It is that arm of government through which the people have a say in government via their elected representatives. Where things are done rightly, it is the collective view of the people that their representatives in the legislature canvass in the hallowed chambers. This way good governance is enthroned and the people are better for it.
However, in our own clime, almost the opposite is the rule where the legislators clamour for constituency votes but nothing on ground to justify the usually humongous amount given.
Also, oftentimes, there is hardly room for public hearings to harvest the views of the people in the making of some sensitive or controversial bills. The people on whose behalf the lawmakers are standing are shaved in their absence!
The legislature worth the calling stabilizes governance by offering checks on both the Executive and the Judiciary especially when it is immune from extraneous influences.
Such legislature comes up with people oriented bills that eventually translate to enabling laws when assented to by the executive.
But whether the legislature will make or mar a democracy depends on the dramatis personae piloting the affairs of the arm of government as it is often said that a nation or any given society is as good as the individual(s) in leadership positions in such organizations.
This brings us to the catastrophe in the Rivers State House of Assembly since October 2023 when the lawmakers abandoned the people on whose behalf they were elected in pursuit of the personal agenda and greed of a single individual.
The lawmakers who obviously owe their election, nay appointment into the house to the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Minister Nyesom Wike while he was governor unscrupulously became puppets of the minister and agents to unseat Governor Siminalayi Fubara whose election was also facilitated by the minister.
The House of Assembly led by Wike’s kinsman, Martins Amaewhule as speaker thus surrendered its soul to the whimsical caprises of the minister whose alleged quest to corner a chunk of the state resources was allegedly challenged by the governor.
This triggered a chain of reactions and political crisis never witnessed in the political annals of the state, simply because a House of Assembly failed to be firm and stand as a real bastion of democracy. It also cast the 10th assembly as the worst since the dawn of the 4th Republic in 1999.
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With three failed impeachment attempts against the governor by the assembly all allegedly orchestrated by the FCT Minister, the assembly has turned itself into a huge joke in the comity of state assemblies nationwide.
They have become like a gathering of children in a village square molding skyscrapers with sand which in a moment will come crashing because the sand has no solid structure underpinning it.
So it suffices to say that the Amaewhule led House is a kindergarten assembly consumed by ego and vaulting ambition. He was apparently being propelled by the illusion that he would become governor once Fubara is thrown out by impeachment and pronto, the Chief Judge would swear him in as Acting governor!
And that was why the state was made to pass through all its been through simply because a Wike and an Amaewhule had a desire and an ambition inspired by the devil.
Having finally hit a cul-de-sac in the devious plot to remove the governor, Amaewhule and co are looking for a soft landing believing that Rivers people and the entire Nigerians are a bunch of simpleton that can be easily deceived.They are beginning to come out in twos to ‘appeal to their colleagues to sheathe their sword’ as it were and ‘heed the advice of fathers and leaders of the state for peace’.
They should tell it to the marines! The fact however remains that the ferry conveying Amaewhule and co to their unknown destination is stuck and can’t proceed any further by any means. So Rivers people and indeed all lovers of democracy- which the deluded lawmakers have been trampling upon are not fooled.
They are merely looking for avenues to add sheen to their battered image by presenting the case as if they are withdrawing the impeachment on their own volition.
Nay. They have a matching order to call off the impeachment process and NEVER to revisit it.
So they are going home clay footed and thoroughly beaten with heads covered in unspeakable shame. They may have also unwittingly ended their political careers by this singular faux pas.
