Rivers State House of Assembly has said it was not rubber stamp to the state Governor, Chibuike Amaechi, as being insinuated in some quarters in the state.
Deputy Speaker of the House, Leyii Kwanee, stated this on Tuesday during his valedictory speech at the Federated Correspondents’ Chapel secretariat in Port Harcourt.
Kwanee, representing Khana Constituency II and a pro-Amaechi lawmaker, said judging by the performance of the fifth and sixth Assemblies, posterity would be fair to the seventh Assembly.
He pointed out that the present Assembly had proven that it was not under the influence of the executive arm of government, adding that as a politician, he would never return to the state Assembly as a lawmaker, but would be looking forward to higher political assignments in the future.
“Let me ask you; has there been a time in the history of Rivers State, up to the Amaechi-led House to our time, which the legislature did what we have been doing in the last one week? The answer is no. That will inform whatever score you can come out with.
“As a House, it has not been easy; when we came on board, we were driven by the fact that we were going to recreate what we saw in the fourth and fifth Assemblies. But, whether, we were able to achieve all of that is a question that we will be leaving behind for posterity,” Kwanee said
The deputy speaker confessed that the July 9 mayhem that broke out on the floor of the Assembly created fear in him, stating further that pro-Amaechi lawmakers fought for the soul of the Assembly and democracy.
Speaking on why he did not re-contest, Kwanee attributed it to the zoning formula of the All Progressives Congress (APC), which did not favour him.
“I know that the work of a legislator improves with time, but not in the context of our own democracy for now. To also answer your question, my party’s zoning arrangement didn’t favour me; that is why I did not return to the House.
“It has not been an easy journey; the challenges have been quite enormous, but by the grace of God, come May 30, 2015, I will, with my colleagues be exiting the House of Assembly. On what you have seen us do recently, or what we have been trying to do recently, it’s in furtherance of trying to place ourselves so that when the history of democracy and good governance will be written in this state, posterity finds us in very positive light.”
He described the legislature as a power arm of government that could checkmate the operations of other arms.
“The legislative arm of governance is very critical for the sustenance of our democracy. I listened to Mr. Senate President the other day when he said that most of the State Houses of Assembly had become stooges to their state governors. Well, to my mind, to some extent, he might be right, but there is also a bit of question mark on the Senate in the seventh Assembly because at various times that Nigerians expected them to stand up for them, they shied away from that responsibility.
“The various State Houses of Assembly, as we begin to guide our democracy forward, we will expect more from the Press because, if the Press fails in its responsibility as a watchdog, then, the society as a whole would have also failed. If we want to get the best out of our lawmakers, it is important that we start from the screening processes that will lead to the emergence of the candidate, because of what the computer will say ‘garbage in, garbage out’. If you take men that are very low in morals; if you take men that have no character, you should not expect anything from them,” he stated.
