- Chris Azuka, represents Nnewi South/North/Ekwusigo Federal Constituency of Anambra State on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the House of Representatives. In this interview he speaks on the preparedness of the PDP to offer positive legislative services in the House.
On PDP legislators
Our duty here is principally to make good laws for Nigeria. We will make sure that we engage in vibrant legislation.
The legislature is the bastion of democracy, without the National Assembly, NASS, there will be no democracy. During the military era, we had the executive, we had the judiciary but we didn’t have the legislature.
With the legislature in place, you are sure of checks and balances that will entrench democratic culture.
The PDP is a minority party in the House but we have a duty to ensure that we participate in bipartisan ways that will deepen democracy. We have assumed the position of an opposition party and we have accepted it.
Ours is to offer alternative opinion or alternative government when the need arises. And I want to assure you, it is not that we have not upped our game, we don’t just want to be seen as being undemocratic in our ways.
Have you any regret that the PDP had the opportunity to produce the senate president, but didn’t make use of it?
Since someone from the APC offered himself to contest for the position of Senate President, it was good that the PDP senators respected him because they wanted the presiding officers to come from the ruling party. What happened was not totally unacceptable.
Constitutionally it is right, whether they are talking about morality or whatever, the sentiment they are putting up does not exist.
Ekweremadu has come to stay, they should just accept it, and it was their fault. Whatever, Ekweremadu’s emergence is constitutionally right. The best thing to do is to accept the fact that a decision has been made by the senators in the interest of the country.
On bi-partisan NASS
If it is bipartisanship that will promote democracy in Nigeria, let us accept it the way it is because Nigeria is always a peculiar place. And peculiar circumstances prevail when peculiar solutions are needed.
It might be a blessing in disguise so that the National Assembly will give Mr President maximum support. Nobody has conquered Nigeria. It is just that Nigerians said okay, we have another alternative. And we have had enough of these people let us try other people to see if they have something better.
Your state faces ecological problems, what efforts will you make to ensure that the Federal Government comes to the rescue of the state in that regard?
There is a fund that is called the Ecological Fund which takes care of such things. All the legislators representing Anambra in the Senate and the House, will do everything to make sure that Anambra is considered a special case.
An ecological state of emergency should be declared in the state because of the level of ecological degradation in Anambra. We will continually insist among ourselves that legislators from Anambra and states with ecological issues are part of the ecological committee of the House.
That will allow for a better functioning of the committee.
