The exit of Frank Chukwuma Ibezim, the Senator representing Imo North Senatorial District in the Ninth Senate, has left the zone longing for what had been. Discerning constituents are lamenting over the political maneuvering that cost them a trail-blazing representative, who engraved his feet on the sands of posterity, as an uncommon achiever.
The Distinguished Senator was sworn in on April 27, 2021, after a hard-fought legal battle, comprising a record 28 cases that traversed various courts and climaxed at the Supreme Court.
He was elected to complete the remaining two years of the tenure of Senator Ben Uwajumogu, who died suddenly on December 18, 2019.
Indeed, Ibezim set an exceptional record of representation as far as the zone’s history is concerned.
Until he came to the rescue, Imo North had not been represented in the Senate for over two years, following the demise of Uwajumogu and the protracted legal tussle over his replacement; hence the zone was left tottering at ground zero.
Nevertheless, Ibezim was not afraid to build from there. He surprised his detractors with his zestful approach to the Herculean task set before him. Pressed for time, he plunged into the work headlong as if he knew he would not be getting a second chance. It is self-evident that he left huge, indelible marks, which have brought Imo North from the boondocks to the limelight.
Beyond lawmaking, his core assignment, Ibezim attracted so many transforming democracy dividends and infrastructural developments to the zone that one wonders if he had not created a problem for his successors, as they would have to grapple to match the pace he left behind.
Ibezim’s highly impactful achievements in the Red Chamber are amazing. He was hyperactive in the race against time, participating in most plenary activities, moving or supporting motions; sponsoring vital bills, and establishing his presence during the Senate oversight functions.
Within his brief two-year tenure in the Senate, Ibezim sponsored the bills for the establishment of an Information and Communications Technology, ICT, Institute; Federal Orthopedic Hospital as well as concurring with the establishment of a Federal Medical Centre, FMC, in the zone, and securing legal teeth for the PRODA in Enugu through the bill he also sponsored.
As the Vice Chairman of the Senate Committee on Industry and a member of the Senate Committee on Basic and Primary Education, he was outstanding on duty. His call for the upgrade of the Sam Mbakwe Cargo Airport, Owerri during an oversight inspection was unmistakably loud and hit the appropriate quarters.
Ibezim secured several major Federal Government interventions, such as the N30,000 Survival Funds from the Bank of Industry from which not less than 400 persons of Imo North benefitted; N60,000 Special Public Works Programme, with not less than 300 beneficiaries; N500,000 Covid-19 Relief Loan, with over 200 beneficiaries; N60, 000 Job Security Stipends and N100, 000 National Directorate of Employment Loan, targeting not less than 600 persons. In all, over 1000 Imo North constituents benefitted from these palliative programmes, which alleviated the pains and boosted the economy of many households, families, and communities in the zone.
He also sponsored digital training for youths. This involved a total of 30 beneficiaries from across the zone. The programme was targeted at training participants to become experts in videography, documentary photography, video, and picture editing. Many more were trained in other trades, such as fashion designing and catering services. He also collaborated with SMEDAN and other federal agencies to bring about skills acquisition and other empowerment programmes and in the end distributed startup equipment, etc., as all participants of Ibezim’s empowerment training also received free work tools and take-off capital.
Many constituents also benefited from the Senator’s cash grants, which he generously doled out whenever the need arose.
The Senator facilitated the registration of new women cooperatives and empowerment of existing ones in all the six LGAs of Imo North, equipping them with food processing machinery while awarding grants to aid their activities.
Through his pet Classroom Libraries Project, Ibezim worked to revivie the reading culture in our schools, using at least, 18 primary schools in Imo North as pilots. The programme later gained wide acceptance across the country, as other distinguished colleagues collaborated with Senator Ibezim to plant the same programme in their various constituencies.
Senator Ibezim established and collated through his constituency offices, a data bank of job seekers and their qualifications, which enabled him to facilitate both permanent and temporary employments for them through various agencies of the Federal Government.
Likewise, the lawmaker often made unannounced visits to major markets in the zone to encourage and inject monies into petty traders’ businesses through The Market Money Scheme for Rural Women and Petty Traders Scheme he initiated.
Ibezim mobilised the management of NEMA to the flood-prone Amauzari community in Isiala Mbano for quick remedial steps. He also permanently tackled the yearly flooding challenge around the 4km erosion control road at Isinweke-Lowa in Ihitte Uboma LGA.
He provided relief materials for victims of natural disasters, especially in Amauzari in Isiala Mbano Local Government Area, and also organised constituency-wide health outreaches during which all manner of sicknesses were diagnosed and treated.
Ibezim’s trump card was his efforts to bring light into the darkness that had bedeviled Imo North for long. He doggedly pursued the realisation of a power transmission substation, which had been approved for construction alongside Port Harcourt, Aba, Umuahia, and Enugu, respectively by the Federal Ministry of Power in 2003. However, while others were built, Okigwe was abandoned for almost 20 years but Ibezim followed up with the late Uwajumogu’s quest to rectify the anomalous situation in Okigwe, resulting in the Federal Ministry of Power’s approval of a mobile unit to restore the abandoned Okigwe 132/33KVA transmission substation to a district station.
Distinguished Senator Ibezim left his imprint on the installation of over 400 solar street lights across major markets, strategic areas, villages, and churches in the zone. In the same vein, he also attracted the 60kw solar power plant completed in Umuchiaku, Ihitte Uboma LGA; it is the first of its kind in the entire South-east.
He also donated transformers and drilled boreholes for some communities as well as undertaking several infrastructural developments, such as some inland roads in Nsu, the 3km Umualumaku Road, and maintenance of the old Okigwe-Umuahia Road, etc.
Ibezim’s endeavours to revive agriculture in the zone are remarkable. His synergy with the Agricultural Development Programme empowered 128 rice farmers to cultivate 128 hectares of rice and 128 cassava farmers to cultivate 128 hectares of cassava and other cash crops in line with his ambition to make Imo North the food basket of Imo State. These are still bustling to date.
Nobody and nothing can erase the lawmaker’s signature, which is boldly etched on landmark projects in the zone, including his contribution to the siting and construction of a campus of the National Open University of Nigeria, NOUN, at Ezeoke Nsu. A visit to the edifice bore witness to this with the towering lecture halls, auditorium, and incubation centres.
These are just a few of the several projects the astute lawmaker executed across the zone in his mere two years in the Senate. As a result of his laudable roles in oversight functions, the National Institute of Legislative and Democratic Studies presented him with an award during the Nigeria Orientation Assembly Award 2022, in Abuja.
Even though he has exited the Red Chamber, he has continued to help his constituents through the Senator Frank Ibezim Agricultural Foundation. The Foundation signed a Memorandum of Understanding, MOU, with the Bioresources Institute of Nigeria, BION, for the training of youths from all the local governments of Imo North in aquaculture at the Federal Government-owned Umuna Fish Farm and Technology Transfer Centre.
For two years, Ibezim justified the confidence the people reposed in him. Following his prodigious and unmatched service to Imo North, the constituents describe him as the best lawmaker the zone has ever produced since the return of democratic rule in Nigeria in 1999.
Of course, it is natural that some constituents still oppose him despite his achievements.
These were the same people who opposed him from the beginning on his way to the Senate. They never recovered from Ibezim’s ultimate triumph and exemplary representation. Therefore, they refuse to acknowledge Ibezim’s verifiable big strides or, in some cases, mire them in controversies.
However, this does not alter anything.