NASS will not allow mismanagement of COVID-19 funds —Lawan’s aide

Oluwafemi Fadairo is the Director of Administration to the President of the Senate, Dr Ahmed Lawan. In this interview by ‘YOMI AYELESO, he speaks on the efforts of the National Assembly in combating the coronavirus pandemic, the economy and other issues.

HOW will you describe the intervention of the National Assembly since the outbreak of the deadly coronavirus in the country?

We have been up and doing at the National Assembly to ensure that all the palliative measures put in place by the Federal Government are being utilised for all Nigerians; not only the vulnerable because everybody is on lockdown now. As you can see, the leadership of the National Assembly met and asked questions from the relevant heads of ministries, departments and agencies on the palliative measures and how to sustain lives during the lockdown. We have been doing very well in this regard by keeping those involved on their toes. At the levels of the Senate and the House of Representatives, the salaries of the members have been cut by 50 per cent to support the fight against COVID-19, a good measure at this critical time.

The issue of palliatives has been of serious concern to most Nigerians. What are those areas of concern to the National Assembly?

The National Assembly would want to see how the money is being disbursed to the downtrodden; the people they are representing. People cannot just seat in a corner and embezzle or mismanage the funds and be expecting the leadership of the National Assembly to fold its arms; it can’t work like that. That was the reason they asked the minister in charge of the funds to come and explain how far they had gone about these palliatives and wherever they felt the National Assembly should come in to ensure that the palliatives get to the people. They should make available the breakdown of the beneficiaries and analysis of how they spent the money. The National Assembly wants to know where and how the funds were spent because this thing affects the people and anything that affects the people also affects members of the National Assembly as they represent the people. They must know how the money is being utilised.

No doubt, the lockdown is affecting the economy, even as experts have been calling on the government to be prepared to save the economy. What do you think is the way out?

It is very simple. You know we are an oil-dependent economy and the price of crude oil is coming down globally. Nigerians need to sacrifice a little bit, while the government does its possible best to ensure that the pandemic is over and normalcy returns to the country. Let me say that for our economy to boom, we need to give the government a chance to rejuvenate and re-strategise immediately after the pandemic. I think between two to five months, the country should get its economy back on track. To say the truth, the government is trying all it could to ensure that life returns to normal because the economic meltdown is all over the world; even the people of the United States, a big economy, are shouting. It affects everybody, not to talk of the developing nation.

The coronavirus pandemic must have exposed some loopholes in the system. Can you identify some of these areas in the system? 

I can talk about two things. In the area of the health, we have so much to do in our health institutions. You can imagine, we don’t have testing kits during this pandemic as the Federal Government is importing testing kits. All these things ought to have been put in place in our health institutions. It is like we are going to the hospital to treat malaria and they tell you there is no injection and anti-malaria drugs. It is as bad as that and I want to believe this pandemic has really showed that we need to act as a nation, to build our health sector to a state that our leaders remain here and treat themselves at home. So it will be good if we develop our health institutionds to save lives.

Secondly, the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and the Federal Ministry of Health must synergise. Sometime ago, the senator representing Ondo North, Professor Ajayi Boroffice, who is the Deputy Senate Leader, launched some satellites into the orbit for us to preempt disasters in our country. I believe there should also be a synergy between the NCDC and the National Space Research Institute (NSRI) for us to know that if something like the pandemic is likely in the future, we will know how to curb it.

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