Rep. Mark Gbilah, APC Gwer/Gwer East federal constituency in the House of Representatives in this interview speaks on the crisis that engulfed the present House of Representatives and the contention for political offices in his native Benue State. Excerpts:
By Peter Duru
There are fears that the last has not been heard of the crisis in the House of Representatives?
The agitation before the election of the other principal officers of the House was also amicably resolved. I just want to assure Nigerians that this House is united, it is not business as usual. We are not going to be a rubber stamp legislature. Even though we are the party in power, we believe in upholding the rule of law. And where we believe that our party is erring we will insist on what is right. That is the only way we can help Mr. President and also help our party.
Are you satisfied with the calibre of men and women screened by the Senate to be ministers?
Before answering that question ,I want to comment on the contentions and misinterpretations of a lot of things by my brothers from the other tribes in my state, because of the comments I made recently which I want to clarify.
I want to state on record that those who know me know that I’m the most detribalized person of all. Some of my best friends are Idoma from other tribes. Right now my best friend is not Tiv.
So I’ll be the last person to canvass the suppression of the minority because in the nation as a whole, the Tiv people are in the minority, so I won’t be encouraging anything like that.
What I was trying to say, let me start from that premise, with regards to the compilation of the ministerial list is that there are certain things that we have to evolve into.And that particularly has to do with the governor of the state.
I’m one of those who had also canvassed that we give the other minorities opportunity to also participate. But in all of these, whether we like it or not, democracy is a game of participation and numbers and there is a lot of compensation even in countries we are copying from.
Now, what I tried to mention which our leader in the party, Senator George Akume threw more light on in a TV programme, is the fact that the substantive ministerial position in the last dispensation, for eight years domiciled in Idoma land, at that time majority of the support for the ruling party came from that zone, that’s the fact.
And at that time too, they had the Senate President. And because of the skewed nature of our government there is more power at the centre, so usually we need to have a federal presence so that you can also try to assist your own community.
That is the whole essence of the principle of federal character that is enshrined in our constitution. So if you want to uphold our constitution I felt that yes we know we have the Governor but will we continue to be denied that federal position that we also need to impact our people because we are the majority? These are the issues we can’t help at the moment.
Equity is not just about you having the governor, so you have to concede the other position. You also need that contribution to your area. There is a limit to what a governor can do within a state.
And that is why usually even at the state level there is concession, even the Deputy Governor is from Idoma, so we need to also look at that. We can also accuse them of oppressing the Igede and others because the Igede which is in the Idoma area have never emerged anything near the Senate level.
In view of the imbalance you’re talking of, do you look at the possibility of the President increasing the number of the ministerial slots to address the imbalance?
No I don’t believe that politics is all about compensation or federal character. Already our Constitution is rather ambiguous in the issue of Ministerial appointments.
Constitutional amendments
That provision of the constitution says that we require one Minister from each state of the federation in an administration, but it did not say it should be all at one time in the administration. It could have staggered it.
Our lawyers should look at that and the House is ready to look at that constitutional amendment if it’s within the ambit of the law. Because we are all crying for the reduction of expenditure, we cannot start adding additional ministers we are totally against that. 36 is even too much actually.
Some keep complaining of the National Assembly but you never stop to look at the retinue of staff of the Minister.
The cost of the maintenance of the office of the minister. It’s quite capital intensive to the nation. So I do not believe in the Minister of State arrangement, in fact the present 36 ministers is too much. That constitutional provision needs to be looked into for possible amendment. For instance, I’m bringing a bill for the inclusion of Card Readers in our Electoral Act.
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