By: Chioma Madonna Ndukwu
Audu Ogbeh, Nigeria’s former Agriculture Minister, strongly criticized the National Assembly for approving President Bola Tinubu’s state of emergency in Rivers State.
He warned that future generations would question how such an important decision was handled.
Ogbeh stated that lawmakers’ children and grandchildren would look back and ask how they allowed such a significant issue to be decided without transparency.
During a discussion on Channels Television’s Politics Today, Ogbeh expressed concerns about the voice vote method used in the National Assembly, which he felt failed to clearly reflect each lawmaker’s position.
“Ayes and nays do not give us a clear picture of the position and the moral authority of individual senators or members of the House,” Ogbeh said.
He suggested that lawmakers should adopt a more transparent voting system, where votes are recorded individually, to ensure future generations can understand how their representatives voted.
“Someday, 10 to 20 years from now, their children and grandchildren and researchers would like to find out how individuals voted on particular bills,” he added.
Ogbeh also questioned the necessity of the state of emergency declaration, arguing that dialogue with influential Nigerians would have been a better solution.
“Rivers State is bigger than any individual,” he emphasized, warning against allowing the situation to escalate into greater conflict in the Niger Delta.
“We as a country and as countrymen are not interested in watching a situation where Rivers State and the entire Niger Delta will go up in flames,” he concluded.
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