PDP members working with APC to enthrone NWC’s, Buhari’s choice for Speaker —Tunji-Ojo

Honourable Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, the House of Representatives member-elect for the Akoko North-East /North-West Federal Constituency of Ondo State, is the chairman, Forum of First Time Members on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC). He speaks on the race for speakership and sundry issues. Excerpts:

 AT present, about seven members are jostling for the speakership position. As chairman of the Forum of First Time Members, what can you say is the position of your forum?

Our position as a forum is not different from the position of the party. I am a party man. I have the blood of the party running through my veins. The leader of the party, President Muhammadu Buhari, has spoken; the national chairman of the party has spoken, the National Working Committee (NWC) has spoken and all other organs of our party are fully aligned to the choice of the party, namely Honourable Femi Gbajabiamila, as the next Speaker of the House of Representatives. On that position of the party we stand.

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But some members of your party appear to have ignored the decision of the party on the anointed candidate?

I don’t think their position is tenable and I will tell you why. One, the party had to zone the position because of fairness and equity. It is hypocrisy for you to say the party must zone the position to the North. That is the peak of hypocrisy. Having said that, we all know that Nigeria has two different parts, that is, Northern and Southern regions. The North has the Senate Presidency already, so it will be just fair if the highest position in the House of Representatives goes to the South. If you look at it critically, Mr. President is from the North, while the vice-president is from the South. The chairman of the National Assembly is the Senate President. The position has been zoned to the North. And the Deputy Chairman of the National Assembly is the Speaker of the House of Representatives. And this has to go to the South so that both regions can have balanced representation. There should be no marginalisation. I do not see any contestation on that.

Part of their disagreement with the arrangement of the party is that ordinarily, the position of the Speaker should have been given to the North-Central or any other zone apart from the South-West that has already produced the vice president….

We politicians play with figures and statistics too much. First, Nigeria is broken into the North and the South. Whether North-West, North-Central or North-East, all is North. South-East, South-West and South-South are all South. The Senate Presidency, to the best of our knowledge, has been zoned to the North. In that instance, it has been zoned to the North-East .It is just normal, just fair that the Speakership should come from the Southern part of Nigeria. When it comes to the Southern part of the country, I think the party maybe looked at the strength of the party in various zones. This, I don’t know. APC has only four members in the entire South-East. In the South-South we have just seven members. I think we have about 39 or 49 from the South-West. Apart from that, the party looked at the personality involved. Hon. Gbajabiamila has been in the House for the better part of 16 years and 12 years out of the 16 years, he has been there as a Principal Officer. He was the minority whip, minority leader and is the current majority leader. He has the leadership experience. It is just conventional that when a party wins a majority in the House, it ordinarily produces the Speaker. So, this is just normal. He has the experience. No doubt, all the contestants are qualified, but even in the animal kingdom where all animals are equal; some are still more equal than the others. Gbajabiamila is much more qualified by virtue of his experience at leadership positions, by virtue of bills, motions and his interpersonal relationship with all members of the House. For us as a forum, we are happy that the party took a right position. We are happy that the party gave us somebody that can be a bridge between the executive and the legislative arms and not a wall.

Don’t you think that the way things are going with the APC, a repeat of the 2015 scenario is imminent?

Anybody that thinks that will happen must be day-dreaming. The indices are not the same. Yes, the two scenarios might be similar, they might be identical, but they are not the same. One, APC has about 225 members in the House of Representatives now and PDP has about 119 members if I am not wrong. With the crop of representatives on the platform of APC that I see, I can bet it with you that we don’t have legislators that will rock the boat. We are united in our quest to reposition the party effectively. Two, in our forum of first timers in APC, we are 164. Out of the 164 APC first term members, we are united in making sure that the party position prevails. In any developed democracy in the world, the party is always stronger than the government, because it is the party that has the manifesto. Government is meant to implement the manifesto of the party.

The party has a lot to lose if anything goes wrong; it also has a lot to gain if everything works out fine. So, it is just the norm that the party must take centre stage and take charge of the situation like this because it is going to be affected either positively or negatively.

For us, I want to assure you that we are all loyal party members and I want to tell you that even our PDP members will join us because a lot of them want this government to go to the next level. A lot does not want constant confrontations between the executive and legislative arm of the government. They are not happy with the delay of budget passage for seven months out of twelve months. A lot of them are not happy with unnecessary clogs in the wheel of the country’s progress. I believe that a lot of our PDP brothers do not align with that type of style. Most of them that genuinely love this country perhaps more than us will join us in making sure that the leadership of Hon. Gbajabiamila is properly enthroned for the betterment of Nigeria and above all to create a better country and future for us as a people.

What are you doing to pacify those that are not in tune with the party on the choice of Gbajabiamila as the next Speaker?

I am not speaking for the party, but I know that we have a very responsive leadership in the party led by our National Chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole. We have a lot of confidence in his ability to trouble shoot. Don’t forget that he was a former labour leader and crisis management and crisis resolution are part of his call or area of competence. I want to assure that a lot of work is going on behind the scenes. At the end of the day, you will be shocked that we will go into the election as a united family.

What kind of House are we looking forward to in the 9th Assembly?

An interesting House; a house that will do things right for the betterment of Nigerians, a house that will prioritise the interest of Nigerians and above all, a house that  will be loyal to the people of Nigeria. Above all, we are looking forward to harmonious relationship with the executive arm of government. To me, you don’t need to be a rubber stamp to have a harmonious relationship. The executive should be able to complement the legislative arm and the legislative arm should be able to complement the executive arm of government. Don’t forget we are still talking about separation of powers. We focus too much on separation of powers and we forget the interdependency of government. What make government works is interdependency. Although there are three arms of government, we are still one government. The ability to work together, putting the interest of Nigerians as a common force is what will actually move Nigeria to the next level. So, I am looking at a House which after four years would have come up with bills, motions and resolutions that will take Nigeria to the next level. We can’t continue to crawl as a country. If we can’t fly now, at least we should be able to run. Yes, criticism is allowed. The executive can criticise us, we can criticise them, but it has to be constructive criticism; criticism that will bring out better results. Nigerians are not interested in this petty fight; they are interested in having better lives. They want the economy to be better, they want jobs to be created, they want a secure environment. They want this country be the country of their dreams and that is what the National Assembly should focus on .

Currently, the country is facing as serious security challenges. Many people are of the opinion that the Federal Government is not doing enough on this…

The Federal Government is trying to address some of the security challenges. We have to understand that Nigeria is a diverse and very big country. And the security situation before this government came on board had deteriorated so much that we lost many territories to insurgents. The level of crime was at an alarming rate before this particular government came on board. But now, we have no territories under the control of terrorists and that is a big plus for this government. Moreover, security is a continuum. Every day of our lives, we have to keep improving on security because the insurgents are also improving on their methods. I think our armed forces are doing very well in adapting to the new challenges of security. Nevertheless, there is still room for improvement.