In one week, citizens and political leaders of Enugu State enacted and taught a master class in political science with significant learnings for other players in the South East and Nigeria. Enugu State moved from a House of Assembly’s retrogression seeking to pay outrageous pensions to former governors to one where the Assembly listened to public outcry and citizen activism to withdraw the bill. It was salutary.
Enugu State beat the band backwards to dance to discordant tunes from its ogene. It took the courage of one citizen and many others that stood up for the count for the people’s representatives to feel their pulse. It was red hot in anger.
Greed was the motivator for the planned upward revision of gubernatorial pensions. The bill sought to hand over to each former governor N180m annually and another N250m for vehicles every four years. It would also gift the unelected wives of the former governors N12million annually, supposedly for medical care!
Written all over this bill was an arrogant heist. We can steal state resources with the pen, and what can citizens do about it!
Similar greed was irresistible to members of the Imo State House of Assembly, who during the tenure of Owelle Rochas Anayo Okorocha also inserted themselves into the one they amended. Imo State is one of the states with the good sense to cancel the obnoxious gubernatorial pension provisions. Others include Zamfara State, Edo, and Lagos.
Citizen Ikem Okuhu earned plaudits for raising consciousness through a timely article that criticised the obnoxious plan. It went viral, particularly with citizens, groups, and communities of Enugu State on social media. The noise was deafening, the anger boiling. Citizens had good reason to feel insulted.
Enugu State owes regular pensioners over 12 months in arrears. Citizens have spent the last two months scrounging for water, with the state offering platitudes. Services are in short supply across many areas.
Amidst these, Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi and his allies in the State House of Assembly failed to read the tree leaves. They brought a bill that reeked of insensitivity. How could you seek to pad more benefits into controversial legislation and practice?
In an earlier intervention, I noted that outcomes in a democracy depend on what citizens put in. Where are the professional associations of Enugu State, from lawyers through journalists to doctors and academics? Citizenship means speaking up.
Citizens, individually and in associations, responded. They took up the call. Good sense prevailed, with significant salutary lessons.
The foremost is the recognition that Nigeria’s democracy demands the active involvement of citizens. There is anger in the South East with the political leadership, from the Governors’ Offices through Assembly and legislators’ houses in Abuja. Citizens express this anger mainly in the Digital Village Square of social media. It ends there. Very few ever articulate these groans and dissatisfaction as statements or petitions to the authorities. Citizens outsourced responsibility for their action to an undefined saviour or God.
Enugu reaffirmed possibilities. Citizens have a strong voice but need to assert that right regularly. The voice of citizens should sound like the roar of the gods to politicians.
