Hon. Odeneye Kehinde, popularly
called ‘’Ok is Okay’’, represents Ijebu Central Federal Constituency comprising
Ijebu Ode, Odogbolu and Ijebu North East, at the House of Representatives. He
hails from Ogbogbo and graduated from Lagos State University. He is a Fellow of
the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, ICAN. In this interview, he speaks on pay cut for lawmakers among other issues.
Excerpts;
Can you tell us about your
journey into politics
Before 2011, I hated
politics with passion but, one day, I realised I could continue to stay
at the background criticising politicians for no cause and I made up my mind to
identify our problems and proffer solutions.
In September 2010, we attended a
social function in the village where I met some of our zonal leaders and the
first thing that came to mind was to advise them on the need to choose the
right candidates for the 2011 elections. All I told them was ‘I hope you guys
will choose those who can represent us well this time around,’ but to my
astonishment, one of them said, ‘look, we have been discussing you all this
while and we feel you have all it takes to represent us at the House of
Representatives’’. My intention was to assist them in my own capacity to get
the right candidate but I ended up being picked as the candidate and this beat
my imagination. I told my wife what transpired thinking she will kick against
the idea but, to my consternation, she gave me her support. Another interesting
part of it is that, I could not boast of N100,000 in my bank account but,
miraculously, I ended up spending millions of Naira for my campaign.
President Muhammadu Buhari
apparently began his fight against corruption by advocating for a special court
to try offenders. What is your take?
I want to congratulate Nigerians
for having President Muhammadu Buhari who has something in mind that he was
unable to complete before his regime was overthrown in 1985. God intentionally
allowed him to be voted into power at a time Nigerians have lost hope of a
better tomorrow. It is true that many people have tagged him ‘’Baba go slow’’
all in his bid to fight corruption.
The issue is that he came at a
time Nigeria cannot boast of any meaningful development than oil and, gradually,
the nation has grown from boom to doom. I wholeheartedly support his war
against corruption and I know this will attract criticism because Nigerians are
not used to this kind of war having been governed by one party for over 16
years. Many Nigerians have resigned to fate and this gave PDP members the
opportunity to rule the way they liked.
We have been putting our trust in
the cloud but God later blessed us with President Buhari. We must wage war against corruption and that
is what Buhari is doing.
The special court is necessary to
give room for accelerated hearing, the President wants incorruptible judges to
this effect. If we don’t fight this war now, when are we going to do so ?
This is a country where an
individual can boast of foreign currencies which can compete with the budget of
a nation.
Mr President made some promises
during his campaign. Do you see him fulfilling them by 2019?
I can assure you he is going to
fulfil them but Nigerians should exercise patience with him because there are
so many projects to work on. I am so glad to work with such a man who
appreciates the problems on ground and takes time to study them. There are many
companies who want to partner Nigeria in some programmes but they want to be
assured of our readiness. They want to be convinced their investment will grow
well before investing their resources. If those platforms are not provided, how
will such partnership come into being? All what he is doing is to prepare the
minds of Nigerians that he is in for a change. When everybody follows the rule
of the law, Nigeria will be safe for all of us.
Some people are of the opinion
that some of those around Mr President also have their hands soiled. Do you
agree?
You cannot judge a person as
being corrupt without presenting the evidence but he has assured there won’t be
sacred cows as the laws are not made for
the opposition party alone but for all Nigerians.
He said we are going to fight
corruption in totality, even among party members, let’s not forget that we have
the judiciary to do the job.
There is a proposal to cut
lawmakers’ pay by 30 percent. What do
you say?
President Buhari does not have
the power to slash salaries. He cannot
even slash his personal salary because there is the Revenue and Fiscal
Mobilisation Commission to determine our salaries and remuneration. When
reports said President Buhari was going to slash salaries, I was
surprised. On the Revenue Commission can
come up with recommendations that have to be tabled and discussed.
For those saying that members of
the National Assembly earn so much here and there, I will seize this
opportunity to educate them. When the head of the Revenue Commission spoke, he
said the proposal was that no member of the National Assembly will earn more
than N1,000,000. The truth of the matter is that even during my first tenure, I
did not earn up to N1,000,000. All allowances including wardrobe allowance will
be deducted from our salaries. Abuja is the most expensive place to be and this
is where the senators are expected to live.
All agencies, parastatals and
ministries have their own allowances. I wonder why people are not talking about
the judiciary and the parastals but the lawmakers. May I state categorically
that there is accommodation problem in Abuja and what this means is that the
senators are left with the choice of lodging in hotels or renting apartments
apart from the capital expenditure that is usually incurred by the lawmaker.
Have you forgotten that many of us pay medical bills for people in our various
constituencies and organise empowerment programmes?
Credit: Vanguard
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