Women must have equal opportunity in politics – Lynda Ikpeazu

Lynda Chuba Ikpeazu represents Onitsha North-South federal constituency at the House of Representatives. The 1986 Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria (MBGN) is one of 11 female lawmakers at the chamber of 360 members. In this interview, Ikpeazu who chairs the House Committee on Maritime Safety and Education, speaks on why her constituents kept electing her, […]

Lynda Chuba Ikpeazu represents Onitsha North-South federal constituency at the House of Representatives. The 1986 Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria (MBGN) is one of 11 female lawmakers at the chamber of 360 members. In this interview, Ikpeazu who chairs the House Committee on Maritime Safety and Education, speaks on why her constituents kept electing her, the relationship between the executive and legislature, the agitation for power shift to the Southeast in 2023 and other national issues:

 

Daily Trust: How did you find your way into politics?

Lynda Chuba Ikpeazu:  Well, I always wanted to make a positive difference in the lives of people. I was modelling as a student in America. I went into beauty pageant by chance when I was on vacation. So, while I was on vacation, before I even got home, somebody convinced me. ‘Why don’t you participate’? And of course, I participated and the rest is history. During that period, I had the opportunity to interact with soldiers. That was what convinced me that I wish to do something to make a difference, a positive difference in the lives of the people. That was what put me on the path. I said, Ok, how can I do that? One, you can use your money to do it. Secondly, you can be in a position of being part of the decision making process. So, I said well, I just finished school, so obviously, the best path for me to follow was to get into a situation where I would be part of the decision making process, so that was like what got me into politics.

DT: What are the things that you got from your parents that shaped your worldview?

Ikpeazu: First of all, my parents made me to believe in me, believe in myself, to imbibe the spirit of hard work and to be focused. My parents believed and of course they are strong advocates for education. So, they believe in sound education. They believed that you need to carve out and nurture yourself to become who you are. You shouldn’t let your friends influence you. And because, you know, in life, once you believe in yourself, and you are focused on what you want to do, you have realistic rules and you work towards those goals. Because it doesn’t make sense to draw a plan without having a path on how to achieve it. So, these are the things my parents taught me and I took it from there and decided that, yes I have a sound foundation I believe in myself, So, I don’t believe that a lot of people influenced me per se.

DT: How have you been coping in a male dominated parliament, the House of Representatives, as one of the 11 female members out of 360 members?

Ikpeazu: How am I coping, mingling? The point is, my people to the grace of God elected me. They elected me, Lynda Chuba Ikpeazu, that happens to be a woman. So, in the chamber, I am Lynda Chuba Ikpeazu, that happens to be a female. So, when I interact with my colleagues, who I have a wonderful relationship with, we are colleagues, that is what it is.

DT: Is there any form of discrimination or intimidation in the House?

Ikpeazu: They are my colleagues. If someone does something, I am not going to think that it is because of gender. I am going to look at the issue. I believe in looking at the issue first before considering it as a gender matter. It may be in the course of considering the issue and analysing it, it happens to have something that has to do with gender, of course I will deal with it. But I haven’t had that experience. I have been in the House for a long time. I have always interacted with my colleagues as me, Lynda, just like the way they interact with me.

DT: The agitation for gender equality and participation in politics has been on even before the country returned to democracy in 1999. 20 years on, we have only 11 of you in the House, why do you think it is so?

Ikpeazu: Well, that is really sad. It says a lot of our country, it really does. In 1999, we had 21 members, but it has gone down. What we have now is 11. So, it’s very sad, that is what the situation is. We have to come together as a country to actually determine what we want. What kind of democracy do we want? Do we want democracy of exclusion? You cannot have a true democracy if you are excluding some people. So, women must have an equal opportunity to participate in the political space. They don’t have that. Nigeria is a male chauvinistic society, not dominated. Unfortunately, but that is a fact. I will give you an example, if you are talking about Africa. In Rwanda for example, in South Africa for example, they realised that they have societies that are tilted towards male chauvinism and dominance. So, what they did was in their constitution, they made provisions for quota system to have a percentage of women participate. They put it in their constitution and forced political parties to toe the line. So, what we have now in South Africa and Rwanda is that in Rwanda, you have about 60% women. In South Africa, I don’t know that percentage, but I am sure it is almost 50. The important thing is that the provision made their countries better places for women to work. What women are saying is, let us be able to play in the field. Women are competent, very capable and they work hard, extremely hard. But unfortunately, because of how the society has been, they tend to be on the outside. So, when we speak up, they say, oh, you want to give this to women. Isn’t a woman there? We don’t want such reasons. Assuming we had a society that from the word go things were normal, where there is no male chauvinism, male dominance, if we have a normal society, nobody would be talking about having some sort of things that would work, that would bring them up. I gave you examples of Rwanda and South Africa, these are very good countries, they have done so well. It’s just like in our constitution, one of the provisions is the federal character. We realised that we must take into consideration how our society is. We realised that we are a multicultural society with different ethnic groups. Because of that, the makers of the constitution found it wise to make provisions that all the people must be represented, and that is very good. So, all we are saying is that this should also flow from that.

DT: Are you contemplating sponsoring a bill for  a legislation that will make special provision for women in the constitution as in Rwanda and South Africa?

Ikpeazu: Yes, definitely I am going to do that. And of course, I would need the support of my brothers, my sisters and the support of the Nigerian people because they must understand. You see, the problem is that sometimes we don’t look at issues, we must understand what the issues are.

DT: What percentage are you going to propose?

Ikpeazu: Well, if we can have a situation where you could say like 30%, if you have that situation, I don’t believe that is something that should be difficult for people to buy into. You have a mother, you have a wife, you have a daughter, but you don’t want her to grow? Don’t you want your daughter to grow? Don’t you want your daughter to have an opportunity to grow? I want my daughter to have an opportunity to grow. Every man has a mother,  most men have wives, and we have daughters. So, why don’t we sit back and say, what do I want for my daughter, what kind of opportunities do I want my daughter to be able to get? Then let it be her decision to say she doesn’t want it. So, let us even talk about this. If we actually think about it from that angle, I believe we will make the right decision.

DT: Before the inauguration of the 9th Assembly, the relationship between the executive and legislature was that of cat and mouse, but now it’s very rosy, hence the insinuation that the parliament is a rubber stamp, what do you make of this?

Ikpeazu: You know we practice the kind of democracy where there are three arms of government set up as equal. They are like sitting on a tripod. Nothing says that there cannot be difference of opinions on issues. And when there are such situations, it should not be seen as anything out of the process, it is part of the process. Even in your own family, do you agree with your wife all the time? Does it mean that you people are not good? So, it’s how Nigerians view this democracy. Each arm has its own responsibilities. So, in trying to carry out such responsibilities, if you have difference of opinions with the other side, it’s not a big deal, its normal. Why would you agree with anybody every time anyway? If you do, that is wonderful, but if you don’t, it just depends on how it is done. We must at all times have mutual respect for each other, that is very important, I should disagree with you respectfully, and you can disagree with me respectfully too, that is the issue. The mode, the manner that it is done, you don’t have agree all the times. In any case, I read about rubber stamp, no arm should be a rubber stamp to the other anyway. But that doesn’t mean that if we agree on a particular issue, that means it is rubber stamp, and that doesn’t mean if I disagree with you we are fighting. So, the issue of rubber stamp shouldn’t even come in just like the issue of fighting shouldn’t come in. You just maintain your own lane, and try to do the work that the constitution gave you to do, that is what it is all about.

DT: You seconded the motion for the nomination of the Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila. There are reports that it was contrary to the position of your party, the PDP, why did you do that?

Ikpeazu: When you say this. I don’t know whether it is against the party or anybody. Let me say this, Honourable Femi Gbajabiamila is somebody I have known for years in the House. I know his capacity. When he approached me to come on board with him, I had a conversation with him on his vision for the House which I felt is good. And of course, I decided I was going to support him. The party, I heard, gave a directive on the day of the election. Don’t forget, that campaign and everything started before. So, I didn’t know when the party gave the directive because I didn’t know that there would be a directive on the day of the election. If there was going to be a directive, I would have expected it to come much earlier, not on the day of the election. I wasn’t aware of any directive and I happily seconded his nomination, because I believed he should be our speaker. So I wasn’t really aware of any directive. Don’t forget it was on the day of the election, we were very busy, a lot of people didn’t really know about the directive.

DT: The minority caucus which you belong to has been enmeshed in crisis leading to the existence of parallel minority leaderships, why is this crisis festering?

Ikpeazu: There is only one minority leadership. We don’t have a parallel one. May be some people might not be happy which is understandable. We can actually understand that this happened and some people are not happy about certain situations. But as it is, we have only one leadership under Ndudi Elumelu.  People like situations where there are crises, I don’t know why.  Despite the differences we have, we are going to work on it. The PDP is one family.

DT: But why did the PDP openly support the other camp instead of the Elumelu leadership?

Ikpeazu: Well, it is not for me to answer that, because I am not the person supporting any other person than Elumelu. But I can tell you that we voted for Elumelu and he is the Minority Leader in the House. I can’t speak for any other person on this.

DT: As a cost-cutting measure, there are clamours for the reduction of the number of lawmakers at both chambers, what’s your opinion on this?

Ikpeazu: Let me tell you this, it is not a question of increase or reduction. That is not the issue. The reality is that, if we don’t have representatives, more than 70 percent of Nigerians will not feel federal presence in their areas. I represent two local governments. There are people that represent three local governments, there are people that represent four local governments. The idea is to make people feel that they are part of the federation or the federal system. So, if you say you want to reduce, you will want a situation where one person will represent 12 local governments. How will that work? Like I said for now, the people, of course I am not saying it is not expensive, but the members actually attract federal presence. There is no place you go in Nigeria that there is no federal presence because of the representation of the people they elected.

DT: Indirectly, you are talking about constituency projects which President Muhammadu Buhari  had recently labelled a fraud, is it really a fraud?

Ikpeazu: We’ll I don’t read that, and I will be very surprised if Mr. President made that statement to call it a fraud because obviously, it cannot be. Actually, without those projects that are attracted to the people, most people in Nigeria would not know that there is a government. They will not feel the government at the centre, and that is what caused this agitation in Nigeria because some sections of the country feel that nothing comes to their places. They don’t feel they are part of the centre. So, if they are not part of the centre, they go their way. Because they will say, the federal government has forgotten about us. There is no place in Nigeria which has no federal presence courtesy of constituency projects. I really don’t believe that anybody can fault it. Nobody can fault that. So that is why I don’t believe the president said that. Secondly, if you are talking about implementation, the legislative arm doesn’t implement. Our responsibility is to make laws. It is the executive that executes. So if there is a problem, they have to look towards the executive, because the legislature does not execute. But I stand behind the principle of these projects because I know what they have attracted and I know what members have attracted to their places. It’s actually wrong to jump on the bandwagon. Oh, this thing is bad. It cannot be bad when people are benefiting from it.

DT: How do you survive the plots by men in your constituency to replace you during elections?

Ikpeazu: I submit absolutely everything to God,  because it is God that determines what can come to you. When you know that you are filled with God’s grace, it actually gives you the strength to work, and when I am working in the field, I feel fulfilled. Like I said, I am Lynda. That is why one’s background is very important. My parents taught me the importance of self-worth. That is why we as mothers have a responsibility to teach our kids to appreciate themselves, to know their importance, because you have self-worth. You know that certain challenges that are normal, that you see in life, your attitude towards addressing challenges will be different. You might recall, I think the first time I came out in 1999, one of my opponents said to me: “You better go home”. I said to him, “Don’t worry, after campaign, I will go home, no problem.” They don’t see anything. You understand what I am saying. So, it’s like when you know what you are doing whatever is thrown at you, you know how to address it.

DT: Are you contemplating contesting for Anambra governorship?

Ikpeazu: Me, no.

DT: What next then?

Ikpeazu: Next? It’s up to God to determine. I always say like, let God decide for me. But I know for sure there is nothing like that in my mind.

DT: Why, are you afraid or what ?

Ikpeazu: Afraid of what?

DT: Your party, the PDP, lost Imo State to the APC at the Supreme Court on Tuesday. As a lawyer, how did you see the judgement?

Ikpeazu: Let me just say, that was very sad. I am not even looking at it from a partisan point of view, I am looking at it as a Nigerian. That is what I have always advocated, that we should look at issues as Nigerians, not from a partisan point of view. Let’s even face it, our political parties, can you tell me their ideologies? What are the ideologies of our political parties? They only want to win elections, that is the more reason why we should look at issues as Nigerians. So, my concern is not going to be, it is because it is the PDP. That is not even important. As a lawyer, I feel sad. The judgement, I feel sad. Like I said, as a lawyer when I heard about the judgement and of course the reasons, the matter from the trial court and the processes from the Appeal Court to the Supreme Court, it made me sad as a Nigerian, not as PDP member. And I can only hope that things will get better. Because, if we cannot maintain the tripod, (executive, legislature and judiciary), the way it was meant to be, then I shudder to think what kind of democracy we have, then we have to coin another term. So, it wasn’t a good one.

DT: What is your position on the agitation that the Southeast should produce the president in 2023?

Ikpeazu: I think it is achievable if we draw the right map. Definitely, people from my zone are agitating for the presidency, but they must come together and work towards it. However, they must work with the other zones to achieve it, you must draw a map of what you want to achieve.