By Damian Duruiheoma, Owerri
Members of the Imo state House of Assembly have said that the major reason they do not interact regularly with their constituents is because of the culture and belief that lawmakers must part with huge sums of money anytime he calls for a meeting with his constituents.
This, they explained, was the major reason some of them choose to do what is termed constituency briefing once in a year.
Speaking at a one-day interactive forum with legislators and their cosntituents in eight constituencies in Imo State, convened by a non-governmental organization, Voice to the People (V2P) in conjunction with Hope Givers Initiative, to intimate the people on how to ask the right questions in order to engender good governance in their communities, the lawmakers lamented that such a culture had led to the people not being informed about the activities of the lawmakers as according to them, people were only interested in the money or bag of rice they get from a lawmaker.
The lawmakers who participated at the forum were led by the Majority leader of the state House of Assembly, Dr. Uche Oguwike representing Ikeduru state constituency and they included Hon. Ngozi Obiefule, representing Isu; Hon. Chinedu Offor, representing Onuimo and Hon. Israel Nnataraonye (Mbaitoli).
Contributing to the topic: “the roles of legislators and community outreach”, the lawmakers disclosed that their fears for not briefing their constituents regularly was the attachment for stomach infrastructure.
According the majority leader, Dr. Oguwuike, “if you call for an interactive meeting in your constituency without giving out money, next time you call for such a meeting, nobody will attend because they will see it as a waste of time. But thank God for this meeting here today where the organisers have tried to educate the electorate and our constituents on the roles of the legislature”.
The lawmaker who also lamented that party affiliation had denied many community people of the benefits of knowing what their represntatives were up to. “When a PDP lawmaker calls for a meeting in his constituency, those in APGA, APC will not attend and yet they are ones that will rush to town with the news that their representative is not working”, he said
He advised the people of the state to first embrace their lawmakers without any monetary or political party attachment as according to him, that would help them make input that would bring about the overall development of their communities.
In their own contribution, the member representing Isu State constituency, Mrs. Obiefule and his conuterpart from Mbaitoli, Hon. Nnataraonye commended the Hope Givers Initiative and their partners for the interactive forum, saying it was important in twoways–one it would help their constituents understand the roles of the legislature which included legislation, appropriation and represenation and second, it would help lawmakers and aspirants to stop making outlandish and bogus promises of which did not within the purview of their work.
For Nnataraonye, lawmakers were ever ready to interact with their constituents more than 10 times in a year, but due the culture of constituency empowerment discourages some of them.
In his speech, Hon. Offor decried the status of state legislators across the country and maintained that the lawmaking arm of the government has not been given the opportunity to function effectively in its effort to give the people good governance due to the fact that they lack independence.
He however assured the people of the state that Imo State assmbly would be among the ones that would push for the independence of the state legislature in the ongoing constitutional amendment.
Executive Director, Hope Givers Initiative, Mrs. Onyeka Udegbunam, in her presentation, explained that the non-governmental organization are in the forefront of preaching good governance, as well as making the people feel a sense of belonging in their own government.
According to her, the essence of the interactive forum was to extricate the lawmakers from the pressure from their constituents on their inability to construct roads and build infrastructure, saying lawmakers only do three core jobs of legislation, appropriation and representation from where they derive power to oversight the executives.
She explained that Voice to the People project (V2P) came into existence to amplify the voices of the people to attract good governance and gear towards breaking the deafening culture of silence and restoring the dying hope of the people.
While decrying the alarming rate of poverty and hunger in the Southeast geopolitical zone of the country, Mrs. Udegbunam maintained that the V2P project affords the people the ample opportunity to always hold their representatives accountable and make demands for good governance, as according to her, “good governance rests on our hands and we are expected to efficiently utilize it”.  https://orientdailynews.com.ng/politics/dont-interact-constituents-imo-lawmakers/lalasticlala mynd44 seun |
