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Senate Presidency & Sundry matters: Call for Serious Concerns By Wale Akin
I am beginning to get highly worried at the spate of changes associated with the seat of the senate president over the last six years and thus this call for serious concerns before this latent and volatile issue gets out of hand. The seat of the senate president is the third highest position in Nigeria and thus should be given to a more matured person not giving to tribal sentiments and personal enrichment.
The persons occupying the seat since the advent of this fairly new democratic era have been changed five times now in the last six years, not that they are dead, terminally indisposed or worse still resigned out of personal wish but each and everyone had left shamefully either by way of corrupt acts or falsification of documentations.
Let’s take a quick recap at some of these politicians in order to get a good view of true situation of events:
EVAN(S) ENWEREM He became the very first senate president in June 1999 after the national assembly inauguration and his problems started when there were discrepancies on his real name of Evan with or without S as written on his academic qualifications and also the falsification of his true biological age, out of utter frustration and pressure, he resigned and thus the journey of periodical changes began.
CHUBA OKADIGBO This was a man, an Anambra indigene that garnered my full respect for his political rhetoric and maneuvering until he became the senate president, Chuba as fondly called all served less than a year and half before he was also caught in the web of public corrupt practices when he was involved in some Federal contract scams associated with the Senate, he was promptly probed and impeached as the senate president.
ANYIM PIUS ANYIM I thought his political charisma and suave would make a distinct difference but how wrong I was because strings of events proved me wrong as Anyim an Ebonyi indigene was involved in gross corrupt enrichment that became a national embarrassment, his actions became a source of investigation by the ethics and privileges committee of the senate and he eventually resigned and returned to the floor as a senator where he belongs.
ADOLPHUS WABARA I aptly thought his age, maturity, political sagacity will turn things around for the better and make the rank and file of the now social vices riddled senate a changed place but I goofed big time because in less than two years, his involved in an indecent act of bribery in collaboration with some senate members including a northern blue blood and the now disgraced former education minister brought an abrupt end to his regime as the senate president, not only that, he is currently being arraigned in an Abuja high court for public corrupt practices with his cohorts. Wabara representing Abia central senatorial district like his predecessors slipped off and thus became relegated
KEN NNAMANI Nnamani is a senator representing Enugu state and the fifth senate president to emerge and I don’t even know what fate awaits him in the near future.
I am getting so worried at the crop of politicians adorning our political landscape in recent time and could only posit that an urgent clinical diagnosis is needed or the history to be left for generations yet unborn will be so disheartening for them to read and peruse. The changes that has come to associate itself with the senate presidency has become increasingly alarming and the answer is in only one and only direction and that is the zoning of political offices to certain geographical zones. The president, Vice president and Senate president positions are zoned to the South-west, North and East of the country respectively and I find it so difficult to see why the zoning of the senate presidency can not be managed maturely by the power brokers in that part of Nigeria. This has nothing to do with tribal sentiments but a logical and concise approach as to why the zoning of the senate presidency to that particular geographical zone is not working for the benefits of Nigeria. I am very much quick to assert that it has to do with a high degree of political immaturity and outright selfishness, have they for once thought about the bad image being portrayed as result of these changes and the effects it will have on the Igbos should they attempt to clinch the seat of the president of the country which I strongly believe they are fighting rigorously to achieve in the next dispensation come 2007?
Nnamani while making his inaugural address to the senate last week said and I quote verbatim “For us to enjoy the honor and respect due to us as members of the highest lawmaking body in the country, we must uphold our integrity and iconize decency and accountability” but can Nigerians truly say of any integrity within the National assembly since the 1999? The National assembly under various disgraced leaders has suffered enormous setbacks and the primary reasons why they are constituted are not being catered for again and all we have daily is the exchange of negative banters and caustic innuendoes meted out to one another without due recourse to public decorum associated with such positions.
When the head is so corrupt, what do we then expect from various members working with and under the leader and this is the more reason why since 1999, various problems have emanated from the National assembly, lets mention a few for a better understanding why we all should never allow these so-called politicians on board come 2007:
SALISU IBRAHIM Falsification of certificate and biological age, he was probed and impeached as the speaker of the House of Representatives
GBENGA ALUKO A senator from the South-west involved in a contract scam alongside Okadigbo, he was probed but never recalled back to his constituency.
HARUNA ABUBAKAR Also involved in corrupt practices associated with federal contracts, he was also probed but never recalled to face his constituency, do we blame him?
GHALI NA’ABBA Former speaker of the House of Representatives impeached for being involved in contract scams and corrupt enrichment and still has the temerity to grant an interview last week calling Obasanjo a thief, what an irony.
KHAIRAT GWADABE A former senator involved in contract scam but never returned to the floor in 2003, that’s what we want.
FLORENCE ITA-GIWA A day of reckoning awaits this woman and I am eagerly looking forward to it, Florence exhibits this plain arrogance and fake exuberance synonymous with empty barrels. Even with her involvement in various contract scams at the National assembly, she is still being made the liaison senator between the senate and the presidency and even clinched an award recently as the best politician in Nigeria, damn, we don’t have any good sense of judgment in that country again
IBRAHIM MANTU This very slippery deputy senate president can be likened to a cat with nine lives who has neither being impeached nor recalled and this calls for serious concerns, he was involved in acts of corrupt enrichment, investigated and then out of the blues and as normal with Nigeria’s political culture, the case was dropped and thus making him the only surviving senior member of the National assembly for almost 6 years now.
The National assembly has become a colossal gathering of stand-up comedians, court room jesters and coxcombs, if we don’t have an act of bribery, it would either be one physical brawl or abuse of the presidency, I just wonder what they do daily because in the last six years we are yet to see one profitable bill passed to better the lots of Nigerians. Let’s call a spade a spade, the various senators have disappointed the Nigerian populace and we therefore demand a mass resignation.
In conclusion, I would not blame the new senate president for taking charge of the new mantle of this negative leadership but advice him to tread softly and be wary of this slippery BANANA PEEL on the floors of the senate.
Wale Akin lives in Kent, UK and a founding member of a group called MEN NOW!
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