[b]Abaribe says some elements in govt are in cahoots with people destabilising Nigeria
Insists not designating bandits as terrorists makes FG complicit in their atrocities
Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe is a quintessential lawmaker. All you need to do to gauge the mood of the opposition is to talk to him. As the Senate Minority Leader, he knows his responsibilities and has performed them to the hilt. The former Deputy Governor of Abia State, an economist by training, was first elected into the Senate to represent Abia South Senatorial District in 2007.

Intelligent, debonair, yet intrepid, Abaribe is an interviewer’s delight. He hardly parries any question. On Monday, November 16, IKECHUKWU AMAECHI sat down with the 66-year-old lawmaker for two hours in his National Assembly office. As usual, he pulled no punches. It was a “state of the nation” interview. There were no off-limits. He spoke about the PDP, APC, the Buhari government, IPOB, his relationship with Nnamdi Kanu and several other issues.[/b]

What is it like being the Senate Minority Leader?

It is nothing different from what I have always been as a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The only thing is that because in the way we conduct the Senate business, I lead the minority side which in a parliamentary system is called the opposition side and the Majority Leader leads the government business side in parliamentary language.

But in the presidential system, it is simply called the majority side and in the way we also arrange our business on the floor, most of the motions that are raised by the majority have to be supported by me because usually, when there is a motion, there is a supporting voice before the President of the Senate asks the opinion of the rest of us and then can hit the gavel.

So, that is basically what it is. But, in terms of our work on the floor of the Senate, ordinarily, once you are in the opposition or minority, your job is to scrutinize the position of the government as espoused by the majority. But sometimes, our interests also coincide. But our job is actually to be carefully scrutinizing what comes, looking for flaws, pointing them out, making counter motions on our own that we feel are in the best interest of the public and of course, being there for ordinary Nigerians who depend on us to see through what goes on.

One of the things that people tend to see happen is that they expect us at all times to be very combative, because the assumption, of course, is that the majority side will always back the government position because they come from the same party and they are the same set of people.

Would you say that the opposition (PDP) has creditably performed the role of holding the government accountable?

Yes, we have. Most of the time, it is not everything that should go by voice vote. So, any time that we do things by voice vote, the ruling is always in favour of those that are in the majority party. But sometimes, we make it very well known the divergent ways we are looking at particular issues but we can get overruled.

For example, on the matter of the Federal Government and the incessant loans that they have been taking, we have always stood resolutely against it but because most of our members who come from the majority party feel that it is meant for whatever government programmes that they have, they always feel persuaded by the government’s argument and not what is in the best interest of Nigerians today and the future generation of Nigerians.

In the almost three years you have been the Minority Leader, what is the most challenging moment you have faced?

I think the most challenging moment was when I introduced the Bill for us to follow the Constitution as set out in Section 271 which stipulates that the National Assembly should set up a Military Service Commission whose job will be to ensure that the dictates of Federal Character is applied in the military. It is there in the Constitution.

When I brought the Bill, I was so surprised how people in the majority, my colleagues, rather than see what we were doing as a patriotic duty of ensuring that the dictates of the Constitution are followed actually opposed the Bill, claiming that it was going to take away some phantom powers of the President.

In other words, they looked at it basically as a challenge to the authority of the President, which it was not.

That day, I felt so bad and I actually wanted us to go ahead and do a division on the floor of the Senate but after we consulted and discussed, they said they wanted to make some input into it so that we can adjust it to whatever realities they wanted, I decided not to push the matter.

Which was why, when we got to the second point again which had to do with the sanctity of elections and the transmission of results at source and the same scenario came up again and people didn’t want us to do transmission of results by electronic means, claiming that the country was not ready, we just said no, let us test this.

What I can get from these two experiences actually is that it is about time in the National Assembly in this electronic age for us to stop voice vote. I think it is too anachronistic. People should now vote electronically. What that helps us to do will be that wherever you are, you will have to vote. Your interest will have to be covered because you are supposed to be representing people.

Of course, the counter argument is that if we let people vote from anywhere they are in the world, then most people won’t bother to come for debates and look at issues on the floor of the Senate. And that is important, because at the point that you stand up to participate in the debates and counter debates, some clarifications, harmonisations and changes are made on the floor there and then. But if you are outside, and you just have to vote yes or no, you may not get the rich experience that comes from being on the floor.

So, that is what the proponents of the continuous voice vote on the floor feel.

Does that tendency of your colleagues not to look at issues from the broad national perspective that will serve the common good rather the narrow party perspective worry you?

Obviously it does but the point really is that all of us being political animals, we probably will not see everything in the same light. Even nationally, we won’t be able to see things in the same light.

And I will just give you a very graphic example of that. Since the inception of this government, we have been sitting on that floor and shouting that we have a group of terrorists in this country running all over the place, killing, maiming, burning villages, destroying people, taking over lands and we have always said, if you don’t designate these people as terrorists, what exactly is it that you call them?

But of course, you now have the other school of thought that says they are just bandits, and then, you have some people who say, if you don’t pay them, they won’t be able to lay down their arms.

It means you are looking at something nationally and you are inputting your own view which is dramatically different from the views of other people. But I am glad that gradually all of us are coming to the same realization because on the floor of the Senate recently, there has now been this growing call to designate these people as terrorists, exactly what we have been saying since 2016.

People are gradually getting to realize the danger that we put ourselves by pretending that all is well whereas we have a raging ground war in which most of the Northeast, Northwest and North Central has been devastated. I am glad that we are all on the same page now in the National Assembly but the government still seems to foot drag on calling a spade a spade.

In your view, does government’s inability to heed the call of the National Assembly and make the appropriate designation make them complicit?


One of the suggestions is that it makes them complicit in what is going on because when you talk about crime and when you want to apportion blames, somebody who has the ability to prevent a crime but refuses wilfully, in the face of the law, is an accomplice.

And when you are an accomplice, what does that mean? It means that you are part of what is going on. So, that I think is a reasonable deduction to make. And what we call on government to do is that they should come out clearly and make Nigerians know that they are not part of the terrorism because right now, the impression created by this seeming inaction is that some elements in the government are in cahoots with these people destabilizing the country.

The impression out there is that the 9th National Assembly is the most subservient to the executive. Do you agree?

I don’t think that I should be the person to make an assessment of my colleagues and me. I think the assessment should be done from an external person. I am doing my own job. What I don’t like, I stand up and say no, this is wrong. I have been doing so consistently and I have been mobilizing my colleagues and we have always made the case.

I think maybe at the point that we started, what we started to do was misconstrued because the 8th National Assembly seemed to be at daggers drawn with the executive, I never felt so. I always felt at that time, because I was part of the 8th NASS and we were the people making the case that the relationship between the executive and the legislature is not supposed to be cozy. It is supposed to be wary because the way we look at things is not the way the executive looks at things. And so, we could not have expected the relationship to be chummy. What one would expect is that people respect their boundaries but everybody gets his or her own job done.

But what then happens when that kind of relationship leads to friction?

So, if that leads to friction, then of course, there are ways of resolving frictions within a political milieu. If it is in terms of a law, you can always test it in court. If it is in terms of amendments, we can always amend what the executive has proposed. If it is in terms of passing what the executive brings, in order for it to be in the best interest of Nigerians, we can always get that done. But because what we are doing is actually something that has to do with the interest of our people, naturally, there will always be different ways of looking at something.

So, when we started in the 9th Assembly, I think the idea was that if the executive claims that they could not perform or do anything because of the strident opposition from the legislature, let us give them the leeway so that they cannot cover their deficiencies by blaming the legislature for putting stumbling blocks. That is what I think happened in the 9th Assembly.

That was misconstrued by a lot of people, including the executive to the extent that they now felt that anything they bring must pass. But of course, some didn’t.

Many Nigerians don’t see the wisdom of the Senate approving a loan request from the President before asking him to submit the details that should include the conditionality, as it happened the last time. Shouldn’t it have been the other way round?

We see that argument. Which ought to come first? Actually, we ought to know beforehand the conditions under which such loans are sought. The reason why we (opposition) were opposed to the loans is that some of them have such nebulous titles that it makes you wonder exactly what the loan is being taken for.

Just check all the loans, you will see things like taking a loan to improve the quality of teachers, for instance. There is no way you can benchmark whatever that kind of open goal can do. We had the loan for improving NTA and things like that. We queried it. We said what exactly do you need all this for?

When a country is in dire straits as we are in right now, the first question is; what are your priorities? Which are the quick wins that will help you in solving your balance of payments, help you in stabilizing your currency, see how you can halt the drift, etc.

That seems not to be the case?

Exactly! What do we find? It is just the same old, same old. Okay, we want to build this and that and each and every one of them if you subject them to proper analysis, you won’t be able to get that return on investment that you need.

You take, for instance, the issue of trade, the argument that has now become a recurring decimal because in the 8th Senate, I remember that I had confrontation in front of the Shehu Sani committee that was in charge of local and foreign debts, with the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, about the same thing, which is, trying to get a loan to build a railway outside of Nigeria and then within Nigeria, just getting a loan to rehabilitate what we already have.

And I remember that in 2017 or thereabout, 1 queried it and Minister Amaechi and I had arguments over it then to the extent that he even went to Awka, where he was giving a lecture and started saying that if they put my name and his side by side, who will know who is Igbo and who is not, which was not the argument.

So, I am glad that when he came to defend his budget this time, he was confronted by Senator Danjuma Goje, Hon Pat Asadu and others talking about the same thing. And you look at the kind of argument that are being made; oh, we are doing it because of trade. And you ask, what type of trade does Niger Republic as a country generate for us to borrow and pay on their behalf? Just think about it.

Meanwhile, they are all French speaking part of the CFA and they already have agreements with Togo on the use of the seaport in Lomé. So, what is it that we are struggling for to say we want to build a rail line in order to take goods from Nigeria to Niger?

Of course, you know that is not the reason for the rail line to Maradi. The issue is simple. There is this whole thing about Niger and the President of Nigeria and some people are just pandering to those kind of sentiments.

So, think about it. From 2017 to 2021, we are still arguing about something we ought to have finished with at that time because the 8th Senate rejected it. But what did they do? They waited till the 9th Senate to bring up the issue again. But I am not sure that the committee will accept that because as we continue, no matter how much you borrow, there will be payback at a particular time. Somebody must pay – ourselves, our children, our grandchildren, our great grandchildren.

Usually, statesmen, when they are running their countries, you don’t leave inter-generational debt. Whatever you do in your generation, you don’t try to say, let my grandchildren pay. That is not a worthy legacy to leave for your people.

When you are in dire straits as a country, first like I said, look at yourself. Those things that you know are frivolous and are not necessary, are beyond your reach at this time, you cut them out. There is an adage that says that when you are in a hole, you stop digging first. Otherwise, if you continue to dig, you continue sinking in deeper and deeper into the hole and we seem not to follow that wise saying because just ask yourself, there was a report last week of spending that was done on palliatives.

And the question is, how could people have said that they spent N58 billion in two months as if we don’t know what a billion is? A billion is a thousand million and you spent N58 billion in two months doing what?

They said they used it on poor Nigerians. So, there is a level of sleaze that is going on that is mind boggling. And if you say, okay, give us or show us how this was done, where, they also have no idea.

That sounds contradictory. Isn’t one of the biggest achievements of the Buhari administration their ability to slay the dragon of corruption as they claim?

READ Senator Abaribe's response to the question and the full interview
https://www.thenicheng.com/level-of-sleaze-in-buharis-govt-mindboggling-abaribe/

The dot senator .
Anambra election held.
The killing and destruction have resumed.
Biafrans killing themselves
What a time to be alive

triple996:
The dot senator .
Anambra election held.
The killing and destruction have resumed.
Biafrans killing themselves
What a time to be alive

You go soon quench on top Igbo matter.

triple996:
The dot senator .
Anambra election held.
The killing and destruction have resumed.
Biafrans killing themselves
What a time to be alive

Imo state will not be like your home state Kaduna where death and blood bathe is the order of the day

Imo state problem is temporary and will be put to a permanent stop soonest ..
same cannot be said about Kaduna state where human life is worthless

The gworo chewing herbivore in Aso rock is a useless incompetent dullard, by the time he is done with Nigeria even his zombies will have sense. Meanwhile someone should take this young boy to a dentist urgently.

The one going on in Abia Riwanda is mind shattering

IPOB senator speaking. Even though we all agreed that a lot is wrong with Buhari government nevertheless we don't expect Abaribe to say anything good about Buhari and his government.

Majority of Nigerians are Sleaze, so what we're seeing is normal

Baby factory criminals and drug traffickers