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Why Nigeria can’t run away from borrowing –Bamidele

‘Ninth NASS not a rubber stamp’

 

The senator representing Ekiti Central at the National Assembly, Opeyemi Bamidele, is the Chairman, Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters. In this interview, he expresses the belief that restructuring of Nigeria is the panacea to the nation’s multi-faceted troubles. He also speaks on other national issues. CHUKWU DAVID reports

 

The Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human and Rights and Legal Matters you chair seems to operate on the model of legislative activism, which is different from the previous ones. What is your take on that? The times are different and leadership is also defined by the character of whoever is in the saddle.

The 9th Assembly from the very beginning chose for itself some form of legislative agenda targeted at making it possible for Nigerians to see a radical departure from what had been the norm in this country in the area of its relationship with other arms of government. Secondly, it is to also carry ourselves in a way that Nigerians will see some positive difference.

 

This is not an attempt to undermine either the leadership or the membership of the previous sessions of the National Assembly, but we felt that something was going to change. In other words, this is not the time for any undue grandstanding. This is the time for us to identify what our vision is and work in that regard. We also believe that we must be able to drive certain reforms, and we identified different sectors, where we wanted to push the reform – power, electoral and judicial reform.

 

This brings us to the second issue  that is, leadership being defined by whoever is in the saddle. I’m a product of collective struggle of the Nigerian civil society. It will be extremely difficult for me to forget where I was coming from. I see myself as highly privileged person, in terms of having started early enough in life.

 

At the age of 19, I was privileged to be elected as public relations officer of the Student Union Government. I graduated, did my National Youth Service and went to the University of Benin again to study Law.

 

I ended up again as the president of the Student Union and later as the president of National Association of Nigerian Students. I have been exposed early enough to leadership, challenges and responsibilities. By virtue of this responsibility, I have to go to each and every campus of universities, colleges of education and polytechnics across the country.

 

Again, it was an opportunity to truly know Nigeria. I came into government with a reputation and sense of communal ownership. At the commencement of this civilian rule, I was not in the country in 1999. I was one of those who fled the country. I was granted political asylum by the government of the United States. Again, I had to go back to school to do a masters programme.

 

It was like starting Law all over  again. This was between 1995 and 1999. I was practicing Law and had what was like a dream job as a young man at the Harvard Law School, where we ran a pro bono legal services funded by Ford Foundation for the immigrant community and the less privileged who could not afford to hire private attorney.

 

That was what I was doing so passionately when Asiwaju Bola Tinubu won election in Lagos State and he insisted that I must come to serve the people of Lagos with him. I served in the cabinet of Lagos State for a total of eleven and half years both as special adviser and commissioner. Later, I decided to go to Ekiti, my state of origin to contest election to come to the National Assembly and ended up in the House of Representatives.

 

The reason I went through all of these is to show that I didn’t get here just by chance. I had the privilege of being groomed at different levels. There is no way I will end up serving as Chairman of Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters that it will be business as usual. It would have been a disservice to myself and the various stakeholders who, I believe, had invested their time, ideological commitment and consciousness in me.

 

You are a strong advocate of true federalism. In the National Assembly, there have been bills seeking to establish federal institutions in different parts of the country, creating an impression of a unitary entity. What do you think about this?

 

The National Assembly can only make laws for the federation. If each of the federal lawmakers will bring a bill, it has to be one on the creation of a federal institution. It is the prerogative of each state to either seek to establish its own university, polytechnic or college of education. Why is it so?

 

It is also political, so much about what is going on in Nigeria is still about trying to also bring something to the community of every elected representative. Today, we are talking about development commission in each of the six geopolitical zones. As to the need for decentralization,

I remain committed to true federalism and to the need to restructure because it is the way forward. We cannot run away from it.

 

Anyone who says he doesn’t believe in it is only pretending or doesn’t have a scientific understanding of what is wrong with our society and what ought to be done. There is a difference between what is and what ought to be done. What is right now is a structure partly handed over to us by our colonial masters and being fortified and perpetrated through a constitution given to us by the military. It was like a decree legitimised by an act of parliament.

 

There will still be need for a people’s constitution that will address very critical issues, including the issue of restructuring of our polity, economy, our means of sharing our common wealth. And the earlier we do this, the better. I know of people who cannot go to their states of origin but rather stay in Abuja for safety reason, and they feel something has to be done.

But if you tell them of the need for a state police, they will still oppose it even though they are stuck in Abuja; they cannot go home. A lot of things are wrong.

 

The Nigerian leadership is still playing the Ostrich but my hope and prayer is that we will come to terms with the reality of our situation before it is too long. What is your take on regionalism? I don’t think any of our regions will have any regret practicing regionalism.

The truth about this is, federalism also has its own advantages and it is much more fashionable if you look at it within the contest of global standards of governance. It affords the nation an opportunity to tap into the strength and diversity of the country.

 

What is killing our federalism is that we have a centre that is almost an incredible hub at the expense of the state. What is the percentage of our budget that goes to the federating units? Some of the states    don’t have the capacity to even do anything. We have a state, where after paying salaries, will hardly do anything in terms of income generation.

 

Everybody come cap in hand to the centre; It is a problem. No country can grow that way. This is part of what led to the situation where some people were advocating that we should go back to the regional arrangement that we had before.

 

But the disadvantage is that today, we have a situation where the groundnut pyramid is gone which was the bastion of the economy of the North. The cocoa export which was the bastion of the economy of the Western region is flat on the floor. It is still possible for us to revisit all these things. But because we found oil as a federal structure, everybody abandoned every other thing and our economy became monolithic. Today, by lip service, a lot of administrations had emphasized on the need to broaden the scope of our economy and take it beyond oil. But to a very large extent, we have not been able to work the talk in that regard.

 

But I see a lot of positive difference being made in that regard by the current administration.

If you look at what has happened in the area of agriculture; unfortunately, COVID-19 is trying to almost wipe off the gains of all our efforts but definitely we are getting to a point where rice importation was becoming a thing of the past and that was a good beginning. We are not there yet but we are already having a good beginning of walking our talk with respect to our dream of diversification of our economy.

What is stopping the political class from adopting something similar to the doctrine of necessity in embracing this culture of restructured Nigeria and don’t you see the National Assembly midwifing this? Well, I agree with you, the National Assembly is capable of midwifing it.

 

To a very large extent, the people we have in the National Assembly are elected representatives of the Nigerian people. But it is something that will go beyond just bringing a bill. When you bring a bill, you are trying to amend the constitution or enact some other laws as an act of parliament. But no act of parliament will take precedence over the constitution.

 

The best is to seek to amend the constitution. And then, it goes beyond the National Assembly. It is supposed to be the responsibility of the political class.

 

The ruling class, which also includes the opposition parties, has a responsibility of trying to descend from its Olympian height and purge itself from this idea of monopoly of patriotism and knowing what is wrong with Nigeria. The ruling class, represented by the government of the day, will have to instigate it, initiate it and provide a platform for other stakeholders to come on board.

 

You cannot run away from the critical issue of restructuring. My hope and prayer is that we are not going to pretend about it for too long or wait till the whole system collapses on everyone.

But definitely, it is a question begging for an answer. What is your assessment of the Ninth Senate vis-a-vis the past and especially against the backdrop that the Ninth Senate under    Ahmad Lawan, is seen as a rubber stamp legislature?

 

 

The Ninth Senate, to an extent, is different from the previous Assembly. It is also the same. It is the same arm of government that is misunderstood and the least popular. Members of the public don’t understand the nitty-gritty of the workings of the parliament and sometimes when they criticize, they mean well.

 

Like I always say, it is the people that will criticize the government not the other way round. We have had some bills in the last one year that also didn’t help our popularity, regardless of the fact that the distinguished senators, who sponsored these bills meant so well. But how are their bills perceived by the public and to what extent did that affect the image of the Senate as an institution and the individual senators?

 

Unfortunately, a lot of people are yet to understand the workings of the parliament. When a private member bill is read for the first time, it doesn’t matter how bad it is; you cannot hold the Senate responsible. We have other 108 members who will access the bill and part of the process of the legislation is that the bill itself, after the senators would have debated the general principle during second reading, will be subjected to public scrutiny.

 

You could have a situation where the preponderance of opinion would have even killed the bill and that will be the end. But most times, the parliament is assessed based on the kind or nature of bills that are read for the first time and then people bring it down with comments and insinuations on social media.

 

They mean well. We also don’t have a well-organized system in parliament that can continually articulate the position of the parliament. Most of the time, we do damage control. People would have formed their opinion before you explain things.

 

Even members of the fourth estate of the realm, who work directly with us, at times, don’t have the ideas of the inner workings because we don’t avail them the quality and extent of information they need to properly report what we are doing. All of these still happen and to that extent, I will say we are still like the previous Senate. There is also the feeling that we collect a lot of money.

 

The situation has gone so bad that people think what is going on in the National Assembly is sharing of money. And I’m one of those who have been trying to push the leadership on the need for us to publish everything, the salaries and allowances of members for the public to know.

 

But again, those who don’t want to do it have their own arguments, for reason of national security, and again, which parliament anywhere in the world had done that? Lately, you have seen some situations in the parliament, especially with respect to the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) probe and the disagreement on 774,000 jobs.

 

Were we to be a grandstanding Assembly, things would have degenerated and the relationship between the two arms of government would have almost collapsed by now. But we chose to remain consistent on our position not to grandstand. Does that make us a rubber stamp parliament? No! My own idea of being a rubber stamp parliament is a situation where anything goes, either out of compromise or timidity.

 

 

What we are doing is a calculated attempt at trying to ensure that while trying to recognize the doctrine of separation of powers as a cardinal aspect of democracy, we also recognize the need for interdependence for checks and balances. And in doing all of these, we also understand that we are living in a peculiar time.

 

The executive arm of government came together with the legislature, the civil society and the Nigerian public on the need for us to begin to pass our budget early and the budget was passed in December.

 

I will tell you that if being able to work with the executive to have an early budget for this country is part of why the Ninth Assembly will be dubbed rubber stamp parliament, I believe it is in over-riding public interest. The executive plans to borrow another N4 trillion to fund the 2021 budget deficit and adding it to previous loans will take Nigeria’s debt to N33 trillion.

 

Are you not concerned about the country’s rising debt profile? Yes, I’m concerned but I know by the grace of God, we will get over it. I’m concerned Every other thing can shut down but the government can’t.

It has to continue to pay salaries, doing infrastructural development, create jobs, secure lives and property about the debt profile just as I’m concerned about the rate of unemployment and insecurity. I adopt a sociological approach to the issue of insecurity. If we were to have a better economy and create more jobs, the rate of insecurity will be lower. What is the alternative and how do we go about all these?.

 

All of these will cost money and where does the money come from? To an extent, Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) will have to improve. In some areas, the IGR is dwindling. Beyond all of these, you have to think of how to supplement the income that the government generates.

 

This means that you can’t run away from borrowing and nobody is going to give you money except on terms. But if we begin to look at the moral of rising debt profile, yes we should be concerned and sometimes wonder how we are going to pay.

 

This is also bringing Nigeria to a point where it is not just anybody that can just say I want to lead, but people who have the scientific understanding of what it is to be done. If you don’t, it is only a matter of months that your weaknesses will be exposed.

 

It is either the people wait for the next election to vote you out or, if the incompetence is so gross, they invoke the constitutional provisions to remove you from office. I can also foresee a situation in the very near future where the international lenders will have to wipe off some loans.

 

It is not about Nigeria alone, it is a global concern. But can Nigeria fold its arms and let the economy go down because it does not want to be indebted? The hungry man wants to be fed; those working want to be paid. It is the headache of government how you want to get it done.

 

These are issues that we have to continue to comprehend along and it is within that context that we have to continue to view the rising debt profile. The alternative to it is chaos, government not doing anything and allow the whole system to collapse and other world leaders will laugh at you.

 

That is why the anti-corruption crusade must be supported to ensure that truly when these monies are coming in, they are being applied in a way that we will be able to explain to our generation what they are used for.

As to the rising debt profile, government might not have a choice than to continue to source for money to fund the budget and other economic programmes.

Your Committee investigated the Department of State Service’s invasion of a court and the report has been submitted to the Senate but Nigerians are concerned that the report might be swept under the carpet. What is really the situation?

 

 

Our intervention yielded positive results. One week after we made an intervention and addressed the issue on the floor of our parliament and at committee level, the United States Senate, through one of its committees, also addressed the issue.

 

As a result of that, the Nigerian government saw the need to address the issue very quickly and the gentle man (Omoyele Sowore) was released. But that did not stop us from carrying out the reminder of the assignment.

 

So, we submitted the report in June, but because of our rule that when something is meant to be reported on the floor of the parliament, you cannot begin to discuss the report before the Senate would have taken a look at it.

 

 

 

That’s why we have not said anything in that regard. I’m sure soon, after our recess, this must be one of the reports that will be considered.

 

What is your take on the plan by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) to collect stamp duty on rent? FIRS has a mandate to generate revenue for the country within the extant laws and the act establishing the agency, and in doing that, they cannot be arbitrary.

 

There is a limit to the discretion they have. I’m convinced that FIRS knows well enough not to do anything outside of its mandate. The Senate Committee on Finance is interfacing with the FIRS on the issue and I’m sure it will be among the issues that will be addressed.

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