By Francis Sadhere
Hon. Kingsley Tenumah is the Councillor representing Ekurede/Ugbori Ward of Warri South Local Government Area of Delta State and also the Chairman House Committee On Agriculture, Warri South Legislative Arm. He spoke to our correspondent, FRANCIS SADHERE on the recent change in the leadership of the Legislative Arm of the Council and other issues. Excerpts:
Please, may we meet you?
Am Honourable Kingsley Tenumah Afere, Councillor representing Ekurede/Ugbori ward in Warri South Local Government Area of Delta state.
When were you elected into office?
I am a returning Councillor. I was first sworn in May 2008 and re-elected in October 2014.
So, how has it been being a Councillor representing your people?
I will say that things have not been easy owing to the fact that when I was running my first tenure, things were buoyant in the council, and terms of representation and lobbying the chairman to site some projects in my wards, things were easy then. But today, because of the scarcity of funds due to the dwindling oil prices which has affected the country, most especially Warri South Council Area, things have not being easy. Because of the situation the country finds itself today, my second tenure has been very difficult. But we thank God and we are hoping that in no distance time, things will be better.
Owing to the bad shape of the economy today, how do you hope to retain the confident of your people?
Thank you very much for that question. There is no cause for alarm because I have been with them for over forty years now and they know the kind of person I am. I was born and brought up in my ward and I have been living with my people all these while. I do not have the opportunity to travel out of my ward for more than two months. I have this frequent contact with my people which has given me the confident that I need. So even now that things are not too good, I still have their confidence.So how do we make sure that things go back to what they were before and ensure that Councillor can site projects in their wards?For now we just have to keep our hopes in God believing with time, things will begin to happen. I know that we have a prudent chairman who has even gone out of his way to monitor our Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). Like I have always said, with proper monitoring and harnessing of our IGR, I think we can surmount some of these challenges.
So what is your message to your Constituents?
Like I have always told them, not only myConstituents alone, but the entire Warri South people that they should be patient with us. They know that things have never been this bad before. Like my number one political leader in Warri South, Dr. Joseph Otumara used to say; if a man has money, the first person to know if he has money or not should be his wife. So also if the man does not have money, the first person to know about it should also be his wife. So this is the same message I am taking to my people. When things were good, they felt it, but now that things are bad we want them to be patient with us because we know that in no distance time, we are going to get out of it.
Now, we understand that there is a crack in the Warri South Legislative Arm which has led to a change of leadership. Please tell us what really happened?
I will not like to use your language that there is a crack. There has never been a crack in the house. What we had was lost of confidence on the leadership of the house which is normal legislative business all over the world. When members of the house no longer have confidence on the leadership of the house, the normal practice in advance countries is for the leadership to resign honourably without waiting for any impeachment proceedings against them. The leadership of the House, lost our confidence,when we found out that most of our resolutions do not get to the appropriate quarters. This led to bridge that disconnects the executive from the Legislative. Since we resumed this second tenure, we discovered that the juicy relationship that we normally have with the executive chairman was no longer there. When we try to find out why this was so, we discovered that the leadership of the house – I am not talking about the entire leadership, but the leader and his deputy – they have cut off all relationship that we have with the executive chairman. So that alone, can be likened to gross misconduct which is an impeachable offense which eventually led to their removal on the March 28, 2016.
So who are the new leaders that you now have in the House?
Yes, we looked among us and found two people who have sound leadership qualities that we think can be used to pilot the affairs of the House. On that faithful day, we had a peaceful impeachment process and an election process that led to the election of the new leader and his deputy. The new leader of the House is now Hon. Marcus Ogheneovo Udoyo representing Edjeba ward, and his deputy is Hon. Matthew E. Dada, representing Obodo/Omadino ward. But the position for Deputy Minority is still pending, waiting for the recommendation of the party.
On the day of the impeachment, were you having a full house?
On that day in question, we were having a full House. Out of the nineteen of us, it was only one person that was absent.
Are you saying that the former Leader of the House was around when he was impeached?
Yes, they all presided over the sitting that day. From our prosiding, you will find out that the motion for the leaders impeachment came after their briefings. It was after the prayers and briefings by the leaders that the motion for urgent public importance came and the impeachment was read before the floor of the house.
But we understand that the purported impeachment did not go down well with many, why?
I do not understand what you mean by it did not go down well with many. If in a house of 19, where 18 were present when the impeachment notice was served and 13 of them signed the impeachment notice and the Leaders were removed, I do not know where the other people you are talking about came from. The House is an independent House and we took our independent decision knowing fully well that we came from a political party and we did not undermine the position of our leaders.
We also understand that before the impeachment, several meetings were held outside the House where you people mapped out the strategies to remove the leadership of the House. How true is that?
That is very correct. Like I told you earlier, councillors of like-minds came together and we have been tracking the antecedent of the Leader of the House and his Deputy. Impeachment notices do not just come just like that. Our findings prompted our meetings outside the council. We have been monitoring them for the past one month and we discovered that proceedings and resolutions taken in the floor of the house were not getting to the appropriate quarters. We found out that there are saboteurs in our system and we tried to find out those sabotaging our efforts in the House and we found out that it was the former Leader and his Deputy. So we had no other choice than to show them the way out.
Right now, can you say you have a peaceful House?
Of course, we sat last week Tuesday and we are going to sit again on Tuesday, April 12, 2016. And this time around I am expecting a full house, except for the former Leader and his Deputy who have been suspended for three months. So every other member is expected to sit April 12 otherwise, it is in our rule that if you fail to come to a sitting without an excuse, you will be sanctioned.
What actually led to their suspension?
Like I told you earlier, we discovered that there was gross misconduct on their part which can lead to impeachment. Resolution reached by the House was not taken to the chairman, which led to a wide gap between us and the chairman. On that day in question, that they were impeached, the Deputy Leader tried to attack the camera man who covered the prosidings at the house. He went away with the battery of the camera man and that is an offence. And again we discovered too that he also tried to smuggle the maze out of the House. That too is an offense and the new leadership of the House reported the matter to disciplinary committee of the House who suspended them for three months until their report is finally out. On our part, we can also look at their offence and allow them to join us. So it is a two way thing. We can look at it and say let us forgive them or we can say let us extend the suspension. So it depends on the report of the committee. If they recommend that we should forgive them tomorrow, then we can recall them.
This your decision that you have taken, did it go down well with PDP political big wigs in Warri South?
To tell you the truth, I cannot say that our decision went down well with our political leaders. Like I told you earlier there is no impeachment where you will not find the hand of one political leader or the other. But in this case, we know we have offended our leaders by not informing them about our decisions and our actions. So we are still begging them for their forgiveness because they brought us here. They are very angry with us, especially the number one leader in Warri South, Dr. Joseph Otumara.
What is your final word to the people before we end this interview?
I want to use this opportunity to tell our leaders that we are sorry. I also want to appeal to the other six members of the House that did not sign the impeachment notice. We are all fighting for a common cause, which is how to take the dividends of democracy to our constituents. We want them to come back and continue to represent their constituents. There is no faction in the House and we are not going to take any action against them. We are all one and we expect them to be here April 12 for our next sitting, except for the former Leader and his Deputy who are under suspension.
