By John Ukwu
Politics ordinarily should be to cater for the interest of the masses and to care for their welfare,but the way it is perceived in our clime, leaves much to be desired. Notwithstanding, Rt. Hon Benjamin Kalu, the Deputy Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives, is poised to making his style of politics about delivering dividends of democracy to the good people of Bende Federal Constituency, Abia State and Nigeria in general.
A Legislator is essentially saddled with three core duties of; making laws, oversight function and constituency projects. Therefore, it is within the context of these core duties of a Legislator that Rt. Hon Benjamin Kalu has excelled in every aspect. A Legislator is not an executive, he doesn’t have the luxury of budget but must work extra hard to attract development to his constituency through sponsorship of legislation and ensuring his people’s interest enters the years budgetary proposal.
It is therefore,worrisome that some political actors who are afraid of the rising profile of the Deputy Speaker and his towering achievements, have constituted themselves into desperate mischief makers challenging every good intention of Rt. Hon Kalu by twisting facts to suit their warped narrative.
The latest in their scheme using their paid social media e-rats,was an attempt to kill and ridicule a wonderful bill sponsored by Rt. Hon Benjamin Kalu,seeking to upgrade an existing school of languages in Aba, Abia State,which is almost moribund due to lack of funds. The intention of the bill by Deputy Speaker was to secure funding for the school through Tetfund.
However, purveyors of these mischief against the Deputy Speaker which is orchestrated by a well oiled gang of political cabals,would rather wish funds meant for the rejuvenation of the Aba School of languages, lie in waste without benefit to students, workers and Abia State.
Consequently, it is pertinent for purposes of putting the record straight to enlighten our people on the process of initiating a bill. Officially, every bill is initiated through a letter containing summary of the intention of the bill and signed by the sponsor of the said bill. The letter is passed to the clerk, who will list it in the journal before it will be mentioned in the house during plenary.
In the instance, as attached (see documents), the two letters; one is dated 17th, September, 2024, emanating from the office of the deputy speaker as sponsor and was transmitted to the clerk next day, on the 18th, and same was acknowledged received. The second document dated 2nd, October, 2024 was the published official National Assembly journal listing the bill as University of Nigerian languages. A close perusal of the official journal listing revealed nothing else other than “University of Nigerian languages” which is in contrast to what was carried by paid agents in the media. On the other hand, suffice it to say that there could be error in the way the bill was captured in the order paper?
As an Abian who has the interest of his state at heart; I decided to conduct a discreet investigation into what was actually wrong if the proposed bill had the name of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on it but to my greatest chagrin upon stumbling on the original document (see attachment) sent out from the Deputy Speaker’s office and signed by him; there was no mention of the President’s name or the said bill proposing to establish a new institution, rather the bill was only seeking to upgrade the existing school of languages in Aba which has been denied of federal government funding for a very long time.
Regrettably, those behind the mischief are indirectly denying Abia State dividends of democracy from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu by sponsoring their social media e-rats to attack the bill, the President and the sponsor. Unfortunately most of our people have not taken time to read through the bill but harped on the distorted information dished out to the public by paid social media hirelings.
However, I reached out to the Chief Press Secretary (CPS) to the Honorable Deputy Speaker for his comments but he turned it down saying that his office is handling serious issues and have not time to respond to every barking dog that wants to distract them from reaching their destination which is getting dividends of democracy to Nigerians.
Therefore, I will advise Abians and Nigerians to ignore those behind the mischief and their pull-him-down efforts against our illustrious son, the distinguished Deputy Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives, Rt.Hon Benjamin Kalu but rather, support Federal government for own dividends of democracy in Abia State and Southeast at large.