Stella Omu, Dalhatu Sarki Tafida: Where are they now?

Many years after they exited office, no one has heard anything about them again. ELEOJO IDACHABA in this piece asks where they could be now.

Stella Omu

Mrs. Stella Omu, a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) board of trustees, was once a senator on the party’s platform between 1999 and 2003 where she represented Delta-south constituency in the Senate. While in the upper chamber, she was appointed as chief whip and also as vice-chairman of the Senate Committees on National Planning, Women Affairs & Youth Development.

Senator Omu can best be described as the lawmaker who first caused a stir in the red chamber in 2001 following a letter containing suspicious powdery substance with the logo of the Federal Ministry of Communications she allegedly received. Around the same time, other National Assembly members were alleged to have received similar letters. This caused serious alarm as the lawmakers suspected the substance to be anthrax, an agent of biological terrorism. Letters tainted with anthrax had before then been reported in United States after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack.

Senator Omu was also the lawmaker of the 4th Senate that moved for the amendment of the 1999 Constitution. This is because in June of that year after the Supreme Court ruled that the National Assembly did not have the power to make laws for the governance of the local governments in the country, she started the process of amending the relevant provisions of the 1999 Constitution by sponsoring a bill to that effect in the Senate.

However, that move never saw the light of day before she left the chamber. She was one of the senators said to be close to former President Olusegun Obasanjo for which her colleagues never liked. Because of this, she became a target of attack by some lawmakers around August 2002. This is also coupled with her statement that the one-day election clause in the Electoral Bill 2002 might be reversed. She later voluntarily resigned as Senate chief whip because of the frosty relationship she had with the leadership of the upper house then. In June 2003, she called on the National Assembly to quickly pass the bill to establish an agency that would cater for citizens’ welfare.

Analysts say this is probably because of her background as a former employee of the Nigeria Prison Service. In an interview she once granted sometimes in August 2003 in the wake of the Niger Delta crisis, she urged all the warring groups in Warri to lay down their arms, saying that Ijaws and Itsekiris are brothers and should not allow political differences or other socio-economic factors to separate them. Omu was, again, a PDP nominee for the same position in 2003, but lost to James Manager, a former commissioner for works in the cabinet of James Ibori. Long after this former lawmaker who is now in her mid 70s left the Senate, not much has been heard about her anymore neither has any attempt to regain prominence in government been successful. She is, however, still a member of the PDP.

Mike Ajaegbo

Not much was known about this former law maker until 1999 when he was elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to represent Anambra Central in the Senate. While in the Upper House, he was one of the vocal voices whose words made headlines, but when he failed to return to the Senate in 2003, he went into a quiet life and has not made any attempt into politics again. However, what is more appalling about this former senator is the fact that it appears his exit from the Senate also dealt a blow on his business empire, for which he was renown. For instance, he was one of few Nigerians who pioneered private broadcasting in the country. He in particular owned what was then known as Minaj Broadcasting International (MBI) whose network transmits both the radio and television signals in many parts of the country in mid/late 90s, but has, for long, gone into extinction.

Writing about this, A public affairs analyst, Ifeanyi Maduakor said, “An Igbo man in the person of Senator Mike Ajaegbo, an Obosi man from Anambra state used to be the proprietor of a television station known as Minaj Broadcasting International in the late 90s which went off air immediately he left the Senate in 2003. MBI, apart from the pride and sense of belonging it gave Igbo people all over the country while it operated, 60 percent of its staff were Igbo people. In the advent of the Fourth Republic in 1999, I recall with nostalgia that MBI used to be the voice of Ndigbo and their activities. The station’s news bulletin and programmes gave ample air time to the activities of Ndigbo down to the hinterland, sadly, MBI extinguished immediately Senator Ajaegbo who owned it and still owns the licence left the Senate.

“At times I ask myself if the station was set up by Ajaegbo to cover his activities while he was in the Senate. The question became necessary because immediately Ajaegbo left the Senate in June 2003, MBI signals were no longer received by those in Abuja and Lagos cities. It only operated in its Obosi station for few months before finally dying a natural death.”

The fate of the media outfit is not a surprise because report has it that it was living on what analysts call ‘borrowed terms’ as the network on which it operated was leased to it by a foremost Christian organisation in the country for only five years but failed to be renewed.

Dalhatu Sarki Tafida

Dr. Dalhatu Sarki Tafida is politician and one-time law maker who represented Kaduna-north senatorial district in the Senate between 1999 and 2007 but lost the position to Ahmed Makarfi when the later completed his tenure as governor of the state. His last public appointment was as Nigeria’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom between 2008 and 2015 during the later part of Yar’Adua’s administration and that of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan. Since then, he has been away from all public offices. He was a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). After the party lost out in the 2015 general elections, Dr. Tafida who was a founding father of the party announced his exit, saying the glorious days of the party was over.

According to him, “I have decided to leave the PDP and I will not join another party. I left because it now lacks focus. If a market is over, a responsible man should go home. It was good in the past, but now it is worst with impunity and confusion. I don’t think our stay in the party is wise because the people now abuse everyone and no one would even listen to you.”

Dr. Tafida, a trained medical doctor from UNILAG and John Hopkins University in the US, once worked in Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria and was a personal physician to former President Shehu Shagari in the Second Republic. As a senator, his voice was one of the prominent in the upper chamber such that he served in several influential committees like rules and procedure. Later, he was appointed as chairman Senate Committee on Science and Technology. At various times, he also headed health, agriculture, drugs as narcotics committees, among others. His tenure in the Senate was without any scandal, but he was allegedly involved in the infamous but failed third term agenda of former President Olusegun Obasanjo where it was said that he and late Senator Ibrahim Mantu were used to reach out to the National Assembly Joint Constitution Review Committee with bribe.

However, during his tenure as High Commissioner, he was credited with opening of a new visa hall in UK to make it easier to procure Nigeria’s visa but of more significance is the outstanding role he played through his sharp reaction to the British Broadcasting Commission (BBC) documentary about Lagos as a slum in 2010 when as High Commissioner, he demanded an outright rebuttal if that BBC documentary which was meant to portray Nigeria in bad light. It was through his effort that it was later realised that the damaging documentary was deliberately put together in order to discredit the image of the country. Since he left that position in 2015, it’s not clear where this diplomat/ politician is till date.