Idemili North and South Federal Constituency – A Case for True Representation Idemili North and South Federal Constituency – A Case for True Representation
  By Nwankwor Nwa-Nwankwor In twelve months’ time, fourteen federal legislative seats will be up for grabs across the length and breadth of Anambra... Idemili North and South Federal Constituency – A Case for True Representation

 

Hon.  Odedo

Hon. Odedo

By Nwankwor Nwa-Nwankwor

In twelve months’ time, fourteen federal legislative seats will be up for grabs across the length and breadth of Anambra State. One of the eleven lower legislative seats will be occupied by the elected representative of the 17 communities that make up Idemili North and South federal constituency. In the insane world of politics, everything is possible. But even by our own bizarre standards, the incumbent Representative – Hon. Charles Odedo, have not earned the right and does not deserve to return as representative of our people in Abuja. He simply does not possess the capacity to represent our people in the comity of the Nigerian nation; and the joke will be on us – the electorate, if by any chance this political ‘dinosaur’ is returned in the coming election.

 

Having been a member of the 6th National Assembly, Hon. Charles Odedo cannot be excused as a rookie legislator in the 7th National Assembly; therefore, it is incumbent upon every Idemili man and woman to dispassionately assess the stewardship of our representative in the present Assembly. Broadly speaking, the job roles of Hon. Odedo are to speak and advocate on behalf of Idemili at the federal level; as well as attract federal development projects to our constituency. In carrying out these roles, he is expected to work with other elected officials (such as the State Governor) for the overall interest aggregation of Idemili and her children. That is the minimum threshold or baseline required of him; thus, it is only fair that his stewardship is judged on the aforementioned minimum expectations.

Upon his election and swearing-in as a member of the House of Representative (HoR), Charles Odedo embarked on a policy of alienating members of our constituency. He achieved this ignoble policy by effectively building a brick wall between his ‘honorable’ self and the ‘dishonorable’ electorates. At the risk of sounding immodest, if someone in my position cannot reach my supposed representatives on the phone, or get a response to my many emails to him, or even an acknowledgement from any of his retinue of aides; what then is the hope for the ordinary market woman on the streets Idemili? I ask this question because I still shudder in disbelief on how this individual could possibly accord himself the honor of being the “representatives of Ndi Idemili” when he has deliberately employed every trick in the book to ensure that he is not accessible to the very same people he claims to represent.

 

Therefore, as far as speaking for and advocating on behalf of Ndi Idemili at the federal level is concerned, Hon. Odedo has not covered himself in glory. You cannot speak or advocate for me if you’ve made it impossible for me to communicate my concerns to you in the first place. In this regard, he is perhaps the most incapable and incompetent representative in the HoR. This may also explain why he has neither moved any motion nor sponsored any bill that has direct bearing on Ndi Idemili, Anambra or Ndi Igbo.

 

That the lives of our people have not been impacted upon by the more than half-a-dozen years Hon. Odedo has spent in the HoR is no news. He has failed to attract or steer any meaningful federal development project to Idemili; and the question our longsuffering people is asking is – where is the tens of millions of naira allocated to Idemili North/South federal constituency every quarter? Besides VIP toilets in selected secondary schools, Idemili has zero constituency projects; and to add salt to the injury, our honorable representative offends our sensibilities by his bogus claim of awarding N50 million worth of scholarship to deserving students of Idemili. It is already in the open that the awardees became ‘deserving students’ on the strength of the fact that they are relatives and family members of friends and political associates of our self-serving Honorable.

In his bid to conceal his failures and short-comings, Charles Odedo invited the Honorable Speaker of the HoR – Rt. Hon. Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, to witness the N50 million scholarship award sham. And to show how removed he is from reality, he capped the event with the presentation of an award of friendship (whatever that means) to the Speaker. Ndi ba’anyi, are we that foolish? If our representative is truly concerned about the welfare of Idemili students, does he need the presence of the Speaker to award scholarships to our students? It is evident that his invitation of the Speaker was a subterfuge to curry political favor for his personal gains. Importantly, it is a clear testimony of Hon. Odedo’s antiquated political ideology.

As election approaches, I need no soothsayer to tell me that Charles Odedo will resubmit himself for re-election. Soon, he will demolish the brick walls he built to keep out the electorates; we will see him pursue an emergency ‘poverty reduction program’ which will involve the distribution of wads of money, bags of rice, wrappers and motorcycles to poverty-stricken electorates in Idemili. Such wicked and crude enticement of our people is not just ungodly; it is against every known democratic norm and principle of good governance.

It is against this background that I find it necessary to blow the proverbial hunter’s whistle of caution to our people. We should not submit ourselves as pawns in the hands of an obdurate ‘honorable’ who is clearly out of his depth. Idemili deserve better representation, and we must do everything to stem the present tide of poor representation. The status-quo cannot be allowed to continue; we will not continue to be used and deprived by an individual who would stop at nothing to mortgage the future of our children on the altar of his unbridled selfishness. The coming election provides us an opportunity to right the wrongs visited upon us through poor representation. Our individual and collective choice would surely go a long way to determine the quality of representation we would receive; hence, we must show that we are resolute in our determination to reduce our political liabilities. We must remind ourselves that we – Ndi Idemili, derive no power from Hon. Odedo; rather, it is he that derives all his powers from us. Hon. Charles Odedo must go on retirement; the kindest gift we will offer him is to send him on sabbatical.

Dr. Nwankwor Nwa-Nwankwor, a public affairs commentator, wrote from Awka, Anambra State.

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