No society will experience accelerated and uniform growth if they employ sentiment in assessing their political office holders or when accountability becomes scapegoating or accountability become selective. When certain public office holders are easy target, while some political office holders are too sacred to be mentioned or called to account. When a particular office holder is taken every time to the accountability drawing board and leaving others as if they do not also have our mandate. In the current democratic setting in Nigeria, Igede nation is privileged to have Councillors in the council wards of the two local governments, the two Local Government Chairmen, three State House of Assembly members and one house of Representative member in person of Rt Hon Samson Okwu. I may not know much about the councillors, but the Local Government Chairmen receives monthly allocation, the state House of Assembly receive constituency project money and also the HOR member. But I observed with discontentment how for over eight years, people got our mandates to these various public offices and we tend to look away from calling them to account for their stewardship and feel very comfortable at slightest instances to mention Hon Okwu Samson and make demand for his scorecard. As much as this call is legit and appropriate, I am worried why we dare not mention others on the social media platforms like we do for Hon Okwu. I made an assertion few years ago when I analysed the performance of all the HOR and SHA members since 1999 and concluded that none has performed up to half of what Hon Okwu did for Igede nation and it is getting over two years now without rebuttal. I am not saying he has no need of improvement in his delivery, after all the largest room in the whole world is room for improvement. We had brazen neglect from various representatives and other political office holders at several points and nobody dare talk about it; we have obvious cases of non-performance and political office holders losing touch with the people that gave the mandate in the past and even now, but nobody dare talk about it. My worry is- why are we so quick to talk about Hon Okwu even when those close to us and also with our mandate are swimming in the ocean of incompetence and the dividend of our mandate revolves around their selfish ambitions. We look the other way, when others are misbehaving and tend to comment about Hon Okwu alone, if he showed how many he empowered, we will say is not enough. If he initiated electricity project, we will complain about the speed of execution. When he constructed some roads- you hear people complaining about the standard of the roads. If he showed people he put into employment position, we will say one representative in the North did more than that. Is like we are only professionals in assessing him as if he is the only one with our mandate- that is my concern and no double meaning intended. Or is it because; Hon Okwu in his humility has not raised foot soldiers to beat up anybody that talked about him like some political office holders, or have no intimidating squad to threaten the critics, or is too benevolent to pay thugs to enforce reign of silence. He should then be honoured rather than being taken for granted for being assessable to his electors. We should look beyond selective accountability or selective scapegotism. Selective accountability is a threat to real progress. We need all-encompassing and collective accountability of all our political office holders as that will be the panacea for rapid development. Away from that, the trending issue about his desire for fourth term is an issue for another day, but if it eventually come, I will prefer Hon Samson Okwu to go the fourth and fifth time instead of some unapproachable, arrogant and thug-hiring politician that no one will dare to call to account or you will look 360 degrees before you pass a comment about their gross ineptitude. He is honourable and great to be a victim of SELECTIVE, sentimental and selfish call for accountability.
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