With support of UNDP, the Speakers’ Conference will soon digitalise 36 state assemblies in Nigeria —Hon Ogundoyin

Honourable Adebo Edward Ogundoyin is the Chairman of the Conference of Speakers of State Assemblies in Nigeria and the Speaker of Oyo State House of Assembly in the 9th and the current 10th assembly. In this interview with TAIWO ADISA, he speaks on the position of the conference on state police, democracy dividends and legislative accountability. He also speaks on the collaboration between the Conference of Speakers and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on a multi-million dollar programme to digitalise the 36 state assemblies in Nigeria. Excerpts.

AS the chairman of Conference of Speakers of State Legislatures, what is the conference recommending to the National Assemby constitution ammendment committee on state police?

Talking in my capacity as the chairman conference of speakers of state assemblies of Nigeria, and as regards the issue of state police, well, there’s a lot that has been going on constitutionally on the issue. From the way I see things, I’m going to be very blunt, and I’m going to be transparent about this whole situation. It is not a secret that some people are against the idea of state policing, there is a pushback against state police. But we, in the Conference of Speakers of State Legislatures of Nigeria, we have within the body 991 state constituencies. And I can assure you that the majority, if not all, members of the State Houses of Assembly across the federation, which represent the sub-national, are totally, hundred percent in support of state policing. And the reasons why we support state police are not a secret, and it is not surprising either. It is because we’ve seen that the present security architecture when it comes to policing, internal security, is overstretched. And there’s no better security than security that starts from the grassroots. Because it’s from the grassroots that things go either good or bad. So, the position of the Conference of Speakers simply put, that we support State policing, and we also are lobbying and advocating for the National Assembly to make this a part of the constitutional review in the forthcoming constitutional alteration.

So, you were not surprised that the Inspector General of Police opposed the idea at a recent programme your conference held in Abuja?

To be honest, I wasn’t surprised because I had the opportunity to talk to the CP legal, who was sitting next to me. And, you know, NPF will always talk from their own point of view. But, trust me, I’ve engaged with a lot of police high-ranking officers who have also advocated state police. Because they understand that one tier of security is not sufficient for a country like Nigeria, that is so diverse, and the population is so wide.

So shall we say that since all politics is local, policing should also be local…

I mean, democracy is local. Everything is local. So, of course, you know, that should also apply to the most important aspect of any country, which is the security of lives and properties.

Apart from the issue of State Police, what other issues would you advise the National Assembly to include on the constitution amendment list now that they are about amending the constitution?

Our constitution is one that we have to continue to amend. It’s unfortunate, but it’s a reality. We don’t understand how this constitution came to be. Some people are of the opinion that this constitution is not of the choosing of the people, that it was thrust upon us. And while others believe that the constitution should be thrown out, outright, so that the real people’s constitution can come into place. But notwithstanding, this is where we are. We have to move forward. Where we are right now in terms of the constitutional amendments, there are some germane topics that we see that are developing steam, like the women participation in politics. It’s a big one, not just for the women. Even some ‘he for she’ are of the opinion that if we can encourage them and give them a platform in order for them to showcase what they can do, then the interest of women in politics would increase. Although the concept of this amendment is such that it will promote inclusion, I will say yes. Inclusion, yes. If they want to make a special seat for women in the House of Representatives, one per state, which takes the number automatically to 36, add the FCT, it will be 37, and presently, we have 16 women out of 360, which is less than probably 4 per cent of the total. At least if you have one per state, and the FCT 37 is guaranteed, which is almost 10 per cent of the total number, which is an upward review to what we have, which I believe would be like we are moving forward. And this clause is going to be a sunset clause, meaning that maybe after 4 or 5 election cycles, it goes out of existence. On the other hand, I believe that there is a drawback to that. The drawback I can see is that right now, women are finding it difficult to get seats into the 14 Federal Constituencies in Oyo State for instance, if some women now come up to contest one of the 14 constituencies, the people that are after their self-interests and political gimmicks will start to say, the women should only go and contest for their served slot. So, I will ask myself, does it defeat the purpose. And because it is a sunset clause, when it goes out of, will that have strengthened the woman’s resolve for vying for political office, or will they hamper it?

The conference of speakers has a big role in the constitutional process. At least 24 states must have a buy-in to whatever clause that will go through. Do you see your conference as pulling its weight enough in this process?

The conference has always had a big say in constitutional amendments. The last time, I was part of the conference as well. So, I saw firsthand the influence that the conference of speakers really has in trying to attain a number of states. Because we have our meetings and our meetings will deliberate on these proposed bills for amendments. And then we agree to a conference, after that we also interact and interface with the Nigeria Governors Forum as well and they let us know what their position is, and we also let them know what our position is. And then we come to an agreement, from then on, we will now go to our various states to enact what we believe is the best way forward for each of the bills. So, definitely the conference of speakers has an immense influence in determining what goes as far as constitution amendment is concerned.

One of the contentious issues in the country is also the issue of local government autonomy. There is a mismatch, so to say, coming from the 1999 Constitution with Section 7 guaranteeing democratically elected government and other sections approving state and local government joint accounts. How do you think the constitutional amendment process can resolve this controversy, especially in the aftermath of the Supreme Court ruling of 2024?

I think because of the conflicting interpretations that are ongoing on the autonomy of local governments, we have seen that even after the Supreme Court made a pronouncement, we are still stuck. Because some school of thought believe that if the Federal Government should go by the judgment of the Supreme Court, it would look like they are going against the provision of the constitution. Because the constitution provides for a joint account between the states and local governments, where all monies of local governments are paid into. So, if they go against that, then they are already breaching the constitution. So, I believe that for a simple solution to this, every section that concerns the local governments must be properly spelled out. You don’t believe that even the structure of the local government is not entrenched in the constitution. So, what that means is that the House of Assembly has a role to play in terms of that structure. I believe it is in Enugu. They don’t call the head of local government chairman; they rather call their mayor. You know, because it’s not the constitution. So, all in all, I believe that the section that also talks about the joint account could be expunged if we are really serious about giving financial autonomy to the local governments, In same vein, while it is all good to give financial autonomy to the local governments, we also have to strengthen the local governments in such a way that they will be able to generate revenue to sustain themselves. and operate as a local government. So that the same problem that the state’s government has, by going cap-in-hand to the Federal Government, will be avoided. You can have a successful country whereby every tier of government looks after itself, not going cap-in-hand to the other tier.

In your vantage position as chairman, Conference of Speakers, would you say that legislators have been alive to their duties in Nigeria?

Definitely. The legislature we are pushing for in the conference of speakers is to improve transparency, improve accountability. How do we achieve this, through the digitalization and the transformation programme of State Houses of Assembly nationwide. We’ve embarked on this project. We’ve started this project with our development partners, across the 36 states House of Assemblies. Now, Oyo State and Katsina State are being built to be pilot schemes for this project. It’s a very audacious project, very ambitious. But we thank God, I’ve been able to navigate the conference of speakers in order to make agreements with development partners, in order for us to start this project and see the effectiveness in the pilot schemes before we now scale up to all the states. This project is tens of millions of US dollars. Well, I pray that God Almighty preserves our lives in order for us to see the end of this project because it’s definitely a legacy project.

And we have the support of development partners on that.

Yes, UNDP to be precise.

How do we resolve the opposition of Nigerian governors to local government autonomy?

The thing is that we have to ask ourselves, what is the difference between democracy and federalism? So, in the case of federalism, there are two or more tiers of government, but most of the time it is two tiers of government. I mean, it has the Federal Government and then the federating units. It is interesting if you wish, you can have four tiers, you can have six tiers, whatever works for you. But I think the position of the NGF in this case is that there is no part of a local government that doesn’t belong to a state. And the fortunes of the local government also affect the state. And the fortunes of the state affect the local government and also the Federal Government. So, we have to look at these things as we have to remove ourselves and all our interests. Whether you’re a state actor. Whether you’re a Federal Government. For example, a lot of people argue that the RMFAC has the biggest role to play in this matter, which is the fiscal economy of revenue, how we share revenue. For example, in a situation where you give the Federal Government, approximately 52 per cent of all the revenue and then you give the states about 26 per cent and then you give the local government about 16 per cent So, at the end of the day, we have to look into the issues holistically. Going by where we are right now, we believe that even though autonomy should be given, everybody should be able to look inward. Because any president that gets there will believe that, yes, he has to protect the center, any governor that gets there will believe that he has to protect the states and the circle goes on.

So, as the speaker of your state now, how would you say you have delivered on your mandate?

To be honest, I think I should not be the judge and the jury in my own case.

But in politics, you have to state your case…

Because, for example, the measures or the yardstick that were used in the 9th assembly, that I used to measure my effectiveness as speaker was based on how many bills were passed, how many resolutions were passed, how many motions were moved, how many motions were moved that directly affected our constituents. So, my own idea generally is that the numbers don’t lie, and this is what we have to go by with. And the records that we have achieved show that the 10th has been the most effective, hardworking and most productive house of assembly ever in the history of Oyo state.

You are talking about the volume of bills. Volume of bills, the motions moved, the new resolution.

Yes, and the constituency engagement programmes that I also embarked on. Because at one point, I made it quarterly. But then because of time, reference, we started doing biannual. And even aside from that, the amount of empowerment that I have personally handled is huge.

Despite such commitments, people generally complain that the turnover of legislators continues to rise in this country and that it is a measure of people’s lack of confidence in their performance…

If you look at the actual figure in Oyo State for instance in the 2023 election, out of 32 members, not all of them were PDP, some were APC. We had 26 PDP and then we had six APC. Among the 26 were PDP, we had a return of 15. So that means we had a return of over 60 per cent and the other 40 per cent that did not come back was based on political, internal political dynamics within the party.

You’ve mixed with the speakers across the country, what do they say is the major problem of the legislature in Nigeria?

I think there are a lot of problems. This issue of the high turnover rates is an issue. And to be honest, in my state, Oyo State, we have to give kudos to Governor Seyi Makinde, who used his own influence and political will to ensure we were able to get about 60 percent return rate for lawmakers in the assembly. Yes, because the governor was concerned about the loss of institutional knowledge within the legislature. So, one way that we were able to battle that was to be intentional, to pick the most vibrant amongst the members, and add fresh brains so that the new, and the old will mix experience, and the combination will bring about innovation. Now, another issue that we might have is about the inability of legislators to meet up with their campaign promises. That’s a failure from the legislator’s point of view when he’s promising what he cannot deliver. The failure of the electorate is not understanding what the real job description of a legislature is. So, there are failures on all sides. So, as the electorate, there’s the failure in the knowledge and understanding of the roles. All of the roles you know, he’s seen as a failure who has not performed. So, there are failures on all sides. So, it’s a continuous education that can help out in that regard.

How would you rate the performance of oversight functions in our legislature?

In fact, in Oyo State, the house has gone so far now that we have something called the Post Legislative Scrutiny Unit.

What do they do?

What they do is that bills that have been passed into law for over three to five years, we go back to assess the laws, to review the laws, to see how effective those laws are and if they have any good. And then we can also amend it or alter those bills in order to even make them work better. So, we’re not just oversighting government spending, we are not just oversighting the ministries, departments or agencies, we are also oversighting our own selves in terms of the bills that we’ve passed into law and oversighting laws. So, we’re not just oversighting the tangibles, we are also oversighting the intangibles. Because we’ve already passed the level of oversighting what we can see and feel. So, we’ve already perfected that role. So, we’re now doing other things. We’re pushing the barriers.

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