Hon. Asogwa
By Uche Eze
The Chairman of Nsukka local government area of Enugu state, Hon. Engr. Jude Chinedu Asogwa has criticised the activities of “social media journalists” who he said use their outlets to disseminate fake and defamatory stories against political figures and other individuals, stressing that such unhealthy activities should be discouraged.
According to him, this unprofessional group works against the ethics of the journalism profession as well as attempting to erode the potentials of trained and professional journalists.
Hon. Asogwa who made the criticism while interacting with the members of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Nsukka Chapel, who were on courtesy visit to him added that the social media journalists had severally attempted to distract him from focusing on his programmes of activities but he chose to ignore them.
“I know that a lot has been happening in journalism practices, especially with the advent of social media platforms where some people will wake up and start saying what they don’t know, posting news that is dangerous and character defamation. They engage in reckless, unsubstantiated, and misleading publications without recourse to its consequences.
“But I always tell my media team to ignore the perpetrators and their fake news to avoid unnecessary distraction in our services to our people. My mantra is that we are too focused to be distracted.
“I thank God for the Cybercrimes Act because it will checkmate the activities of these journalists without ethics and strengthen the jobs of the core and trained journalists”, he said.
Speaking on his administration’s performance within one year in office, Hon. Asogwa said his political position is that after politics, comes governance, stressing that governance is all about service to humanity.
He said the first step he took after his assumption of office was to call for a meeting of all the political parties in the local government to broker peace and work together for the good of the people and the local government at large.
“When I came on board as the chairman, I called for a meeting of all the political parties in our local government; PDP, APC, LP, among others at “Obu Nsukka”, (Nsukka Town Hall) for peaceful co-existence and to finesse ways of moving the local government forward.
0They all came and I told them that the election was over and that we should begin to speak with one voice, as brothers and sisters irrespective of our party ideologies, and that the end point of everything is service to humanity”, he said.
The meeting he added yielded fruits as it gave his administration the opportunity to concentrate on his electoral promises to the people, adding that various committees, including Committees on Community Engagement and Abandoned Projects were set up to identify the area of needs for project execution in the 52 communities of the local government and to fish out uncompleted projects respectively.
Hon. Asogwa said his administration has recorded a number of successes within the period year. According to him, Ibagwa-Agu, Lejja, and Odolu communities benefited from rural electrification projects, adding that water borehole was also sunk at Owerre-Lejja while another was revived at Umuakpor village in Ibagwa-Ani to improve on water supply to the people.
Other projects his administration carried out were the construction of 1.6 Km GRA ring roads, 1.5km road at Odolu Nsukka, and the recent flagging off of 4.2 km Amaji Uwelu-Amaji Uwani-Admabia-Umueze Urban Girls Road and 6.5km road at Ede-Oballa.
He also disclosed that work is currently ongoing at the local government Secretariat to give it the desired facelift while construction of Corp members’ residential quarters has been flagged off.
The building he said would contain 40 to 50 Corp members when completed.
In the area of human capital development, Hon. Asogwa said 52 youth leaders were appointed as local government liaison officers, while two graduates with first class from the University of Nigeria Nsukka, a male and female that graduated for the past 6 and 10 years ago without employment were employed by his administration.
This was as he said that the local government attracted the construction of the International Market with 5000 capacity shops, already ongoing at Odolu.
This he pointed out became necessary following the demolition of Ogige Market for the building of Bus Terminal by the Enugu State government under Governor Peter Ndubuisi Mbah,stressing that it is to cushion the effect of the demolition on the affected traders.
On the issue of security, the chairman said the security architecture of the local government has been improved with the recruitment of more personnel.
In a similar circumstance he said his administration reactivated the Nigeria Police Division at Okpuje which was abandoned due to security threats around the area; and facilitated the return of the officers and men of the Force in the area.
Asogwa however, attributed his unhindered democracy service delivery to the enabling environment provided to him by the Executive Governor of the State, Barr. Dr. Mbah, who he said is doing over 2000 projects in various parts of Enugu state.
He described Mbah as a Development oriented governor that has been working tirelessly to positively change the face of Enugu State and thanked him for working in synergy with the local government for fair, just and equitable representation, anchored on accountability and transparency.
In his remarks, the chairman of NUJ, Nsukka Chapel, comrade Ikechukwu Okenyi while congratulating Hon. Asogwa for his election as the chairman of Nsukka local government also extolled him for his giant strides within one year in office.
He expressed the readiness of the union to engage in a robust working relationship with his administration, emphasizing that it would be “Partnership that works”.
