Emeka Ihedioha, the PDP Chief Whip in Nigeria’s House of Representatives, found himself on an unpleasant hot seat as a panelist during the day-long Chinua Achebe Colloquium that took place yesterday at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, USA.
Mr. Ihedioha, who represents Aboh Mbaise/Ngor Okpala federal constituency, appeared on the panel unannounced to represent Oladimeji Bankole, Speaker of the House of Representatives, who was an invited participant.
To the chagrin of the large Nigerian audience, Mr. Ihedioha used his presentation to extol the Nigerian House of Representatives, claiming the legislative chamber was creditably to the best of its members’ ability. The speaker’s stand-in then blamed Nigeria’s problems on the Nigerian elite as well as the malfunctions of the civil service bureaucracy that make it impossible for the legislators’ good works to show.
He citied as examples the efforts made by the House of Representatives to uncover unspent pots of past budgets and causing the funds to be ploughed back into what he called “national development”. He then blamed Nigerians abroad for what he called their refusal to extend appreciation to the National Assembly and its members for the good work they do.
The poverty of Mr. Ihedioha’s presentation was made more glaring by the contribution of Mr. Princeton N. Lyman, a former US Ambassador to Nigeria, who was also on the panel. In his own presentation, Mr. Lyman lamented that Nigeria’s importance has for too long been couched in terms of potentials. Even so, the former ambassador noted that Nigeria had been unable to realize its potential and described the dangers of a country becoming comfortable with its alleged potential when it has no achievement to show for it. For Lyman, that tendency is tragic and has also given cover for the ineptitude that prevails in Nigeria, to the extent that Nigeria’s leaders prefer not to realize that the civilized world has moved on without Nigeria. Nigeria, he said, would soon become just another of the many oil-producing countries in the world just as Nigeria’s acclaim as Africa’s most populous country has come to mean little or nothing. He even cited President Barack Obama’s choice of Ghana as the first country that he visited in Africa to the utter neglect of Nigeria as an indication that it is useless to trumpet Nigeria as an important country on the African continent.
The question and answer session became an opportunity for Nigerians in the audience to unleash their anger on Mr. Ihedioha for what most of them described as his myopic and self-conceited presentation.
The exchanges were so heated that the other panelists sat idly by because most of the questions and comments were directed at Mr. Ihedioha. Some questioners wanted him to disclose the amount of money that the National Assembly legislators take home monthly as salary and allowances. Others berated him for the amnesia that he exhibited in his presentation over the failures of the National Assembly. He was also criticized in strong language for exhibiting the habit of Nigerian leaders who become evasive when it comes to admitting their failures and ineptitude. The questions and expressions of disappointment directed at Mr. Ihedioha were so numerous that the moderator tried unsuccessfully to come to his rescue. In obvious anger, he parried all the questions that were directed at him.
When the session came to an end, no one in the audience knew when Mr. Ihedioha left the hall. He quickly scurried out to the disappointment of several Nigerians in the audience who had braced up to meet him one on one to further upbraid him for the lapses and corruption of Nigeria’s legislators. However, one of the Nigerians who accosted the representative asked him to explain where he got the money to afford a $30,000 wristwatch that Mr. Ihedioha was wearing. In response, Ihedioha boasted that he was “comfortable” before taking up a seat at the National Assembly.
Despite Mr. Ihedioha’s statement that Speaker Bankole would come to the colloquium, the speaker never showed up.
Some Nigerians who spoke to Saharareporters indicated that if Mr. Bankole had the courage to show his face at the Colloquium, what befell Mr. Ihedioha could have been child’s play compared to the reception he would have received from irate Nigerians.
Governor Peter Obi of Anambra, who took part in a different panel, also faced tough questions from the audience about the monthly security votes of N250 million which he is accused of misappropriating. The governor replied that investigators had cleared him. He also stated that he had not bought any houses in any part of the world since becoming governor. A number of audience members felt that the governor was not truthful in his responses.
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