (ii) senators who had been members of the House of Representatives (iii) senators who have been members of a State House of Assembly or any other Legislative House (iv) Senators elected as senators for the first time.’”
“Therefore, it beats our imagination how it is in the best interest of the people of Enugu West, the South East, and Nigeria in general to replace a legislative wiz kid, the driver of the first amendment to the 1999 constitution, Speaker of ECOWAS Parliament, and indeed an egalitarian lawmaker who has no rival in constituency representation and attraction of democracy dividends with someone else who would waste four years learning the fundamentals of parliamentary practice and waiting for his turn.”
Describing the ex-lawmaker as a “disloyal party man in desperate search of visibility, attention, and job”, the group emphasised that the real motives behind Hon. Igweshi unguarded utterances and meddlesomeness in Enugu West politics was laid bay when he claimed that “members of the PDP are wicked people because for all the things I have done for the party, I have not been given an appointment”.
The EPF therefore advised the former lawmaker to “face his Enugu East Senatorial District and devise other ways of currying favours and appointment from Governor Sullivan Chime rather interlope in the politics and choice of the Senator for the Enugu West District come 2015 since the people of the District are more than capable to do that”.
The Forum also challenged the ex-lawmaker’s claim that former Governor Chimaroke Nnamani denied him reelection into the House of Representatives in 2007 and instigated a murder case against him instead.
“On the contrary, Igweshi should face his murder case in the court of law and also be grateful to Chimaroke Nnamani for rehabilitating him after serial failures to win elective positions under various political platforms, by imposing him on his people first as a State Assembly Member and later as a Member of the House of Representatives”, EPF added.
The statement asserted that while Hon. Igweshi’s four years in the State Assembly was devoted to troublemaking, his four years in the House of Representatives was a waste of mandate, as he had nothing to show for it, hence he never deserved reelection.
The group accused Hon. USA Igweshi of being directly responsible for most of the controversies and confrontations between the Nnamani administration and various persons and political interests through his rumour mill, gossips, propaganda and political clairvoyance built on lies, deception, greed, and self-preservation.
