By IKECHUKWU AMAECHI
Let me state from the onset that calling Senator Ned Nwoko an irresponsible old man is not an insult. It is a statement of fact. Born on December 21, 1960, he will be 65 years next month. Some people believe that is his political age, which means he could be older. But let us stay with what we know. Even in countries like Hong Kong, Republic of San Marino, and the Principality of Monaco, where life expectancy exceeds 85 years, as a convention, a person over 65 years is referred to as elderly. It is even more so in Nigeria where life expectancy is 54.9 years. Secondly, the Oxford dictionary defines irresponsibility as the state of not thinking enough about the effects of one’s actions and being unreliable or unaccountable for them. And the question is: Who, at 65 years will be washing his family’s soiled linens on the social media with a 25-year-old estranged wife, if not an irresponsible old man?
What is worse, this 65-year-old man is a lawyer and lawmaker. A former member of the House of Representatives who represented Aniocha/Oshimili Federal Constituency between 1999 and 2003, he is currently the senator representing Delta North senatorial district, one of the 109 privileged Nigerians in a country of over 200 million people. That, ordinarily, is a position of honour and immense responsibility, the reason why the adjective, “Distinguished” is prefixed to their names. A Distinguished Senator should, therefore, not only command great respect but also be a role model and a moral compass for a society such as ours in search of a soul. Unfortunately, Senator Nwoko has refused to step up to the plate, allowing his messy private life to becloud his sense of responsibility.
His acolytes readily come to his defence with the jejune excuse that whatever happens in his private life is none of our business because it is a family affair. Ordinarily, that is the way it ought to be. Unfortunately, he has formed the rather aberrant habit of creating a spectacle in the global village square – World Wide Web. No one dances naked when the market is in full swing and turns around to blame the people for ogling. Whatever people are talking about Ned Nwoko and Regina Daniels today are information they voluntarily made available on the social media. You cannot assault people’s sensibilities with so much salacious stories and expect them not to salivate. There is a saying in my neck of the woods that when an old man behaves like a deliciously cooked rice, the children will have a good meal of him. When an old man, who is a federal lawmaker, decides to catch cruise, to borrow a popular Gen-Z lingo, on the social media to the point of embarrassment, it becomes a supreme act of irresponsibility.
That is exactly what is happening. It is bad enough when a 59-year-old man decides to marry a teenager young enough to be his granddaughter with a 40-year age difference as a trophy wife. It is even worse when they decide to live their lives on the social media. It was never going to end well. Regina Daniels, an exceptionally beautiful young lady, married the politician in 2019 at the age of 19 and it was apparent even then that it wasn’t about love. Ned Nwoko wanted someone who would become a status symbol for him and a sex toy. Regina Daniels wanted a rich man who would give her the life she could only dream about. In each other, they got what they wanted.
But any marriage contracted along those fleeting value paradigms is bound to hit the rocks. Sooner than later, the old man would satiate his lust, most often to the point of being weary or disgusted by the very beauty that was the sole attraction. And the young lady, having satiated her material cravings also reaches a point where those things are no longer enticing. At that stage, Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe’s anecdotal “Agadi Nwanyi Na Inine” song becomes a prophecy. While the old woman was plotting how to eat inine (locusts), inine was plotting how to purge her.
That is what happened. A relationship that became a social media frenzy soured on the strength of its own contradictions. The responsible thing to do at that point was for them to quietly go their separate ways after balancing the marital books. At 25, Regina is still young and too beautiful to get a husband that will give her the things that matter in marriage and a beautiful love life outside the orbit of synthetic aphrodisiacs. Or since she already has two sons, she could decide not to marry again. It is even easier for Ned Nwoko who already has a harem. Even without the troublesome and uncontrollable Regina, there are still about five more wives.
But where they fail to agree, the courts are there to sort matters out, including who keeps custody of the children. Ned Nwoko is a senior lawyer and knows better. But just like they have done in the last six years, they took the fight to the social media, this time throwing the kitchen sink at each other. While Regina is accusing the estranged husband of sexual assault, confinement and medical manipulation, Ned Nwoko is accusing her of substance abuse.
On Sunday, November 9, the senator alleged that his estranged wife’s brother, Samuel Daniels, and others were sabotaging his efforts to wean her of drug use. “They would come into the house uninvited, sometimes forcing their way in, bringing her the same drugs she was being treated for… Instead of helping her to recover, they encouraged her addiction and frustrated the doctors and therapists,” he tweeted.
Expectedly, Regina fired back the same day via her Instagram page. Admitting to substance abuse, she, however, accused the husband of complicity. “Ned, how could you lie so openly and without even small remorse? You know my family has absolutely nothing to do with this… and now you are trying to make them look bad for no reason. Fine, I did drugs. So what? Is that even the issue between us?”
And then the bombshell: “You say you want me to go for rehab, but you are the same Ned who always wanted me high because, in your words, I’m ‘sexier’ when I’m high. You liked me that way because it made me wild and romantic exactly how you wanted me to be.”
Now, having had it up to her neck, she has made it clear that she wants out: “And for the record, I would have filed for divorce long ago if there had ever been a legal marriage between us. We were never married in any court of law… Leave me alone, Ned. Marriage is not by force. Love is not by force.”
Granted, many people do not have sympathy for any of them. But the blame is more on Ned Nwoko, and deservedly so. Nigerians would rather be spared what they consider absolute idiocy of an old man, a Senator of the Federal Republic, who seems not to have any sense of shame.
Even if we discountenance Regina’s claim that Ned Nwoko married her as a minor at the age of 17, the other allegations of sexual assault, confinement, medical manipulation, exposure to drugs and abuse of power are serious crimes. The least the police are expected to do in the circumstance is to carry out forensic investigation to determine the veracity of those allegations and if proven to be true, bring the senator to justice.
But anyone who is expecting that to happen apparently does not know Nigeria where there are two laws – one for the high and mighty and the other for the hoi-polloi. In Nigeria, the rich will always evade consequences for their crimes. So, it is not surprising that rather than the law enforcement agencies doing the needful, Ned Nwoko is exploiting his political influence, wealth, privileged position, with the Nigerian Police as enablers, to arrest his in-laws and violate their fundamental human rights.
In any civilized society, this scandal is enough to cost him his seat in the Senate. But this is Nigeria where the moral fibre of the leaders is so brittle and tenuous. In which case, the Senate as a responsible, self-respecting and dignified national institution should call one of their own to order since he seems incapable of reining himself in. After all, an Igbo adage says: “If a person dances badly, it is their relatives who feel the shame.” Senators cannot continue scratching their eyebrows in utter embarrassment as one of their own exhibits undignified dance steps without doing anything.
Does Ms. Regina Daniels share any blame? Yes, she does. But whatever blame cannot detract from the gross irresponsibility of Senator Ned Nwoko. Considering her age at the time of marriage, he was duty bound to play not only the role of a husband but also a father and counsellor to moderate whatever excesses she brings to the marital table. Allowing himself, instead, to be inebriated by the same hallucinogenic liquor that social media serves its addicts is sacrilegious and irresponsible. Ned Nwoko’s conduct at 65 demeans his status as a Distinguished Senator.
