Last Thursday the Speaker of Anambra House of Assembly, Mrs. Rita Maduagwu survived an impeachment plot by the whiskers.
The move to oust her almost became a reality at the plenary when 28 members of the Assembly mostly from the ruling All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) signed her impeachment notice.
The members reportedly gave her option of soft landing by tendering her resignation letter to avoid the embarrassment of impeachment, an option the Speaker rejected.
When the speaker got wind of the plot to impeach her at Thursday’s sitting, she alerted Governor Willie Obiano who quickly drove to the Assembly complex to pacify the aggrieved lawmakers and urge them to drop the plans.
Sensing that the lawmakers’ minds were not changed by Obiano’s pleadings, the Speaker with the help of the Clerk of the House fled with the mace to avoid impeachment.
Our correspondent, Onyedika Anakwe examines the impact of these developments in her immediate community.
The first attempt to impeach the speaker was sometime last year but it took the intervention of the governor to fend off the threats.
The members had amongst other things accused her of not doing enough for their welfare and highhandedness in the conduct of the affairs of the House.
Our source at the Assembly said the lawmakers had long made up their minds to impeach her and it is only a matter of time before she finally bites the dust adding that Obiano cannot save her again.
Some sympathisers of the governor and the party have expressed concerns that the continued interventions of the governor to save the speaker’s job is coming at a huge political cost to the governor and for the party ahead of the governorship election in November.
They suggested that the governor should shop for her replacement in order to avoid polarising the party further in the state.
Maduagwu, a lawyer and wife of a businessman, Mr. Hyacinth Maduagwu representing Nnewi South constituency 2, was first elected to the Anambra state of Assembly under the platform of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in 2011 before she decamped to the ruling APGA, was re-elected for a second term in 2015 and emerged as the Speaker of the Assembly.
When our correspondent visited her community, Ukpor the headquarters of Nnewi South local government at the weekend to get the reactions of members of her community on the botched impeachment plot, people were seen discussing in groups about the development around the Afor Ukpor area.
Some members of the community declined to speak to our correspondent, others who pleaded anonymity expressed nonchalant attitudes towards the plight of the Speaker.
One of them, a middle aged man who spoke in Igbo language told our correspondent that the community has not benefited anything in terms of projects in the nearly two years she has presided over the state House of Assembly as the Speaker.
He said for instance the only government-owned hospital in the community, Ukpor General Hospital, has become an embarrassment to the community.
He said: “During the campaign she made a lot of promises to the community, her election even bitterly divided the community between camps of those who wanted her to return to the Assembly and those who felt she has not done enough to deserve a second term.
“Up till now, those divisions are still here with us. Brothers and sisters turning against each other because of her ambition.
“After her victory at the polls, we thought that as the political leader of the community, she would have healed the divisions.
“Instead she surrounded herself with bands of sycophants and praise singers who had continued to fan and feed from those divisions.
“Those people that surround her have shielded her from reality by manufacturing excuses for her non-performance.
“When you point out some of these failures publicly, you will be attacked by her armies of praise singers who would in turn call you unprintable names for ‘plotting her down fall’.
“People are tired of her. But a lot of our people would not want to be seen as working against our own, so they would rather complain privately and wait to extract revenge at the next elections.
“Her speakership has not brought anything to the community. So whether she is impeached or not, it makes no difference to the community.”
Another who equally craved anonymity berated the speaker for not doing enough to complete the several abandoned projects in the community that were initiated by the immediate past administration of Peter Obi.
He said also no one from the community has been considered for appointment into board of any state-owned agency despite the role members of the community played to deliver the party at the polls in the local government.