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Unarguably, one of the best among her generation. Without doubt, a passionate, responsible, responsive and enduring lawmaker. I have monitored her activities over the years, she is reliable and dogged. Port Harcourt State Constituency 1 in the Rivers House of Assembly can confirm her depth, reasoning and being.
— Olalekan Ige (Editor, Independent Monitor)
By Paul Williams
Born into the family of Chief Loveday Wobo Nyeche in Oro-ochiri, Elekahia in Port Harcourt City Local Government, Rivers State, Victoria Wobo Nyeche began her schooling at State School, Elekahia, (now Community Primary School, Elekahia), with perhaps little or no inkling of the political figure she was to become.
Unarguably, Nyeche is today a leading political figure in the state and in her party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), and has a towering stature in the politics of Port Harcourt Constituency 1, which she represents at the Rivers State House of Assembly.
A two-time lawmaker, and the only female in the 32-member Assembly, Nyeche’s greatest political strength, some have argued, is her profound ability to befriend her people and to know their needs. “A woman that knows her people and her people know her,” they said.
Her romance with them, observers say, lays mostly in her “gold heart,” constituency and empowerment projects, “widely appreciated by the grateful people of PHALGA 1.”
This has seen her enjoy support across party lines in PHALGA, and as an observer puts it: “Support for Victoria Nyeche has nothing to do with party.”
Constituency Projects
Sub leader of a group known as the Amazons Grassroots Mobilizers, Ms. Chioma Worgu, described Nyeche as “an Amazon, a comet, a blazing star,” and a woman whose words are her bond. “Her performance in the State Constituency is a clear testimony of her love for her people. Her performance has set her apart as a politician to be trusted and relied upon in a political environment where trust and integrity are in short supply.”
This captures the feelings of a sizeable population of Port Harcourt Constituency 1 people towards their representative at the state Assembly.
At present, over 200 traders, made up of mostly women, with families and dependents, are direct beneficiaries of stores at the Amaeli Elekahia Women Market and Ogbum nu Abali Women Centre, built as part of Nyeche’s constituency projects. The picture becomes even more enlivened when placed side by side with an assessment of the socio-economic impact of both markets on the lives of the direct and indirect beneficiaries of stores, their families and dependents and the economy of the surrounding communities.
She has added the construction and completion of Rumuwoji Community centre, Orochiri Community hall, e-library at Rumuwoji community, empowerment programmes among others to her tally in the service of her people.
The Return
When the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared the results of the 2015 state Assembly election, she lost. Probably few gave her little chance of returning to the House. But she stuck to her guns and rolled up her sleeves.
In an interview with The Nation newspaper, she tells the tale this way: “On April 11, 2015, I had my agents in the seven wards that make up Port Harcourt constituency one. From the results they had collated, it was obvious that I had won the election.
“By the time the INEC collation officer for ward 11 arrived the Port Harcourt City Council secretariat, the figures were different from what we had as units’ results from my agents.
“I had no choice but to approach the election petitions tribunal, sitting in Abuja, for justice. I was confident that with all the results that we had and the preponderance of evidence, we were going to get justice, but for reasons best known to them, I did not get justice at the tribunal.
“I then approached the Court of Appeal in Abuja, which saw the merit in my case and agreed with me that the PDP candidate was not validly elected. The appellate court ordered that INEC should issue me certificate of return, as evidence of my having won the April 11, 2015 election,” she said.
In spite other hurdles that followed, Nyeche fought on to return to the House.
The Glass Ceiling
She probably doesn’t see herself as someone who is supposed to have broken the fabled glass ceiling. But Victoria Nyeche is a leading political figure in her own right.
No wonder the women of PHALGA and Ikwerre in general, especially through the Ikwerre Women Forum (IWF), see her as a rallying point.
Asked how comfortable she felt being the only female in the 32-member Rivers State House of Assembly, in an interview with Bisi Olaniyi of The Nation in January 2016, she said “There is no problem working with the men. My party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), is the only party that fielded female House of Assembly members. Now that I have been returned, I am the only female member. Sadly, the number of women in the Rivers State House of Assembly is reducing. We used to be four women, then we were three and then it appears we will be two. That is not a good story for women’s advancement in politics.”
Her reaction to the ‘glass ceiling’ perhaps finds root in her upbringing. According to her, “My experience with my dad shaped my life a lot. He believed in education, especially female/girl-child education, which was then not very common. He believed that you could be the best, if you made up your mind to be. It did not matter if you were a boy or a girl.”
And describing the euphoria that followed her victory at the court, she said “When we got to my community, they were shooting cannons, which is symbolic and people were shocked, because traditionally they do not shoot cannons for women.
“December 23, 2015 was the second time my people were having gun salute for me. The first was when my people recognised me as Ada-Ochiri (chieftaincy title, meaning first daughter of Rebisi – Ikwerre people’s name for Port Harcourt Kingdom), because according to them, I had represented them in a way that they had never been represented in the past. The people were saying the gun salute had never happened in the kingdom and they said I had done things that had never been done. So, they needed to do something that had never been done.”
Her Politics
That she is a leading political figure in her own right is a fact recognized across party lines, and is perhaps the motivation behind the call in early 2018, championed by the then publicity secretary of the rival Peoples Democratic Party, Hon Samuel Nwanosike, for her to return to the PDP.
Her politics however finds strength in its pro-people orientation. A politics of always putting the people first in whatever you do (reportedly learnt from former Governor Chibuike Amaechi and Dr. Dakuku Adol Peterside.)
Out of the 28 members present in the House during the debate on the bill which seeks to permit local government councils to operate separate accounts, Nyeche, the only female lawmaker of the 32-member House, was the only one that voted in favour of the Fourth Alteration Bill 2017. The 27 others voted against the alteration.
At the end of the day, the Rivers State House of Assembly rejected financial autonomy for local governments, and in the words of an analyst, “joined other forces in setting the country back in its quest for justifiable development.”
Speaking later to newsmen, Nyeche said that she voted in favour of the bill because she believes local council financial autonomy would strengthen democracy, adding that “Local Government autonomy is very critical because by its independence, they can be more accountable. Power should devolve from the centre to the grassroots.”
She is presenting seeking to represent Port Harcourt Federal Constituency 1 at the House of Representatives (otherwise known as the Green Chamber) in 2019 on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
