Senator Onyekachi Nwebonyi, a federal lawmaker representing Ebonyi North Senatorial District in the 10th Senate, has said that what he is getting as a senator of the nation is not for him and his children alone but also for the children of the poor, the forgotten and the down trodden.
Senator Nwebonyi who stated this while answering questions from some National Assembly correspondents on the appraisal of the red chamber under the leadership of His Excellency, Distinguised Senator Godswill Akpabio, hinted that he has about ten (10) ongoing projects for indigent people particularly the widows and the less priviledged in his senatorial zone. ‘I am the only politician that started building houses for poor people in my senatorial zone, no senator ever did it he had said.
Senator Onyekachi, took the journalists down memory lane and mentioned that he has completed seventy-five housing units across Ebonyi north senatorial district and even beyond. He also stated that three months into office, he distributed one hundred (100) motor cycles purchased at the cost of eight hundred and fifty thousand naira (N850, 000) each. He equally distributed ten (10) private cars to those that work for him. According to him, two months later with the help of President Bola Tinubu who gave lawmakers food palliatives, he took it down to the communities in his senatorial zone and shared it to over 8,000 households. Adding also that he engaged over 4,000 farmers with rice seedlings, herbicides and fertilizers.
In addition, the lawmaker said he also took out a sum of fifty million naira (N50m) to settle the school fees of indigent children including those who are not even from Ebonyi state.
He stated, “Some of these students are from Ogun state, Imo state and Benue state who are doing medicine in Ebonyi Federal Univetsity but their fees accumulated to about N1.3m and they were at the verge of being laid out and these are 1st Class medical students. I said no, the dreams of these hard-working young Nigerian youths will not die. I had to offset their bills and today, they are back to school and I promised to offset their bills till they graduate”.
While reacting to the account of stewardship of Akpabio-led 10th senate, he said:
“The 10th senate under the Senate President Godswill Akpabio is independent as provided by the law. The law clearly provided for separation of powers – executive is on their lane, parliament is on their lane and thebjudiciary is on their lane.
He explained that, On the National Anthem bill you said we hurriedly passed within a week and the picture of rubber stamp senate you painted, Senator Onyerkachi said: “Nigerians paid us to make laws for them and we should do it with every sense of determination and seriousness. We don’t need to stagger it for one month or two months. We are paid to do this and we are doing it with every sense of determination. We are not rubber stamp. You can see in many cases we have disagreed with the executive. You saw when they brought the bill seeking to increase electricity tariff, we kicked against it because Nigerians are passing through hell following the removal of fuel subsidy. As a parliament, we said no to it. If we are rubber stamp following the dictates of the executive, we would have kept mute. Even as labour is agitating for wage increase, we are solidly behind labour.
Senator Nwebonyi reiterated that the 10th senate is determined to give Nigerians good governance and that anything that has to do with the interest of Nigerians would not be played with because we are the representatives of the people. Any pain being felt by Nigerians is our pain and we must bring solution to it he said.
Chinedum Anayo