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Isienyi: Travails of lawmaker, as metaphor of Soludo’s Anambra!
By Sunny Igboanugo
Maduabuchi Bernard Udemezue, member representing Ayamelum Constituency in the Anambra State House of Assembly, was on Tuesday, August 26, 2025, suspended by his colleagues for reason of “unparliamentary conduct, inciting comments on social media, and abuse of legislative privileges.”
If anyone is surprised about this development, such a person must either be living in a cave, quite detached from human existence, or has become so tired of hearing the overwhelmingly bad vibes from Nigeria and decided to opt out of hearing more – if only to maintain some sanity.
In other words the person must have decided to block everything or deleted everything Nigeria completely not to understand the way we roll here. Otherwise, even a political imbecile knows the fate that awaits the lawmaker even before the hammer. Even Udemezue must have been aware of the impending fate. It would be surprising if he is not and more so if he is not prepared for the sure outcome. Nothing else could been the result of his audacious, if not “reckless” outings in recent times. It is akin to political hara-kiri.
The attempt to nail the fiery lawmaker, a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), came via the report of the Committee on Rules, Business, Ethics and Privileges, which found him guilty of anti-parliamentary conducts following a motion of urgent public importance moved Tony Muobike and seconded by Jude Ngobili. The motion specifically accused him of using his social media platforms to make inciting comments capable of disturbing public peace and bringing disrespect to the Assembly.
Apart from the three-month suspension slammed on him during which he would barred from accessing any part of the Assembly complex, Udemezue was ordered to apologise to Somtochukwu Nkem Udeze, Speaker, and members of the House, both on his social media handles and through a written apology to them within five working days from Tuesday.
“That Hon. Bernard Udemezue should be subjected to various special sessions, training and or workshop on right parliamentary ethics, practice and duties. Members should conduct themselves properly as being guided by the Standing orders of the House, especially in public places. The social media space is not and cannot be an approved means or approach to conducting legislative business especially for a Legislator.”
Sounds familiar? Certainly! But valid as the reasons adduced for this step might look in the face of his utterances and particularly for allegedly snubbing the House by not appearing before them, anyone who believes the members acted independently must either be hollow, mischievous or living in denial.
The real reason for targeting him is that the lawmaker trod the forbidden path. Confronting the executive, no matter how slight it may seem, is the highest form of political sin anyone, particularly a legislator would commit in Nigeria. That was exactly what Udemezue, more of deliberately than inadvertently because, according to him, the governor drew a line in the sand for him and his colleagues on their boundaries from the outset.
Besides, he did not just speak passively, he drove his knife through the heart rather than the skin. In fact, anyone who wants to know the real issues bothering many Anambra people and their complaints regarding their state should listen to that outing in the social media. It covered quite a bunch, ranging from massive corruption, incompetence, impunity, nepotism, neglect to the outright belittling the Assembly and its members.
But in all the darts he threw, the greatest was his narrative on the murder of Justice Azuka, the lawmaker representing Onitsha North 1 constituency whose corpse was discovered at the Second Niger Bridge area on January 29th 2023, more than a month after he was abducted by his supposed assailants on December 24, the previous year.
He started with the question – “who killed Azuka?” It was a rhetorical question he posed his traducers. Then he went ahead to answer it. “The people that killed Azuka are those suspects who were arrested and later escaped from police. Have you told Ndi-Anambra the story of how they escaped?
Fleshing up his narratives, he told the world how on December 22, 2024, the slain lawmaker had come to Awka, the Anambra State capital to collect his rice allocation for the year’s Christmas and was never seen again.
Hear him: “I know who killed Azuka. Who killed Azuka are those suspects, who were arrested and later escaped from police custody. Have you told Ndi-Anambra how they managed to escape – the story of how they escaped – have you told Ndi-Anambra in details? Azuka came to Awka, 6.30 pm. He called me that he came to take his Christmas rice.
“On the 22nd of December, 2024, I was with Azuka late night and we were discussing something. He was the bridge that we needed to impeach the governor. We wanted to impeach him and we needed just one person. And we co-opted Azuka. We met on 22nd of December. On the 24th of December, you sent a message that the governor brought rice and the House members should come and take rice. Azuka came.
“Before he came, he didn’t call me. But when he came he called me and I said, why didn’t you tell me you were coming, I would have told you what was obtainable for you and what you were coming to take was one unit of 25kg of rice. I don’t know how you’re going to share it to your constituency. Maybe your constituents will come with small cups and you share it in grains to them. He then collected the rice from the House – one unit of 25kg of rice – for Christmas and not Easter or New Year but Almighty Christmas.
“What did you want our constituents to say to us? What did you want our constituents to do with us during Christmas. A person will visit Honourable and Honourable will not give him one bag of rice. That was your plan – to set us up against Ndi-Anambra. He collected the one bag of rice, he didn’t get home anymore!”
What could be more revealing, if not more damning? He had gone ahead to narrate how the members were denied their basic entitlements, declaring that but for his audacious move of coming to the Assembly with keke (tricycle), and the embarrassment it caused, the governor would not have considered giving them official vehicles.
He added: “Look at what they gave you. Do you have escorts for your protection? Why don’t you have escorts? The governor said we cannot afford to feed our escorts even if the state paid for us. Do you have aides? You making noise, do you have PAs? Is there a provision for you to have PAs as House member, is there a provision for you to have a driver?
“On the first meeting we had with the governor, what he told us was that we cannot impeach him, that he was the one who appointed the Chief Judge of the state. That if we try to impeach him, he will set up a committee and that committee will be set by him and he will appoint ‘Glamour’ as the head of the committee and we can now imagine the report he will bring if Glamour is the head of the committee. Glamour is the Chief of Protocol to the governor.
“He stripped us of our powers on the first day of meeting with him. He didn’t even call us to tell us this alone, he called all his commissioners to embarrass us before them. I left the hall. I was the only one that left the hall. All of you were there at the Golden Tulip. Your governor told you that you can’t impeach him, you can’t move motions. What then are you doing?
“How can you function? Everyday, motion of commendation. Did I come to the House of Assembly to do motion of commendation? The only thing we’re allowed to do, was motion of commendation. Motions are useless in the House, because we’re not allowed to move motions of request. We’re not allowed to move motions that reflect what our people need.
“You want me to move motions of commendation. What am I commending the governor for. I’m not from Aguata, I’m not Nnewi, I’m from Anyemelum. What has he done for me commend? I cannot move motions of commendation for the governor, he did nothing for my people. Let’s go on a debate. Let’s go on a debate.
“The roads you claim you’re doing, at what cost? You brought a scandalous budget to us that you wanted to do roads. You said it was because you wanted to give us stone-base with guarantee of minimum of 25 years lifespan. Ndi-Anambra, you all can confirm if these roads we’re seen that as they’re constructing they are collapsing, they’re mending – are they the roads you told us? Your roads have not lasted 25 months, they’ve collapsed. Shamefully!
“How far Dubai-Taiwan. Mr. Governor, you’re not trying! You no dey try. I’ll tell you what you don’t know. You said you wanted Digital Taxation. That we should no longer give money to Agberos by hand. Do you remember at your early stage, when you were newly elected. You brought my uncle all the way from Australia.
“You brought Christian Madubuko, a very bright human being. He came and said the answer is Digital taxation. Let them be using POS so that all the revenues will be coming to a single account. He gave that idea thinking you were sincere. But when he introduced that idea, before two weeks, didn’t you remove him? Didn’t you remove him as Director of Revenue?”
Now, with all these revelations, the only answer the House and its leadership has is to slam the lawmaker with suspension. That is their response to the highly critical issues he raised, which is at the heart of not only the current parlous situation in the state, but more so to the very survival of the people.
If anything, is it not surprising that till date, no credible explanation has been given about the case of Azuka? How far has the state gone in prosecuting his killers that are still in custody? How far with the re-arrest of those that have escaped? It is now more than six months when the entire state rolled out the drums to celebrate the feat of the arrest of the so-called culprits and Anambra people were promised that a new dawn had arrived.
How many people have gone the way of Azuka since those euphoric moments? These are the begging question. But then, you know that for the governor, the man sycophants call “Oluatuegwu” is busy basking in the drenching showers of praise-singers who tell him that he is the best next thing that happened since scientists discovered the cure for malaria to bother about the continuous drenching of the land with the blood of many more Azukas. What a tragedy!
Igboanugo is the Director, Media and Publicity, John Chuma Nwosu Governorship Campaign Council for the African Democratic Congress (ADC)
The echoes of the drums rolled out to celebrate the rescue of the 44 teachers and students, kidnapped from some schools in Oyo State, after 56 days in the bush, would surely be disrupted abruptly, with the divergent echoes of a fresh abduction, this time coming from Kogi State.
Reports indicate that the gunmen, struck on Tuesday at the Government Secondary School, Odo-Ekina, in Dekina Local Government Area of the state, abducting four students, the school principal and a National Examinations Council (NECO) ad hoc staff member.
Authorities of the Kogi State Police Command, who immediately unleashed their operatives in hot pursuit of the abductors, said the attack occurred at about 5:25 p.m. while the students were writing their NECO examination.
Saliu Oyiza Afusat, an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) and spokesman of the command, said a combined team of police personnel and other security agencies has launched a search-and-rescue operation following the incident.
Informing that one of the students was actually rescued immediately, she said efforts were ongoing to secure the release of the remaining victims and apprehend the attackers, adding that Naziru Bello Kankarofi, the state Commissioner of Police, alongside the Brigade Commander and the State Security Adviser to the Governor, Commodore Jerry Omodara (Rtd), were already on the way to the scene for an on-the-spot assessment.
Oil prices are expected to go down now with the announcement of Donald Trump, US President that he will no longer impose a 20 percent “safe passage” fee on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
The POTUS, hinged his reversal of the decision on the intervention from some Gulf countries, who pleaded with him not to toe the line due to the massive economic impact the decision would make on the region.
Indeed, oil prices had shot up immediately Trump announced the new levy on Monday while declaring the US ‘the guardians of the Hormuz strait,’ a measure which he said was to pay for the cost of guarding the volatile area in order keep supply of oil flowing.
Reports said that Gulf allies of the US worked frantically to get Trump on the phone in time to talk him out of the idea altogether, while a flurry of appeals came from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar.
In response, the POTUS, posting on his Truth Social platform, wrote: “Based on highly productive conversations with Middle East leadership, I have decided to replace the 20% United States Reimbursement Fee with Trade and Investment Deals that the various Gulf States will be making into the United States.”
Trump, who said the investments would be “MASSIVE but, at the same time, extraordinarily good for them, and their future,” added that the deals would see factories, plants, and equipment pour into the US at “Historic levels.”
The Gulf nations have committed to invest trillions of dollars in the US, though it remains unclear how much of that they will actually spend over the next several years.
Meanwhile, the US continues to bomb Iran in what appears to be a resumption of active conflict between both countries, despite an ongoing roadmap to end the conflict.
Reports say operatives of the Osun State Police Command, and those of the Department of State Services (DSS) had tracking the trail of Adeniyi Adeyemi, controversial Director General of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC), for weeks, before he was eventually pulled out of his hole on Tuesday.
However, the duo, were said to have pulled back after failing to track him through his mobile phones, which he had reportedly switched off for about two days, making it difficult to locate him, leaving the stage for the members of the Police Intelligence Response Team (PI-RT) led by Moses Lohor, a Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP).
Lohor, said to have previously served as the Commander of the Anti-Kidnapping Squad of Osun State, and reported to have been involved in high-profile security operations and controversies, after taken over fielded his men to pick up signals from their well-oiled signal networks.
Regarded by many Osun residents as one of the key security officers who contributed significantly to the peace and stability enjoyed in Ilesa and other parts of the state during his tenure, he was said to have relied on his contacts before his transfer out of the state, said to have raised concerns from the public about the security situation he would be leaving behind.
His exit from the state was said to be hinged on an incident in 2024, in which he allegedly shot one Iyanda Alowonle, then Chairman of Osun State Motor Transport System, in the stomach at the police station in the state prompting an order for his arrest by then Inspector General of Police (IGP).
His effort was said to have paid off when he successfully tracked down the controversial PFIPC, boss, who was seen on Tuesday evening, in a shot video on social media undergoing interrogation, and eventually handed him over to Ibrahim Gotan, Commissioner of Police in the state.
The PUNCH quoted one of the sources as saying: “The arrest (of Adeyemi) took place on Tuesday morning by the IRT squad, who immediately moved him to Abuja. After he was arrested, he was taken to Ibadan and from there to Abuja.”
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