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Sat. Mar 15th, 2025
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Senator Ike Ekweremadu, Deputy President of the Senate and Speaker, ECOWAS Parliament, reminds one of Rt. Honourable Dr. Newt Gingrich, a former college professor, former Speaker of the US Con­gress and one time Republican presidential aspirant in the United States. One essential thing these two men have in common is the intellectual content they have brought to their countries’ politics. Dr. Newt Gingrich, the enunciator of the Social Contract with Americans along with Richard Armey is a consum­mate intellectual in American politics, as Ekwerema­du is in Nigeria.

Following in their footsteps, Ekwer­emadu successfully defended his doctoral thesis for a PhD in Law, for an icing on the cake. According to a recent statement issued by his Media Adviser, Uche Anichukwu, Ekweremadu who once taught both Constitutional Law and Labour Law at the Uni­versity of Nigeria Nsukka where he earlier obtained Bachelors and Masters degrees in Law, wrote a thesis titled

“A Critical Appraisal of the Legal Framework, Theory and Practice of Fiscal Federalism in Nigeria”.

This is good news. Ike Ekweremadu is bringing back that essential ingredient of politics, which ap­pears to be in short supply in today’s democracy, and that is intellectual content. On both the floors of the Nigerian Senate and ECOWAS Parliament, Ekwer­emadu makes his contributions by taking bearing from a well-researched and knowledgeable perspec­tive, which greatly enriches debates and legislative functions of both bodies.

Statesmen and great leaders are merchants of hope as intellectual politicians are merchants of workable ideas. As genuine men of the future, they do not only understand the past but they are also fully in touch with the dynamics that forge the present. They also foresee the future. While the ordinary politicians wor­ry about the next election, the fundamental preoccupa­tion of intellectual politicians, generally statesmen, is the welfare of the state and the welfare of the current and future generations.

The Ike Ekweremadu example is clearly seen in his statecraft in the Nigerian Senate and the ECOWAS Parliament – the apex legislative arms of the govern­ment of Nigeria and ECOWAS respectively. Law­making requires well-reasoned deliberations for the laws so made to stand the test of time and serve the intended purpose. Though Senators are allowed to hire consultants and have aides working with them, whose duty it is to help them perform effectively, there is no doubt that where the Senator is himself ground­ed, input, output and outcomes are better guaranteed. Ekweremadu’s feat is not surprising. He has delivered over 21 public lectures/papers both nationally and internationally on the themes of democracy, good governance, regional integration, security, economy, security, etc.

From the works of Ekweremadu, we can see that intellectual politicians tell us things we need to know: how politics and society work, what happened in our past, how to analyse issues, how to appreciate the task of building a just society, as he (Ekweremadu) has ef­fectively done. He and some other intellectual Sena­tors have kept us in conversation with the great minds of our past like Nnamdi Azikiwe, Obafemi Awolowo, Tafawa Balewa and the rest.

Intellectual capacities of such rare politicians help to bring forth robust conversations and lend a hand to tap into the enduring wisdom of the past and provide a critical standpoint for assessing the limits of our cur­rent political assumptions. In his “Republic,” Plato put forward the ideal of a state ruled by intellectuals who combined comprehensive theoretical knowledge with the practical capacity for applying it to concrete problems. Although some other thinkers prefer to dis­trust the value of intellectuals in politics, Ekweremadu has proved their assumptions wrong. He has shown that although all good politicians need not be intel­lectuals, they should live an intellectual life. He has become what intellectuals would wish for in a politi­cian and what an intellectual politician ought to be. He has shown what meaningful and crucial impact intellectuals can make, particularly in today’s rapidly changing times.

As one sees it through him, intellectuals are those who have diverse wisdom and foresight, who apply their intellect and forward-looking visions for the purpose of awakening society. They help to divert the masses from what is unwise and wrong toward what is righteous and the good. No wonder, then, that Vietnamese word for intellectual, “trí thức”, is a com­bination of “mind” and “awaken”.

There are three key factors in nurturing intellectu­als: knowledge; ability and willingness to awaken society; and doing so for a noble cause or purpose. The lack of any one of these elements is inconsistent with the definition of an intellectual. From this per­spective, it is evident that discussing the role of intel­lectuals is a discussion about the social responsibility of knowledgeable people.

Ekweremadu has shown that he finds a great deal of truth in Einstein’s words: “The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.” He has equal­ly proved that a person with capabilities and knowl­edge bears this kind of responsibility and owes his or her world the benefits of their profound wisdom. He has further shown that Intellectual politicians use their capacity to contribute to steering politics and so­ciety away from the negatively-impacting results that they foresee, not just for past mis-directed efforts, but also for current and future inappropriate endeavors.

The preoccupation of Ike Ekweremadu in Nige­rian politics has been essentially this. He has equally amply demonstrated that good communication is vital if the intellectual politician is to succeed in ef­fectively and convincingly conveying his or her vision for a better society. Building on universal and timeless values, intellectuals generally, not just the intellectual politician, also apply their knowledge to shape, and protect, social standards and values.

Generally too, Ekweremadu is aware that, like ev­eryone else, he has his own limitations and therefore ever willing to remain open-minded. Therefore, to­gether with the responsibility to awaken society, he’s also constantly aware of his own limitations, which may limit his understanding and cause harm to so­ciety. This explains why the distinguished senator is constantly searching for knowledge and made out time to pursue a PhD in Law at the University of Abu­ja despite his tight schedule. This is now in addition to his leadership certificates from Harvard University and Oxford University.

Ekweremadu remains deep and focused in his ap­proach to politics. He is now more than a consummate lawmaker- he studied law, he taught law, he has been making law, and he has bagged the highest education­al degree in Law. What else? Perhaps, history will best remember him for breaking the jinx of constitution amendment in Nigeria, pulling through 3 historic con­stitutional amendments and on the verge of adding an­other. Sincerely, Ekweremadu is the archetype of the change agent we really needed in the face of prevalent unjust and aberrant political behaviour in our polity. Ikeoha is indeed a legislative, political, and intellec­tual powerhouse worth celebrating. I do not see how Enugu people, South East, the PDP and the Jonathan presidency would just sacrifice such an experienced and competent intellectual lawmaker for a greenhorn come 2015.

By Law Mefor

 

 

 

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