Sir Chikwe Udensi, a security consultant with the International Criminal Police Organisation (INTERPOL), has slammed the Speaker of Abia State House of Assembly, Rt Hon Emmanuel Emeruwa for his disdain for journalists in the state, describing him as “a disgrace”.
Recall that there has been tension in Abia State over the shabby treatment meted to the media by the Speaker when a journalist with Enyimba TV and Radio Ltd, Aba, was embarrassingly walked out of his press briefing ostensibly because the media house has insisted in its reportage that the Speaker should perform his constitutional duty of swearing in Hon. Aaron Uzodike of the PDP who was declared winner of the 2023 Aba North State Constituency election by the Court of Appeal since November and duly issued a certificate of return by INEC in December 2023. The Speaker who is of the Labour Party has refused to swear in Uzodike since then thereby raising concerns from stakeholders.
In a radio interview monitored in Umuahia the Abia State capital on Wednesday, Udensi described the Speaker’s action as “a very big slap to freedom of press.”
He further described the argument by the Speaker that he respects the profession of journalism as a lie, saying that his action on the day “was a very big slap to the freedom of press; a very big slap to the freedom of speech; it is a very big slap to journalism itself, and we cannot allow Emeruwa, in a state like Abia, to continue this recklessness, arrogant recklessness,” he fumed.
Continuing, Udensi said, “Reports have indicated that Emeruwa is a threat to democracy, and we should not continue to allow somebody like that to oversee a very important arm of government.
“Emeruwa is a disgrace, a very big dusgrace and (his actions) should be condemned without equivocation,” he concluded.
