Ken Nnamani, a former senate president, says Chimaroke
Nnamani, ex-governor of Enugu, ordered him to drop his senate president
ambition for Ike Ekweremadu.
He spoke on the issue in his newly released book, ‘Standing
Strong: Legislative Reforms, Third Term and Other Issues of the 5th Senate’.
Nnamani said he bowed to the former governor’s request the
first time — in 2003 — but Ekweremadu lost the senate presidency contest to
Adolphus Wabara.
The former senate president said he agreed, because he didn’t want to “rock the boat and create political tension”.
“While I was
encouraged by my colleagues to run for the position, my governor, Chimaroke
Nnamani, was opposed to it,” he wrote.
“His preferred candidate for that position was a certain Ike
Ekweramadu, the senator representing Enugu west senatorial zone in the upper
chamber.
“The governor made it clear to me that the man, who was also
a first-term senator, was his candidate for senate president.
“Going by the support I was receiving from my colleagues, I
could have ignored my governor and run for the position. And perhaps I could
have won. But I did not want to rock the boat and create political tension in
my state. So, I deferred to the governor and withdrew from the contest for the
position.”
Two years later, Wabara resigned after he got into trouble
over allegations of bribery.
With the apex position at the red chamber vacant, Nnamani
expressed interest, but he said Chimaroke again “ordered” him to step aside for
Ekweremadu.
This time around, Nnamani said he systematically declined.
“In the new race for senate president with only senators
from my state, Enugu, potentially running, I felt confident that I stood in
better stead than others to win and lead the distinguishing assembly,” he
wrote.
“But again, my governor, Chimaroke Nnamani, appeared on the
scene. Again, he advised… no, ordered… that I must not run but instead must
support senator Ekweremadu.
“The audacity with which he delivered his directive was
beyond belief. While ordering me to hands-off the race, he said, to my anger
and utter consternation, that he had sent Ekweremadu to the senate specifically
for that role.”
Nnamani also said his emergence as head of the national
assembly in 2005 gave the legislators the opportunity to ward off the
“domineering executive control” during the fifth senate.
“By my election to
the seat of senate president, the senate was serving notice that it was ready
to purge itself of puppet leadership,” he wrote.
“The senators were rebelling against what they saw as undue
interference in their affairs by the executive.
“They clearly wanted an independent legislature as enshrined
in the constitution. They saw in my emergence an opportunity to do that, to
break free from the stranglehold of a domineering executive branch.
“By defying the executive and rejecting its interference in
choosing its leadership, the Fifth senate metamorphosed from one in which the
presidency remote-controlled its business, to one where senators were
determined to carry out their law-making and oversight functions
independently.”
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Then in all of this where any measure(s)put in place by the leadership of the fifth Assembly to ensure that going forward state governors do not just wake up any day or any time with their uneccassery interference to decorate to their federal law makers what to do and what not do.
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