ABUJA (SUNDIATA POST)- Federal lawmaker representing Ebonyi North Senatorial District in the 10th Senate, Senator Onyekachi Nwebonyi has said that what he is getting as senator of the Federal Republic is not for him and his children alone but also for the children of the poor, the forgotten and the down trodden.
Nwebonyi who stated this while fielding 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 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.
The Ebonyi born politician who took the journalists down memory lane, said he has completed seventy-five housing units across Ebonyi north senatorial district and even beyond. He also said 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 that he also engaged over 4,000 farmers with rice seedlings, herbicides and fertilizers.
In addition, Senator Nwebonyi said he also coughed out a whooping sum of fifty million naira (N50m) to settle the school fees of indigent children including those who are not even from Ebonyi state. “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, the Ebonyi-born politician 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.
On the National Anthem bill you said we hurriedly passed within a week and thevpicture of rubber stamp senate you painted, Sen. Nwebonyi 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 ribber 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 anything that has to do with the interest of Nigerians would not be toyed 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.