APC must put its house in order —Rep

In this interview with JACOB SEGUN OLATUNJI and KOLAWOLE DANIEL, chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Maritime Safety Education, Honourable  Mohammed Umar Bago, representing Chachanga Federal Constituency of Niger State on the Platform of the All Progressives Party (APC), speaks on the operations of the lawmakers in the 8th Assembly, the Lagos-Ibadan Rail project and the need for the APC to put its house in order ahead of the 2019 elections.

WHAT is your take on the just concluded constitutional amendments by both chambers of the National Assembly sir?

First, it is a giant stride by the National Assembly to amend the constitution. Issues that have been affecting our democracy and smooth take-off of a lot of things in this country have been highlighted; separation of power is being fully captured, devolution of power to the local government and abolition of joint accounts for local government, state independent electoral commissions and other issues were addressed.

So, you can see that those issues are very germane. However, because of the lack of understanding on some of those things, they were dropped either by the House or Senate or both chambers. They were dropped because people thought those things didn’t matter, but we are hopeful that when they go to the state assemblies, they will be passed and they will come back here for us to rectify  and correct. But, by and large, constitution amendment is a success for this 8th Assembly and hopefully before December, it will be concluded.

You are not a new member and you are aware of past efforts to amend the constitution and how they always failed  at some point. Do you think that jinx will be broken this time? 

Yes, because in the previous assembly, this process always got to this point close to election year. But this time, we still have a year before election. It is by next year that politicians will begin to run helter-skelter for primaries  to get tickets from their parties. So, we are hopeful that this will pass through.

In the last few days, a rumour has been doing the rounds that some groups are pushing for the removal of some principal officers of the House headed by Honourable Yakubu Dogara. How true is this?

That is a lie. It is not true; it is unfounded and there is no cause for alarm.

But it was alleged that the plan to remove the House leaders made some of you voted the way you did on the day of the amendment on the floor of the House.

That is not true. The manner in which some of these things were turned down, you see in the parliament, especially in the House of Representatives, there is what we call sympathy. When the issue on indigeneship was stepped down because of technical error with the computer and people started grumbling that it was manipulated and before you know it, everybody became agitated and a group of people just wanted to shut it down. A lot of people voted but you needed 240 in some places and 280 in some other places; that was what made those ones fail, because there was one that was just 234, which was just short of six votes. The other one polled 279, so you can see that it was not like that but I can assure you that there is no problem in the House. There is no agitation for anything; everything is smooth. You know it is a large House. Everybody cannot be happy at the same time, but by and large, the Speaker has overwhelming support and vote of confidence of members.

Are you comfortable with the relationship between the executive and the legislature arms of government as an APC member?

It can never be better; it is going to be just a dream for anybody to think that the legislature and the executive’s relationship will be smooth. It can never be and that is the beauty of democracy. Yes, it is a cat and mouse game and yes we will agree on certain issues and disagree on certain issues, but I want you to understand that who owns the power of the purse owns the power. Even in your house, if you are the husband and the person who brings out the money, you are in charge and if your wife brings out the money, she is in charge. In this case, the legislature has the power of the purse but the executive will not just agree.

As a lawmaker, are you not worried with the recent hostilities in the North-East where the Boko Haram keeps on unleashing terror on the people of the area on a daily basis?

This development is alarming; I have discussed with some of my colleagues and I told them that we must have deliberate policy to make sure that this thing comes to an end. I feel that a lot of people have interest in this insurgency and that is why it has refused to die down. People are making money from it. I was in Sambisa with the Committee on Defence up to Ground Zero and I saw how the insurgents were degraded, yet they have started coming out from nowhere. What is the source of their funding? What is the source of their strength? If need be, we need to engage international or foreign mercenaries to come and solve this problem. We need to do that. Look at the problem of kidnapping on Kaduna-Abuja expressway despite the fact that after every one or two kilometers on that road, there are police and military checkpoints. That is why I like the decision of the Inspector-General of Police to deploy everybody working in Kaduna State to another state. One can smell rat in what is happening; a lot of information leakages, a lot of issues, seriously speaking, this insurgency issue is worrisome.

What is happening in your committee, Maritime Safety and Administration?

We are doing very well. A lot of reforms are on; a lot of issues have come to play. For instance, in the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), we are doing port reforms, the concession that was done is being reviewed and the NIMASA policy is also being reviewed. Some agreements with some service providers are also being reviewed. In fact, the entire transportation sector has been going through tremendous reforms and, honestly speaking, it is going to take Nigerians to the next level.

Can you be specific on the economic benefits of these reforms to the country?

Maritime is second to oil, and employment opportunity in this industry is enormous; we can employ usefully both skilled and unskilled labour. Like 20 to 30 million people can gainfully be employed in the Maritime sector. Look at the railway, the ticketing officers, the cleaners, the technicians and mechanics and all those things, it is a whole big industry. So when the reform is concluded, I think we are going to get there.

What is happening to the Lagos-Ibadan railroad project?

You see most of these things are Chinese loans. There is a lot of agreements that have to be signed between the Nigerian government and Chinese government before the loans can be disbursed. And the thing with Chinese loan is that Chinese companies will have to do the projects. Initially, there was even no drawing; it is just now that they are about to complete the Lagos-Ibadan rail design and the compensation and other factors have to be considered. In the next phase, we should see the contractors move to site.

But there was an outcry that the project was being stalled due to National Assembly’ attitudes towards the project?

The truth of the matter is that the project is not a direct funding from the government; it is a Chinese government loan. Yes, we have counterpart funding to put, you don’t expect us to put everything. If you have five years plans and you need to pay x amount, you cannot put the whole amount down this year at once, because you cannot actualise it, when the drawing is not even conceptualised and you are putting counterpart funding for this year, you can use that money somewhere and that is what we have done. We cannot put money on what we know cannot be actualised this financial year. Why not take that money to another sector, like health? We have the issue of lassa fever and meningitis; we have issues of infant mortality and polio and we need those funds. So we have decided to move those funds from transportation until other factors that will make the project achievable are done before we can put the counterpart funding.

Are you happy with what is happening in the APC, especially the crisis rocking some of the state chapters of the party over the delegates› lists for the coming APC National Convention?

It is expected in any political party. Everybody wants to assert himself. Well, I think it is a teething period; it’s a very brand new party. We are only lucky to have gotten power. You also need to understand something very well: APC from inception has been in crisis; from appointments, recognition, recession to everything. In a nutshell, the party is in its teething period and I can say there is no cause for alarm.

Do you see the party winning the centre again in 2019?

Yes, we are going to win the centre, but we are going to lose a lot of states.. It is not going to be easy again; it will be very difficult.