IMHA: Why We Suspended Members, Declared One Seat Vacant – Speaker; Tension Builds

By Charles Igbo

The Speaker of the Imo House of Assembly, IMHA, The Rt. Honourable Kennedy Ibeh, has said that those accusing the House of suspending three members because they attended the funeral of Mrs Jemimah Nwosu, mother of  Uche Nwosu, were being deliberately mischievous.

He said the three members were suspended because of their indifference to official duties for which they were elected,  and not because they attended a funeral.

Nwosu, a son-in-law to former Governor Rochas Okorocha, was also his Chief of Staff and preferred successor in office.

However, he lost out in the high wired political intrigue which surrounded the Governorship Primary of the All Progressives Congress, APC, and was forced to contest under the banner of the Action Alliance, AA. He lost the election to the Rt. Hon. Emeka Ihedioha who was removed from office after seven months by a Supreme Court ruling which declared Senator Hope Uzodimma the rightful winner.

Since then, even though Nwosu has gone back to the APC, his relationship with Uzodimma, just as his father-in-law’s with Uzodimma, has been bitter.

At the funeral of his mother on December 22, 2021, in Nkwerre LGA, Ihedioha made a surprise appearance, triggering speculations of a possible political realignment. Already, there are talks of a possible Ihedioha/Nwosu ticket in 2023.

However, at the IMHA Plenary on Thursday, December 23, three members –  Arthur Egwim (Ideato North), Ngozi Obiefule (Isu), Obinna Okwara (Nkwerre),  were suspended. The seat of the member representing Ngor Okpala State Constituency, Tochi Okereke, who incidentally, is Ihedioha’s cousin, by the House, was because of his alleged continous absence from the House since 2019.

But reactions to the suspension of the three members have been coming  like claps of thunder. Condemnation from the opposition, especially from the Okorocha and Nwosu group, have been strong. They have put it at the feet of Uzodimma. And they wonder why Speaker Ibeh would dance to such an ugly  tune and descend as low as suspending members because they attended the funeral of the mother of a stakeholder in the State.

But in a statement signed on his behalf by his Chief Press Secretary, Ifeanyi Onyekachi, Speaker Ibeh said nothing could be further from the truth. He said the suspension was because the members acted “dishonourably by disregarding the resolution of the House for which they, themselves, gave nod to, and willingly committed themselves to.”

He said he could not have suspended them for attending the funeral because “not all the members who attended the funeral were affected by the suspension.” He did not, however, say why those other members were not affected. He, also, said he wrote a condolence letter to the Nwosu family over their bereavement, and could, therefore, not have suspended members because of that as he is conscious of the pains that accompany any bereavement.

He dismissed the claim as false and frivolous.

Speaker Ibeh also explained that he had no powers to declare Okereke’s seat vacant. He said: “The declaration of the seat of the Honourable Member for Ngor Okpala vacant by the House is a purely constitutional issue in respect of which the Rt. Hon. (Speaker) had no discretion to exercise to the contrary.”

Following is the full text of the statement.

RE: The Suspension of Three Honorable Members of IMHA and the Declaration of the Seat of the Ngor Okpala Honorable Member Vacant

1. The Imo State House of Assembly (IMHA), led by the Speaker, Rt. Hon. Barr. Kennedy Chidozie Ibeh, today, Thursday, announced the suspension of Honorable Members representing Ideato North State Consttuency , Rt. Hon. Arthur Egwim, Member representing Isu State Constituency, Rt Hon. Ngozi Obiefule  and her Nkwerre State Constituency counterpart, Hon. Obinna Okwara.
2. The suspension was to serve as a deterent for dereliction of duty and business as usual attitude of the Hon. Members who take for granted the business of the parliament in respect of which they swore an oath to effectively discharge their legislative duties.
3. The suspended members acted dishonourably by disregarding the resolution of the House for which they themselves gave nod to and willingly committed themselves to.
4. Owing to the urgent importance of the 2022 Appropriation Bill presented  to the House on the 17th of December, by His Excellency, the Governor of Imo State, Sen. Hope Uzodinma, the House unanimously agreed  to handle the interface with the  MDAs, parastatals, ministries, agencies  etc, within 3 days to allow for expeditious passage of the Appropriation bill which therefore required  full participation and  intelligent contributions of all the Hon. Members.
5. The commitment by the House Members were made before Imo people and the world at the full glare of the media in respect to which it was honorable that the Members keep to their promises.
6. Unfortunately, in utter disregard to the sacrednees of the all important state assignment, the suspended members abandoned the assignment and pursued their private bussinesses and assignment at the detriment of the state which in turn translated to overburdening the responsive Members with loads of assignments in scrutinizing the budget and interfacing with the Heads of MDAs for defence as Mr. Speaker and other House members who kept to the commitment were seen leaving office between 8 and 9pm within the period of budget considerations. This was not to the exclusion of the Assembly staff who had to make extra sacrifice to keep late to ensure that the budget was delivered on record time.
7. It is therefore frivolous and spurious for any of the affected House Members to bandit around the falsehood that he was suspended for attending burial ceremony. This claim comes so spurios especially as it was not all the Honorable Members who attended the said funeral were affected by the suspension.

8.The Rt. Hon. Speaker is not unmindful of the pains that come with the loss of a dear one for which he wrote the  Nwosu family even before his emergence as Rt. Hon. Speaker in commiserating with them and could not have merely suspended Members for identifying with a bereaved Imolite as the thought is merely pedestrian.

9. Again, the declaration of the seat of the Honorable Member for Ngor Okpala vacant by the House is a purely constitutional issue in respect of which the Rt. Hon. had no discretion to exercise to the contrary.

10.Following a motion moved by the Hon. Member representing Ideato South, the House went into full debate on the merits of the motion calling for the declaration of the seat vacant owing to the fact that the former Member had barely caused appearance at plenary since Chief Emeka Ihedioha left office as Governor of Imo State. The motion which caused the Rt. Hon. Speaker to pause proceedings for about 10mins as he called the Clerk to produce records evidencing the habitual absenteeism of the former Member was resolved in favour of the Constitution as it gained the vote of the Members of the House.

11. It is, therefore, expedient to emphasize that

Sec 109(1)(f) which provides that the seat of a Member shall be declared vacant if  “without just cause he is absent from meetings of the House of Assembly for a period amounting in the aggregate to more than one-third of the total number of days during which the House meets in any one year” is sacrosant and does not offer any room for sentiment. The actions of the Member amounted to a gross denial of the good people of Ngor Okpala representation which the constitution frowns at.

13. The new leadership of IMHA has made it abundantly clear that the House will put the interest of Imo people first before any other interest.

It is therefore no longer business as usual as the Imo State  House of Assembly has vowed to join hands with His Excellency, Governor Hope Uzodinma, to move the State forward.”

Tension is said to be building up in the State as alleged plans are on for supporters of the suspended members to protest their suspension.