NASS crisis: National interest must override APC’s dictates – Senator Kaka

Senator Sefiu Adegbenga Kaka is the immediate past senator who represented Ogun East in the Na­tional Assembly (2011-2015.) Kaka in this interview with SEGUN OLATUNJI speaks on the Buhari presidency, the crisis in the National Assembly, the state of the Nigerian nation and other sundry issues. Excerpts:

It’s been six weeks after the inau­guration of President Muhammadu Buhari and some Nigerians are be­coming impatient with his style of administration. What is your view on this?

Well, I think Nigerians should go and search for patience and exercise that patience. Like people will say, Rome was not built in a day and to destroy is so easy, quicker than to build. And for a new administration, we should not forget that there is a difference between an adminis­tration succeeding itself and an opposition party coming into power to take over. Once it is a new government from the opposition, proper diagno­sis of the problem would give 50 per cent of the correct answer. Whereas if it is hastily done, we may still be heading towards the same route that put us where we are. So, I will say that no matter our eagerness for the new administration to per­form, no matter the agony we are going through, we should exercise further patience and let them put things in perspective because the contradic­tions that we have in the system, the dislocation we have had is so enormous that it will require painstaking efforts to prescribe the right solution. That is what I would say. And when we look at it from the spiritual realm, when God wants to do a wonderful thing for us, His creatures, He starts with difficulty. If that thing is going to be very wonderful, He would start with an impossibility. ‘And give good tidings to those who are patient, that when bad things happen to them, they say we are from God and to Him we shall return;’ it’s a chapter from the Holy Qur’an. So, when we look at it with the rot we have in the system, even if it is the seed that you put into the soil, it will first of all rot before the fine offshoot would start coming out. And there is what is called ges­tation period within the animal kingdom. You carry the pregnancy, you bring it alive, you nurse it. So, they are still in gestation period, people should not be too impatient as to stampede the government into committing further blunders. The myriad of problems is just too much, so it requires methodological way of doing things. And you will agree with me also that the crisis we have in the National Assembly, even people are talking about the non-appointment of min­isters, this and that, we have some people that were part and parcel of the creation of the rot, those are the civil servants. They are there, the political head that will be coming is just coming to get them directed. They are the ones; if they re-order their conscience, they should be able to put things in perspective even before the arrival of the ministers. So, we should look inwards and see what should be done even with the civil ser­vants because they are also equally as guilty, if not more guilty than the politicians.

If you were an adviser to President Buhari, how would you advise him to address some of the challenges that Nigerians are being confronted with?

How I wish you had gone through the letter I wrote to President Obasanjo in 2005. The situa­tion then was not as bad as what we have here. But my submission there is still as fresh as yes­terday. It’s even more applicable now than even in 2005. I identified three and later increased it to four critical centres that must be addressed to move this nation forward. And those three or four critical areas are energy, which entails pe­troleum products, refinery and all others, the gas and the electricity. The energy sources are sup­posed to be the engine of our vehicle. Without a workable engine, the vehicle cannot move. So, that is so important to our productivity, to our value addition, to employment generation and to other socio-economic variables. It touches ev­erybody’s life fairly well. The second one is ed­ucation. Without education, nothing moves. It also touches everywhere. So, when we talk of education, again, we have to segment it. Science and technology is key; it’s the heart of education, it’s heart of innovation, it’s heart of moderniza­tion. So, rather than dissipating our money equally or even lopsidedly on social and art cur­ricula, let’s focus, give premium to science and technology so that those that are specially gifted could be given ample opportunity and condu­cive environment to make discoveries and inno­vations that would be beneficial to all of us. Ed­ucation is important and if we must make education important, as I said in that letter, we should go back to the basics. First of all, we sanction Federal Government from primary and secondary education. They cannot over-central­ize those levels of education and expect it to move. A situation where some people would sit in Abuja and want to control a primary school in Osun, it is a foul and over-the-bar. So, leave it with the state and local governments. Then, let us not forget that our indigenous language is our main culture. We cannot afford to lose it also. A situation whereby our educational system rele­gates to the background our culture and lan­guage is also not permissible. So, the Federal Government should be concerned about policy formulation and moderation of the implementa­tion by all tiers of government. Then, at best let them be a partaker in the tertiary education so that the state and local governments would share the responsibility for primary and second­ary education. That is the right way to go. And again, all the teachers we are having; if you go round the country today, the private schools at primary and secondary school level, and even tertiary, the private schools recruit teachers that are less qualified than the public schools. Whereas those in the public schools paradoxi­cally get three, four times the earning they are getting. And yet, the private schools who are less qualified, who get better remuneration are more productive than those of the public institu­tions. That is another contradiction. We have to resolve it. If that is the situation, then why don’t you give subvention to the private educational institutions because their products and the prod­ucts of the public are going to the same market. They are going to promote our development, they are going to promote our education, they are going to promote our growth. So, why don’t we just encourage those who know how to do things better to do it best rather than saying fine, hypocrisy will hold us down and some people will be getting fat and robust salary, we are not making them to work. They are not working not out of their volition, but because the govern­ment is not making them to work. There is no enough supervision, there is no training and re­training and there is no proper orientation for them to perform and deliver the goods for our own generation. Even most of the teachers that we have in the schools today are half-baked ma­terials because the government is not doing what is expected of them. So, policy formula­tion and implementation should be the main concern at the federal level. And then all the bloated civil service, they are carrying at the ministry of education is unnecessary and I will give you a simple example. Mayflower school under Tai Solarin, what was being expended to produce 1,000 students is not up to 10 per cent of what is being used at Federal Government colleges and what they are producing is not up to one-quarter of what is being churned out from Mayflower school. So, that contradiction must be removed. Then, the third centre that I said was agriculture. Ten years ago, I stated ev­erything; thank God Akinwunmi Adesina tried to implement some of those things. The Federal Government selling fertilizer, selling inputs is unheard of! Agric was supposed to be business and when you go into business, input process output, you make profit. So, it is where we have some hiccups that government will have to sub­sidize. Subsidization must not be to the political farmers who corner whatever subsidy that is coming. So, value addition to whatever we pro­duce will generate employment opportunities; development of the rural areas, making life more conducive for them in terms of healthcare provision, water, electricity, motorable roads, those are the things that are needed for the farm­ing communities to attain optimum community where young graduates will want to stay in the rural areas rather than sojourning for non-exist­ing jobs in the urban centres. Rather than going to the urban centres to create urban slum that we’ll be throwing our money at, wasting mon­ey, becoming double jeopardy for our peo­ple. The fourth one I mentioned then was the God’s grace on the Niger Delta region and it’s still applicable till now. Exploration is done, our money is used, some are not used but diverted through the so-called cash call, the joint venture that are not achieving the desired end, yet oil spillages are going on, so many… are going on both onshore and offshore and making people in the Niger Delta to be worse off than what God meant for them. God that situated oil in that region has a purpose for making that area better; just as we are having it in Arabian peninsula, Saudi Arabia, Iran and all that. We must not be callous as to refuse to develop the Niger Delta region. From whom much is expected, much should also be given. So, the Niger Delta region must be given respite, peace and conducive at­mosphere for things to go on there and by exten­sion, the entire country. So, the fifth one, to Mr. President now that I will add to the 2005 pro­posal is the current insecurity. That one also was partly in existence then but not as aggravated as what we are having now. The security situation is so bad that when you look at the North East, the economy has been ruined, the life of the people has become worthless. The effect is that those in the North Eastern region are prone to hypertension, stroke and untimely death from the terrorist group. Now, we have been spend­ing a lot of money – the local government, state, federal and now the international community – spending money to curb the menace of the ter­rorists. That is a drainpipe on its own. Then on our national economy, the local economy of the area, is telling on us because additional money is being expended on the same problem that we are talking about. Then, one of the causatives of this insecurity is as a result of unemployment and poverty. It is the idle hand that devil uses as its own workshop. When you look at the ages of those detonating bombs, it is between 13 and 35. They are the youths who are supposed to be leaders of tomorrow. Because they are idle, the godfathers of terrorism are harvesting them and using them against the system. What have we been doing to win back those youngsters from the clutches of the terrorists? So, those are areas that Mr. President should look into. If the for­eign donors are coming with their money, they should not use it on the military. I’m not saying the military are not performing but Mr. Presi­dent should start from first of all, in the last three years, assessing what had been the financial commitment of all the affected local govern­ments, of all the affected states of the federation to this particular cause. And where had the mon­ey been going? Were they used for the purpose which it was meant and we are not getting the results? And if it is so, why are we not getting the results? So, those are the things; rather than cosmetic statements here and there, the issue involved is so sensitive. We should go back to the drawing board, get solution to some of the problems that I’ve mentioned.

On the issue of energy, I didn’t elaborate. But when you look at what is happening in our oil sector, it leaves much to be desired. The rot is so much that if we have to talk about it, it will take a whole day. Then when you get to NEPA, in that write-up, I did mention that electricity is key and the unbundling of NEPA should be done meticulously and the so-called privatiza­tion must be done in such a way that it is the true entrepreneur, not the pseudo-entrepreneur that we have in the country who have cornered it already, the money they are supposed to inject, they are not injecting. So, rather than growing, the thing is recessing which is rather unfortu­nate for us. And there is no way all overnight you can get things done. The same thing that applies to that one is also what we are talking of unbundling the NNPC and making the exist­ing refineries to work, able to account for all the turnaround maintenance they claim they have been doing, all the cash calls money, the joint venture money, let’s account for every kobo. And again, some of the staff that are unwanted, use them in another place. There is nobody that is unwanted in a society. If some people are in employment in a particular establishment and are no longer productive, they can be produc­tive elsewhere. Not that they will just be taking salaries and allowances, going abroad on trips right, left and centre and at the end of the day, the people are suffering. So, those are the things for those energy centres. All the gas flaring, you know what has been happening. Part of the liquefied gas, it is profit they said we are now squandering on bailing out.

You were a member of the 7th leg­islature. Currently, there is crisis in the National Assembly – Senate and House of Representatives – over lead­ership positions. Do you think the party has the right to dictate who should be the Senate President or House Speaker; what do you think is the implication of this in the running of the country?

Well, there is a difference between a politi­cal party and government of the nation. And where the right of one ends, the right of others begin. So, also the legislature and the executive; where their own right ends, that of the popu­lace begins. So, in this case, the party has got a constitution and we have a constitution for the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Within the par­ty hierarchy, the party is supreme; there is no doubt about that. When it gets to the larger con­text of the nation, the constitution of the Fed­eral Republic of Nigeria is supreme. And what you called crisis, maybe I should not join you in saying it’s a crisis. Maybe it’s a misinterpre­tation of the two constitutions of that party and the Federal Government of Nigeria. And when you talk of the party, you can talk of a party in isolation. You have one party in the executive and in the legislature, you have multiple parties. So, their thinking and orientation should not be held up within the scope of a political party. The rot that we have in the system for the past 16 years was because the PDP was equating their political party, the whims and caprices of their political party to that of the nation, which should not be. The nation is larger than the political party. It’s larger than an individual. So, it is within that context that I will want to look at things. And then say that once they get to the floor, each party must moderate at their parliamentary caucus level and once they get to the main arena, they should know that their scope is the national interest.

You talked about the state of insecuri­ty getting worse with the Boko Haram bombing everywhere. The Bring Back Our Girls group recently visited Buhari on how to rescue the over 200 Chibok girls from Boko Haram and the sect people too came up with a submission that the girls can only be released if the federal government swaps their mem­bers with the girls. What is your view?

Well, we thank the Bring Back Our Girls cam­paigners for their sustaining efforts and also thank the previous and current administrations for the efforts they have made to bring back those girls. But beyond this, the girls, 219, hopefully they are still very much alive. But thousands had died since the inception of this Boko Haram; those ones can­not be brought back. Their families are in agony, nobody is talking of reparation for them. There are communities that have been devastated, we are not talking about them, fine. But those that are alive, yes, we must find a way of bringing them at all cost. I’m not a lawyer but in legal parlance, they say that ‘it is better for a thousand criminal to evade justice for an innocent soul to die.’ If it is true, for God’s sake, those who are still alive, bring them back under whatever guise or cost so that we don’t add to the irreparable loss of the monumental death we have recorded. I don’t want to talk too much because I’m not a security expert; whatever is the grievance of those behind Boko Haram, we must unravel it. Every behaviour in life is a motivated behaviour. They have a motive. The social scientists acknowledged it that every behaviour is a motivated behaviour. Let’s get to the root of their grievances, of their motives and see whether we could ameliorate, change their at­titude and rescue the innocent ones that are in their workshop perpetrating the heinous crime. When we look at it, we are losing from all sides. Prob­ably those behind Boko Haram are just in tens or so but those they are recruiting innocently and brainwashing are in multitude, they are even too young to comprehend what life is all about and to comprehend what Boko Haram is. How do we rescue those ones from their clutches? Those are issues that we must address if we must nip it in the bud and then find a way of letting the country enjoy the much desired peace that can engender growth and development.

In other words, would you support the Federal Government going into a kind of negotiation with Boko Haram sect?

I have said it times without number. I have granted interviews that whatever it takes, if you don’t interact with somebody; it’s like a Chris­tian wanting to convert a Muslim or a Muslim wanting to convert a Christian and you say you are not going to sit with them, how do you get it done? How do you communicate? How do you know where the shoe is pinching? There is no justification for elimination of lives, there is no justification for maiming, there is no justifi­cation for displacing, both internally and exter­nally, people from their abode. So, if the brain behind Boko Haram is having a motive, let us unravel the motive and in our attempt to do it, we are going to have a sort of compromise. Talking that we want to negotiate from position of strength; position of strength at whose loss? At whose expense? Is it the dead bodies that are in thousands? Is it the maimed ones? Is it the captured ones as captives? Which kind position of strength? Because me and you are free, we may not know the import. But those who are in the shoes of those people, they know what they are going through.

Recently, the Federal Government approved the sharing of $2.1billion NLNG fund as bailout for states. Do you think this should be so?

Well, from the workers’ perspective and bear­ing in mind the spiritual admonition that the sweat of a labourer must not dry before their entitlements are given, whatever is being done with that money will be justifiable and provid­ed the due process was followed in taking the money; provided the executives to receive the money would allow the money to go to the ul­timate end, that is the payment of salaries and allowances of those affected. Beyond that, we have a lot of negative effects of what is being done. One, we are under inflationary economy. Our Naira is depreciating so rapidly beyond the imagination that it has gone to unprecedented level of one dollar to N230. Our exchange rate is supposed to be something of priority to us. You now move on to the effect of now having to inject fresh money; that would make more mon­ey to be chasing fewer goods. The effect would be spiral inflation and the common man will be the worst affected. More so when you combine it with the oil sector palaver that we are going through. I warned in write-up in 2005 that the price of crude oil as at that time was $65 and it later moved to about $147 per barrel, I was cry­ing that we should diversify. We failed woefully to do that. I warned that the price was capable of going back to $9 to $12 per barrel that was the case in 1999. We have just moved to the mid­dle and we tumbled terribly. Now, with that one that the price is still capable of going down, the quantum both declared and stolen are also capa­ble of reducing because the continental shelf oil discovered in America and other places are mak­ing the demand for our oil to become meagre. So, we are likely to be losing from the quantum for export, we are likely to be losing on the price which we don’t have control over. So, that one in itself may be bad for the economy but when we look at it from the positive angle, it is very good. Because the effect of all those bunkering, price jackpot and everything is to the effect that we are being turned to lazy bagger, collective of people that are not ready to work. So, maybe if the price depreciates further and the quantum reduces further, we would learn the hard way to use our brain and body to eke a living rather than be looking for free money. But the unfortunate aspect is that when that money was coming, we were calling for diversification. We were calling for four critical centres that must be developed so that there would be less pressure of our de­pendence on oil. We failed woefully there. The money to build the infrastructure for the devel­opment of those four critical centres now is no longer there. But even if it is not there, there is what is called improvisation. With what we have, we have been training our students in var­ious institutions. Some don’t have what they use abroad, they use whatever they can get locally and when they sojourn abroad, they perform ex­cellently well. That is our brain is there. All we need to do is make our environment conducive. Some of those who have gained more experi­ence would be forced to come back. Those who have initiatives there would be forced to use it. So, maybe it’s a blessing in disguise that the oil is tumbling, the exchange rate is tumbling and the security challenges also we are having it so that we can come out stronger if we are deter­mined as individuals and as a nation. We keep on praying and all hands must be on deck so that all of us patriotically we throw ourselves into the system to see what we can add to the system and not what we can get from the system.

Do you share the Senate President’s view that many of the states cannot pay salaries because of the endemic corruption they are involved in, espe­cially in terms of projects they embark on?

This is a disease that we are all guilty of. I’ve said it times without number; there is corruption everywhere, in all our facets, in our respective homes, between husband and wife, between mother and children, between father and chil­dren, even within individuals and the thing has now ramified everywhere. A situation where a public servant of known financial income will have three or four children in American univer­sities at about $50,000 per session. We should ask ourselves where the money is coming from. So, singling out is not enough. And when you have governors that want to take over the coun­try from all of us, they were becoming octopus, controlling the local governments from their position of authority, they want to determine who the councillor in a ward is going to be, who the supervisor for the chairman is going to be, who the special adviser or personal assistant of a chairman is going to be and they will be the one to unilaterally impose the chairman on the people. They will be the one that will bring about local government and state joint account that was supposed to be used positively but they used it negatively. They dip their hands into that joint account to the detriment of the local gov­ernment chairmen who dare not utter a word because they were selected and imposed on the people. They will now get to the state, they are not ready to share honour with anybody at the state level, they become emperor; their words are final, pick the commissioners, pick special advisers unilaterally. Even civil servants, they disorganize them and use them for nefarious activities rather for the desired purpose they are meant for. They will now leave their states and say they want to determine who the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria would be and immediately that one emerges, they ring round him and want to dictate who is going to be his ministers, special advisers, member of para­statals. The constitution did not give them such power but they are exercising it inadvertently. They have to be called to order. So, it’s because they now overprice and overvalue themselves, they think they can do and undo with the pol­ity to the extent that in the face of poverty and unemployment, you will see some buying jets, some building bunkers as residence as if they are going to remain in this world forever – they don’t believe they are going to leave after four years or at most eight years. So, these are things. It’s rather unfortunate that we are having it. It wasn’t like that in the First Republic, it wasn’t even like that in the Second Republic though we have started seeing the traces but it wasn’t as en­trenched as this, the impunity was not total as we now have. So, there must be solution to all this if at all we must moved the nation forward.

You are a major stakeholder in Ogun State. In your own assessment, would say this is Ogun State of your dream; do you think the people are getting what they should get in terms of development?

Is Ogun State an island in Nigeria? The elders would say ‘arun to nse aboyade, gbogbo oloya lo nse.’ So, I’ve talked about national issues, you can extrapolate and pick the ones that affect the state and go and talk to the people on the streets, they will be able to tell you. I only know that recently I had to repair my car with several thou­sands of Naira; I don’t want to go into details but the people on the streets will be able to give you what their experience of life is all about.

Your party, the Social Democratic Party, failed woefully in the last gen­eral election. What is the next line of action; are you still going to be in the party looking at the expiration of the tenure of local government chairmen, is your party coming up with fielding candidates to contest in the local gov­ernment elections?

You are asking about myself, about my par­ty, and the state and local government election. Well, personally, I don’t shy away from a fight and I believe that when it comes to justice, there must be peace, there must be justice. So, as a per­son, if I have the option, the best thing is to get a soft-landing and quit politics to say, yes, I’ve had enough. But I don’t have control over that. God has a purpose for creating me the way I am. He has a purpose for being born in Ogun State, for being born in Ijebu-Igbo and that’s where you find me comfortable wherever I find myself. So, within this local area, this is my 21st year of continuous staying here. I believe that God has a purpose for putting me here, and for putting me in Ogun State and for being a Nigerian. So, as a result, I will allow God to determine what next line of action would be good for me. Then as a human being, as a mortal, I know that in the last 28 years, there are people who have been very supportive of myself and of the cause that I stand for. So, this will not be the appropriate time, except it is the will of God, to say I’m call­ing it quit. Even if I’m not going to be personally involved, I should continue to give a reciprocal support to those who had been very steadfast, very supportive over the years. So, within that context, let me say that I still remain in poli­tics. On the local government elections, yes, the normal thing is for them to write results. Wheth­er you vote for us or you don’t vote for us, we would write the results and that’s why we have been having hundred percent returns when the state conducts local government elections. But in a situation where the local governments are not performing, they will be doing that to their own peril as they would be working against the wish of the people. If we talk of change and the change is not yet materializing, anybody now to attempt to play on the intelligence of the people and try to block the wind of change permeating to local governments, that person must be ready for whatever will be the consequences. So, as far as I’m concerned, don’t let us die before death comes. Let’s wait for the time for local govern­ment elections, let us see those they are going to put forward from all political parties. If they are good enough, so be it; only the best is good for our people. But if they are not good enough, we shall challenge them and we have to continue the struggle until victory is achieved.