Date Published: 11/20/09

Imo: HURIWA warns of rising tyranny

Worried by what it considers as the speedy deteriorating atmosphere of lack of freedom of expression in Imo State especially with the recent slamming of arrest warrant by the Imo state house of assembly on former Abia State Governor Chief Orji Uzor Kalu and the Owerri-based social commentator and journalist Maximus Uba for allegedly accusing the Imo State governor Ikedi Ohakim of alleged financial indiscretion, a Democracy inclined and development focused non-Governmental organization HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS’ ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA, HURIWA, yesterday raised alarm that the Imo state House of assembly has embarked on undemocratic and illegal crack down on dissenting voices in order to foster an atmosphere of tyranny and civilian dictatorship in the state.

The rights group also expressed apprehension that the current regime of systematic emasculation of the respectable voices of opposition in Imo state was capable of foisting corrupt-based political leadership capable of impoverishing and under developing Imo state  and denying the populace of the benefits of democracy dividends even as it called on the people of Imo state to protest the ongoing rise in tyranny, intolerance of dissenting voices and what it calls ‘’executive and legislative extermination of freedom of expression and freedom of the press’’, fundamental freedoms that are guaranteed under sections 22, 24, 38, 39 of the 1999 constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [UDHR] and the African Peoples and Human Rights.

Specifically, media report stated that for allegedly failing to honour in person, invitations by the Imo state house of assembly’s ad-hoc committee, the house on Wednesday issued warrants of arrest on former Abia state Governor Chief Orji Uzor Kalu who also doubles as the Chairman, Board of trustees of the opposition Peoples’ Progressives Alliance, the party from where the current Imo state helmsman decamped illegally, and also Maximus Uba, a journalist and critic of Governor Ohakim’s alleged maladministration in Imo state. The house is probing alleged financial mismanagement against Governor Ikedi Ohakim. The speaker of the Imo state house of assembly Goodluck Opia asked the Inspector General of Police, the Imo state commissioner of police and the assembly’s sergeant-at-arms to ensure the arrest of the duo stating that the state legislature relied on the provision of section 129 of the 1999 constitution.

HURIWA in a media release by its National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko faulted the Imo state house of assembly because according to it, the Imo state legislature has through numerous instances acted the scripts of the state Governor in a determined bid to muzzle the respectable voices of opposition even as it cited the two Nigerian citizens being summoned as reputable opposition voices who have used their talents and resources to seek to correct some anomalies that have taken place in Imo state like the unconstitutional and immoral decamping of the state Governor from the political platform that brought him to power. HURIWA stated that section 22 of the 1999 constitution empowers a media worker like Maximus Uba to be free to uphold the fundamental objectives contained in chapter two of the 1999 constitution and to uphold the responsibility and accountability of the government to the people. HURIWA accused the state assembly of working as mere appendage and stooge of the state Governor who in any case was lured by them through an illegal resolution to dump the party that propelled him to public office in the April 2007 election, the Peoples Progressives’ Alliance to the Peoples Democratic Party, the party of the majority of the Imo state house of assembly. The rights group also accused the state assembly of political witch hunt and vendetta.

Quoting extensively from section 129 of the 1999 constitution upon which the Imo state legislature relied to issue the arrest warrant on the duo, the rights group asserted that an aspect of that section provides that the legislature cannot exercise the power of issuance of arrest warrant as enshrined in the statute if the persons summoned provided verifiable and cogent reasons for not honouring the summons by the state house of assembly even as the rights group wondered why the Imo state house of assembly is in a hurry to order the arrest of the duo and very slow in making workable pro-poor laws that will ameliorate the unprecedented rise in poverty among Imo State people and the state of insecurity in the state. ‘’The duo has through their legal representatives provided cogent and verifiable reasons why the summons was not honoured at the time fixed for the appearance of Kalu and Uba’’, HURIWA stressed.

Reminding the Imo state house of assembly that the 1999 constitution in section 24 stated that the duty of every citizen is to make positive and useful contribution to the advancement, progress and well-being of the community where he resides, HURIWA asserted that the spate of criticism from critics of the Imo state governor including Orji Kalu and Maximus Uba were aimed at fostering good governance and improving the lots of the people of Imo state even as it challenged the Imo state legislature to conduct public probe of why there is so much poverty even with the vast financial resources running to hundreds of billions of naira that accrued to the state from the federation accounts in the last decade of return to civilian democracy. HURIWA warned that if the rising threat of tyranny is not checked in Imo state, then opposition will go underground and the consequences will be the institutionalization of civilian dictatorship which is undemocratic and unconstitutional and must be resisted by the citizenry.