Senate Minority Whip, Abiodun Olujimi, who has thrown her hat in the ring to run for governor of Ekiti State, berates the performance of the Buhari administration in two years. The 60-year-old senator representing Ekiti South senatorial district, also dissects the PDP leadership crisis, in this interview with KAYODE FASUA
The Buhari administration is now two years old. What is your honest assessment of the performance of the National Assembly, especially the Senate?
We thank God for how far we have come; and since we started this democratic arrangement, it has not been a smooth ride, but it has not been bad. Over the years, the National Assembly has been at the forefront of holding firm the democratic tenets and that is the reason most of the people want to be legislators because it is only if you have a voice and if you have a say that you can make a difference. I will not say the National Assembly has attained the utmost, but for this experiment they’ve done well, they’ve passed bills that are very instrumental to the development and the deepening of our democracy, they’ve passed laws that have shaped the nation, they’ve been able to impact positively on the lives and the development of the people of Nigeria and I believe that is what the National Assembly and especially the Senate, is set up for.
So many human rights activists have criticized the National Assembly for increasing their own votes in this 2017 budget. Do you think the action of the legislature is justifiable?
I don’t believe that the National Assembly or the Senate will ever do anything that is unjust. The truth is, over the years, they have been on a regular N125bn and while everyone Continued ON page 20 Buhari’s govt has no clear blueprint – Senator Olujimi increased, the National Assembly decreased. Nothing that they are doing has been decreased. In fact, they have upped their ante and they have added so many things to what they’ve been doing. The institution pays so many people and it has other parastatals under it. Because of that, people have to be paid, their needs have to be met, more than anything else, there has to be outreach. And other than payment of salaries, they’ve got to perform oversight functions and it is oversight that cost so much money because you need to take so many people for so many days to look at so many parastatals and their workings. They need funds to do that and to do several public hearings for the different laws and the different bills that come out of the place. Nigeria has had constant increase in prices of goods and exchange rate fluctuations. The National Assembly is not immune to that. With the different increases and the different prices, there is the need to also add something small to what they are getting. What we got before was N115bn; it has just been increased by N10bn, that is the increase and that, I believe, is not too much because it is less than 10% of the total.
Some political observers believe that the PDP lawmakers in the National Assembly, especially the Senate, are calling the shots because of the working arrangement between your party and the Senate President, Bukola Saraki. Do you agree with this?
That is not true. The truth is, the Senate is the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. It is not the Senate of the Federal Republic of any of the parties and so when you get there, as a lawmaker and an elder statesman, you must work harmoniously with everyone because you are there to ensure the development of Nigeria, the deepening of democracy and of course, the growth of the economy; going against everything does not make it worthwhile. You need at all times to find a balance and that is what we have been doing. We have been finding balance, we have been speaking out when we believe that, that balance will hurt the ordinary people of Nigeria, because it is the ordinary people that really matter in everything that we do and we are focused on that.
What is your position on the ailing health of our President, vis-à-vis the call for his resignation?
I think the call for resignation is really not necessary. I believe everyone will get ill at one point or the other, none of us is immune to illness. I want to wish the President well and pray that he gets well. However, the only way we have not done well is because, being a public office holder, there is the need to come clean on the status of his health, but everything has been shrouded in secrecy. What happens most times is when everything is shrouded in secrecy; people read unnecessary meanings into them. The minutes we know he is ill or he has this, we know that he’s not a young man, we know he’s elderly. When he was being voted for, people knew that he would always have the ailment of the elderly and so we were not expecting him to be like a 40-year-old but there is a need for the people to know and to have a kind of summary of what is happening, where we are going and how long we are going to ebb there. That is what I believe has gone wrong and it is not too late to correct that because, this is a nation of good human beings; people who are well-wishers and so they won’t want him injured. But there is the need to come open with his ailment and the time we will have to wait for him to get well and where we are now.
Two years down the line, the dollar is yetto stabilise, the economy is yet to come out of the recession we ran into. Right now, we do not have a clear blueprint of what this government is about
Coming to mid-term performance, this is two years into a tenure of four years. How will you rate the performance of the Muhammed Buhari administration?
For me, this government has not done well. What we have had is a huge fluctuation of the economy. The reason for which this government was voted in was that the people felt that the economy was drifting and there was a need to stabilise it and in stabilising, two years is a good enough time to stabilise any economy. We should not have gone into recession. The truth is that the government came in without clear ideas as to what was available in the coffers, although they have made promises that could never be met and the reason is simple, they were talking from the outside; they were not seeing the entire picture. They saw a parallax and they thought it was the real thing. When they came in, they now saw that it was not teaparty and so it took some time before they could also on their own stabilise and that period, the economy had already gone astray and bringing it back to even what it was became very tough. Two years down the line, the dollar is yet to stabilise, the economy is yet to come out of the recession we ran into. Right now, we do not have a clear blueprint of what this government is about; we don’t know where they are going, we don’t have milestones of programmes to be achieved, we do not know what we should expect in year one, we don’t know what year two holds for us. Year three is in oblivion and that is the reason for which I say this government has not done well. Right now, everybody is supposedly working but working on what? That is the big question. Are we working only on stabilising the economy? Where are we on agriculture, infrastructure development, on the issue of forex and on so many other issues of governance? It is not enough to come into government and keep the government warm on propaganda. We need concrete issues and results, we need to know that this government, in year one, was able to achieve this, in year two, this is our projection and this is where we are going and let us have an evaluation of what year two has brought. Did we meet our expectations? Did we meet them 50%, did we meet them 30%? Where are we going from here? Are we expected to meet them 100% in year three? I thought that a government that rode on the crest of good governance and on the crest of anticorruption should be able to tell us all these for us to know that they are a government to be reckoned with. In fact, what have we done about anticorruption? Where are we? Where are we on these issues? We need to know what we have collected, what have we not collected? What are we expecting? These fine grains make a good government. A good government must be accountable to the people and being accountable means, you will have a programme, you will follow the programme tenaciously and you will be able to give a feedback on what your programme has achieved, but this government has not been able to do that in two years and that’s half term.
In the light of the recent coup scare, what is your candid advice to the mili- tary authorities?
I think there is the need to put an eye on the armed forces because coups are no longer fashionable and for a country where we have sustained democracy for so long, it will not portray us in good light if there is a coup. This is the most populous African nation, it is the most populous black nation in the world and the richest. We should lead by example; we should not retrogress. Coup will be retrogression. But beyond that, we also need to talk to government. For the past 10 to 15 years, I have not heard of plans of coups; the reason is simple: people were happy, the economy was buoyant and there was hope for the masses. The government needs to build hope and confidence in the ordinary man because when people are sure that things will be better and things are on the way to improve, they will not want to deviate, go and look for extreme solutions because a coup is an extreme solution to the problem at hand. When the people are hungry and there is nothing in the horizon to show them that somebody is thinking about them, when there is nobody talking to them and feeling their pulse, ensuring that they understand the nitty-gritty of what is happening and they have hope for tomorrow, then something is wrong.
Your party, the PDP is currently embroiled in leadership crisis. Without prejudice to the appeal in the Supreme Court, what is your advice on the way out?
I think many people have said it before. The PDP is a great party and it should not be allowed to die and I believe that with the belief of certain sections of the party, it will never die. The party has come a long way. Most people in this country have been able to have a voice and be who they are because of the benevolent nature of that party. It is one party where you can be yourself and the sky is your beginning. I believe that is one reason everyone wants to hold on to the party. People have been talking about political solutions; whichever way it goes, whichever way the Supreme Court goes, there is a need for us to also work together and ensure that there is no divide because it is easier when we all work together than when we are apart. I believe and I am begging our leaders and elders of that party to k i n d l y sink emotions/ ego (because there is plenty of ego trip in these matters); look for the goodness that can be shared by all, especially the people who have been our followers in the last 17 to 18 years, who are also hoping to use that platform to actualise their dream.
I believe…I have what it takes to contest (the governorship) seat…I have been a deputy governor, commissioner for works, SA to the governor; so I know how the executive arm functions. If it is legislative experience, I have been to the House of Representatives, am currently in the Senate and by the grace of God, the deputy minority whip
It is learnt that you have interest in the governorship race of your state, Ekiti. What informed your interest?
Well, you know, most of these things are about your followers, the people you interact with who believe in you and believe that if you have done this little, you can do more. I believe I also have what it takes to contest that seat. If it is the executive side, I have been a deputy governor, I have been commissioner for works, I have been an SA to the governor; so I know how the executive arm functions. If it is legislative experience, I have been to the House of Representatives, I am currently in the Senate and by the grace of God, the deputy minority whip of the Senate. Therefore, I have experience in the legislature. If it’s the party, I have been national publicity secretary of two major political parties. So, I have experience on that level, which means I can bring all three to work well for the people. Coupled with the fact that I love my people and my state, and the love of your people will bring about development because you must think about them, you must alleviate their problems, you must ensure that there is development and you bring about programmes that will better the lot of the majority of the state. I believe with experience spanning these three sectors, that I can bring to bear, I will probably be the best they’ve ever had. However, there is a proviso. I belong to a political party, I have a current governor, a sitting governor that is working very hard and is making great strides in Ekiti State. I believe in him and I believe in the party. There is a need for the party to call the shots because I believe in justice, fair play, a level playing field and I know that when the time is right and the party calls for such nominations, I will be able to put myself forward, but I am waiting for the governor and the party.
