The dictum “The minority will have their say while majority will have their way” is being rubbished by Abia State PDP going by the ‘siddon’ look posture of their members in the Abia House of Assembly. Abians voted to have 11 PDP, 10 LP, 2 YPP, and 1 APC in the State House of Assembly, so as to have a robust and virile legislature, a legislature that exercises oversight functions over the Executive and makes for checks and balances in governance.
Abians are not getting what they deserve because the Abia State legislative branch is to say the least docile. And the main culprit in docility are the 11 PDP members and their caucus in the Abia State House of Assembly. Abia State PDP is setting Abia’s democracy many years backward going by their members’ docility in the State House of Assembly. Apart from periodic complaints and outbursts by Abia State PDP state officers, and one or two of their members who served the immediate past State government, nothing serious comes from a political party which holds the majority in the State House of Assembly. Abia State PDP should tell Abians if they traded their majority in the State House of Assembly.
Is Abia PDP in political purgatory?
Many Abians are asking, “What’s wrong with the 11 PDP members in the State House of Assembly?” They are not doing their jobs. They seem only content in receiving their hefty allowances and SUVs, while not making good laws and providing statutory oversight and supervision of the Executive arm. Just like what’s happening at the National level, Abia State House of Assembly looks like a “bow and go house”, a rubber stamp of the Executive. All because PDP and YPP and APC who together hold the majority are asleep and abandoned their legislative duties and oversight functions.
The House and her members seem disconnected from Abians. Were the State House of Assembly to be alive to her legislative duties and oversight functions, she should have answered Abians, since they’ve been querying whether the House performed oversight functions in the engagement of Julius Berger for the expenditure of whopping N30B of public funds for about 6km Port-Harcourt Road in Aba, whether due diligence was carried out in contracts award in line with public procurement laws; the complaints and protests by civil servants and pensioners about their salaries; the debate on the issue of appointing Mayors for some towns which has since gone viral; and so many other issues raging in Abia State. Does Abia State House of Assembly not listen to the concerns of Abians? Does the House not have a spokesperson to interface with Abians?
Abia State PDP and her 11 House of Assembly members seem to be in political purgatory hoping to account for their heinous ‘sins’ against Abians in about 24 years of locust governance. We can understand that, but it is not an excuse to abandon their statutory duties.
If the 11 PDP members in the State House of Assembly do not up their legislative ante in the next 4 months, we of Abia NNPP, call on their Constituencies to initiate a recall for them. Enough is just enough!
Abians should henceforth be wary of who they elect during future elections.
We of Abia State NNPP call on the Labour Party government of Abia State to schedule and announce the date for the Local Government elections, which has long been delayed. We hope what is making the rounds about Transition Chairmen and “Mayors” is not true. We call on Dr Alex Otti, Governor of Abia State, to come out and reassure Abians that he is not going to toe the ignominious path of the locust years by entrenching the use of TC Chairmen, a practice that denies the people their constitutional right to elect their Councillors and Local government Chairmen during his 4 year tenure, a practice that stifles grassroots democracy and Local Government growth.
Time has come for Abia State to have a robust, virile opposition. Abia State NNPP, a powerful alternative political platform, home to many Abians, will continue to call out those who hold positions in trust for Abians when they fail in their duties.
We call on Abians everywhere to wake up to their citizen roles which include being alert to always demand good governance from the three arms of government and individuals and political parties in whatever political position and to insist on virile, robust opposition, a panacea for dictatorship, which is anti-democracy. Good governance in a democracy is the people’s fundamental human right!
Prince Kelechi Apugo
ABIA STATE CHAIRMAN (NNPP)
