Shameless Igbo Legislators and the 2019 Project, By Tobenna Obiano.

I’ve tried so hard to restrain myself from commenting on the latest budget signing by the Nigerian President, Muhammad Buhari. I felt angered by the unnecessary delay that finally led to the eventual putting of pen to paper.


While the wait was on, ahead of the Presidential appendage, many of us Nigerian onlookers were nearly sure that the National Assembly were delaying the process in order to note the shortcomings inherent, as well as limit the excesses of the executive as regards reckless spending of tax payers monies. Oh well, like the Nigerian terrain, our guess was non existential. We were wrong!

Politics in Nigeria is one saddening thing. It’s majorly in Nigeria that politics is often noted to be a dirty game. Ofcourse, this is not to say of the dirtiness as relating to the act itself, but then, it solely lies within the players or actual participants in politics. When dirty minded and thievery politician leaders take charge, they bring in their dirtiness into our politics.


It’s true that the APC-led Government which came with all the promises one may ever imagine, name it - possible and impossibles, achievable and non-realizables, serious and unserious. These guys came with this class of propaganda that could outsmart even the very intelligent. They lied with reckless abandon. Their desperation knew no bounds. Their aim was sole to steal the nation out of their co-thieves. Sadly, it has turned out that theirs is even a worse case scenario.

I would spare the Buhari-led Government. Those guys right from start had no set out plan, no master plan, no vision, no mission but only a radicalized ambition to scuttle power away from the PDP at all cost. I would spare them, and face even those who claim to be saintly, without form or void in inadequacies. We would face our own people, because as far as I’m concerned, the National Assembly members have shown class insentivity and stupidity of the highest order in carrying out their duties. We would take those guys to the cleaners.


Ahead of the forthcoming Nigerian General Elections, most of the so-called front runners who are nursing the ambition to be re-elected into either the Senate or Federal House of Representatives are ridiculously shameless. I mean, most of those guys have proven to be redundant, careless, ignorant and a terrible devastation.

How can failure be rewarded with more responsibility? No way! It’s about time therefore, when we eject those hopeless bunch by voting them out.

There’s a saying that reads: “charity begins at home”, but it seems not to be so with most of our Igbo political class. It seems that actually, “charity begins and ends with them and in their pockets”. I feel saddened; and this is one of those times when it’s hurtful to be identified to be represented by tackles, voiceless and opinionless class of leaders. Those guys are chicken-livered, and have no big balls.

I’m an Igboman and if I were to be serving at the National Assembly for instance, while it is true that my role is the Nigerian project, it also wouldn’t make me to loose focus that I’m firstly, an Igbo son nay Nigerian. The general wellness of Igboland would be my guiding principle and general wellness of Nigeria becoming my lead.

Our sons and daughters are at the National Assembly, yet they would look the other way while our people are marginalized. They would go deaf, dump and sightless while we loose. They would assume incapacitation while Nigeria fails to do good and justice to our people. What class of persons are these?


Ike Ekweremadu happens to be the Deputy Senate President and an Igboman from Enugu State. There’re many other senators and Fed House members from Igboland. These guys watched while the budget of N2billion proposed for the Enugu terminal international airport was cut down to a pittance of only N500million by President Buhari and his men.

It is pertinent to recall that this was thesame airport that the immediate past President, Goodluck Jonathan upgraded to an international airport, making it the first international airport in Igboland of the last nearly five decades. Yet, Igbo Senators and Federal House members were voiceless while a pittance was allotted to the airport, even as it is an established fact that the Igbos are the most peripatetic set of people in Africa, the most traveled. Oh well, Abuja and Lagos airports and Governments may continue to enjoy.

Our sons and daughters who are legislators never questioned the reason behind the reduction. They didn’t pointedly object the saddening reduction of an amount allotted for the airport project. At this time when their voices was needed the most, those guys chose on their own volition to stay mum, yet angling to be re-elected, so that they may continue with their effusive and failed representation, while cornering monies meant for community developmental projects.

There’re Senators from the South South, they all watched while the East/West road project was trampled upon. These guys watched when the Maritime Univeristy project fund was badly slashed to an abysmal low.

James Manager is from Delta State, and possibly he’s the longest serving Nigerian Senator right from Democratic rule of 1999 till this day. What did he do? Absolutely nothing! What of the loud-mouthed Ben Murray Bruce who we often take seriously, he also failed woefully this time. At a moment of great complexities when his common sense was needed the most, he lost his voice and his senses both at a time. Too bad!

The Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu would remain lost in his plutonic world of fantasies, while angling for non-existential and possibly unrealizable dream of Vice Presidential hopeful for the major opposition, the PDP instead of facing legislative duties for which he was elected headon.

Ekweremadu has a lot to clear about himself, including asset declaration, abuse of office, misuse of public fund and many other possible allegations of crime leveled against him even by the Nigerian Government, before coming public to contest for the Vice Presidency. Sadly, he’s nursing this ambition against a fine and refined gentleman of international repute, the sane, sound, seasoned and polished immediate past Governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi. There’s a distinctiveness between rust and gold, Ekweremadu and Obi respectively.


It’s ridiculous when one remembers that body language may entail that it was Ike Ekweremadu who happens to be the number four citizen in the nation, yet when his political party in a keenly contested election wanted to win Anambra State, he stayed out and away from active participation.

Our immediate door neighbors, the duo of the Governors of Enugu State - Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi and his Ebonyi State counterpart - Dave Umahi also stayed off, while proudly, the Rivers State Governor - Nyesom Wike and his Ekiti State counterpart - Ayo Fayose, plus the immediate past President - Goodluck Jonathan and a host of others individually flew themselves into Onitsha to join in the last mega campaign rally for that election. Life is a thing of turns, now they’re contesting for an election, and they’re running from pillar to post.

Legislators from the South East and South South are ridiculously shameless. They’re more pre-occupied with primitive accumulation of wealth, as against legislative duties. This is why they may suffer this anomaly and no one cares or questions. They stand to massage the ego of their counterparts from the North and the West who gain virtually all things, yet we are at the loosing end.

Tomorrow, this “misleadership” class of representatives would even join in shouting marginalization, tribalism, bigotry, yet they have dined with the devil and are actually the architects of their own failures. They come to various social media platforms to rant, attend events shamelessly to make noise and get to their people to commit nuisance. Shame is rightful for them!

This same Nigerian “legislooters” who fought against a good airport, against a Maritime University, against a second Niger bridge project would sit, discuss and agree with their colleagues that amounts for those serious critical projects, driven by necessity be slashed, whilst they increase their own budget by an incredilous and whooping sum of N14.5billion. This means raising it from N125billion to N139.5billion. Are these guys not criminals?

Counterpart funding for critical capital projects; Mambilla Power Plant, 2nd Niger Bridge/ancillary roads, East-West Road, Bonny-Bodo Road, Lagos-Ibadan Exp & Itakpe-Ajaokuta Rail Project, cut by total of N11.5bn.

It is true that the executive misappropriates or simply steals with reckless abandon, but then also, it’s the Legislature that finishes the work. Their own looting spree cries up to heaven for vengeance

Nigeian politics is dirty, because the vast majority of the players or participants in our politics are dirty-minded people.

Our political misleaders remains Nigeria’s greatest problem.