Editor
……………Nigeria will forget they have oil, if mining sectors is develop
By Fatima Saka
Exclusive Interview with Minority Leader, Hon. Kingsley Ogundu Chinda, representing Obio/Akpor Constituency in the Federal House of Representative of River State (PDP) on Wednesday, spoke intensively on the development of the nation’s economy, and the political clime.
1. Question: Sir, there are insinuations from certain quarters, that the Minority in the 10th House of Representatives are not really working?
Well, it clearly depends on the angle you’re looking at it from. You know that the populace, the people want to hear when you chide any leader or leadership in it’s agenda, it will make news about the 10th assembly minority leadership.
We sat down and looked at it critically and decided that the minority position should be one that’ll add, and not just as a watchdog, but also provide credible alternatives. And then it should be a group of people that are deep thinkers. And whatever we do, our interest should be the interest of Nigeria first and foremost, not a personal interest, not for purposes of popularity, not protecting interest. And so, we have also come up with what we called Minority Caucus Agenda, which is a guide to us on what kind of opposition we should present before the House.
Ever since this government came on board. You understand that we have been grappling with economic issues, mainly survival for Nigerians with the removal of the fuel subsidy and the fiscal policy that came on board. And so for us, on the floor of the parliament, we have not opposed most of the programmes that they offer. Why? Most of these programmes are programmes that have to do with palliative with cushioning the effect of removal of subsidy on Nigerians and we cannot be seen to be opposing such programmes.
But our position has been on implementation of those programmes; how well are they implemented? What is the impact on Nigerians? Are we actually feeling the palliatives? Like I said on the floor of the House, this palliative should actually to a reasonable extent cushion the feelings of Nigerians.
So for the opposition, to answer your question clearly, it’s that we have provided credible opposition but it might be a little bit different from what you used to hear. It will not be noise without action, it will be opposition that will be effective, that will provide an alternative and at the end of the day, as politicians what do we hope to achieve sincerely, to build a better society? That’s our ultimate goal.
2. Question: How has the Sectoral engagement been in the House?
Well, so far the sectoral engagement has taken another dimension. Like I said, I was in the last assembly when we started sectoral engagements and sincerely we felt that the ministers were given 15 minutes of fame on the floor of the Parliament, and so we started to tell the leadership that that should not be the intention. We should go deep in engaging whoever appears before the Parliament. And then we must have some take home for Nigerians.
The engagement with the Service Chiefs, you saw how deep the questions were, how free people were allowed to clearly express themselves, because we know that, that’s the security sector. It’s a very delicate part of our government and our society. And that’s why we had to go into an Executive Session for them to tell us truly what is happening because every week, we have not less than two, three motions on security on the floor of the parliament. And every week we observe one minute silence for those who have been killed, who ordinarily would have been alive today. We are worried with that, and that’s why we had to take them on very deep issues, which we cannot throw open to the public. But I will tell you that it was very successful. Some of the answers were satisfactory. The areas that we disagreed with, we also made them understand that for this, we don’t agree.
I believe that if we continue with this kind of engagement, there will be a difference. The service teams will actually understand that Nigerians are interested in what is happening and the next time they will come to the house for further engagement, we expect them to tell us the report that as the last time this was where we were and today this is where we are. These are the improvements we have made. So I will say that it was a very, very big success. It was completely different from what security boots used to be.
3. Question: Talking about local content, sir you have a bill before the House. Don’t you think we need to leverage on Ajaokuta steel?
It will be difficult for us to develop without developing the steel sector because every infrastructure will depend heavily on steel and so as long as you continue to import steel, it will be difficult to develop local industries, car manufacturing industries, and several aspects of construction you requested. And so, attention will be given to that sector very strongly, as much as attention will be given to power. Now back to the bill. I pray that that bill sees the light of day
If you look at the oil sector today, some of the oil companies are beginning to backtrack. Why? The local content is bringing in our locals into that field. Nigerians are beginning to participate, they are beginning to be big players in the oil sector because of the local content. What we are saying in that, the gain made in the oil sector, there is a need for us to start early to make the same gain in other sectors – ICT, Agriculture, construction and every facet of our economy. Encourage Nigerians to be big players in these sectors, not just to import but build manpower. But technology, and even the hardware and software. If we say a percentage of this must be localised or ABC must be given to locals. It means that we must begin to develop our local capacity from day one.
The mining that’s going on in some parts of northern Nigeria today, if we develop it, I’m sure that very soon we will forget that we had oil because you have precious stones that are more valuable than oil that will fetch the country more money than oil.
Well, they’re all lying there. And because they are not organized today they are being stolen. You have people come from outside the country to illegally mine them. The cost is of no value to the country. So what we are trying to say is not just myself, you agree that that bill was sponsored by myself and 38 other members and I can tell you that more members are even interested in seeing that it passed into law. And my prayer is once it is passed and implementation starts, we’ll see massive development in the country. We’ll also see issues of employment generation. I mean, the crisis will have to do with the security issues and that to me if part of the reasons is that people are unemployed. People are hungry, it’s poverty which leads to some of this crisis.
What if you provide a proper avenue for people to generate money? I don’t think that anybody will want to go into crime if you have the opportunity of making money legitimately. And so that is one of the things that this bill will do for this country. However, it will be open to public hearing.
4. Question: Former President Goodluck Jonathan has called for the scraping of off-cycle elections, what’s your take on this?
There is already a bill that we’re processing to unify the electoral system. So I agree with the former President Goodluck Jonathan. The off-cycle election has not been helpful to us. If you look at it critically, it is just for the benefit of the individual involved. Not just the larger society. You have a situation where you begin to plan for elections almost all year round. And if we continue that way Nigeria will continue to be in election in the next four years, because we expect that we’ll have more off-cycle elections as elections are being nullified by the judiciary and fresh elections conducted.
Yesterday, some people were sworn in. So if we go by that trend, what it means is that they will come after us. So I think that the proper thing for us to do is both the legislature and the executive, at any point in time that you are sworn in, at the end of the term, everybody goes and the election is conducted. So I agree with Jonathan that there is a need for us to look inwards. Let us completely scrub off-cycle elections.
5. Question: You said the House is working on harmonizing elections. But we all know that we copied from the American system and in America, they have what is called Midterm elections, is the bill incorporating something similar?
Well, that bill is still being crafted in the office. So I don’t want to start wading into the details at this stage until it comes on the floor of the House. But I can assure that most of the issues you raised are actually the concern that the bill intends to address. Of course, you know that legislation is work in progress, it cannot be perfect, there’s room for amendment. But it’s in progress. We’re crafting the amendments to the Electoral Act. And that is one area that is being considered once it is laid before the house for first reading, second reading, then we’ll go into the nitty gritty, okay.
6. Question: How does the House intend to make education and research attractive and affordable?
But clearly education is not cheap. It’s not cheap. As a person, I believe, yes, that everybody should have access to education. But I also don’t believe that the quality of education can improve with the meager budget given to it. It’s not possible. Let me give you an example. We all go out of this country to get education elsewhere, where we feel we can get a better education.
How much do you pay for it? What is the cost of school fees in London? What is the cost in Canada? How much do we pay to send our children to Ghana? If you pay the same in Nigeria, you will get the same quality education. But ordinarily, when you provide cheap education you are likely to get cheap knowledge because you need money to equip the laboratories and bring them up to standard. So for me from the minority end, perhaps before the budget is fully debated, we’ll need to look at every sector, look at internationally accepted standards for education, for health and all that and see how well Nigeria is completely compliant with them.
7. Question: At the plenary yesterday, the Chief of Defence Staff blamed the judiciary for insecurity in Nigeria, what’s your take?
The Judiciary can’t be blamed for the insecurity but what I keep saying is that all of us have contributed in one way or the other, all of us, including the legislature, so it will be wrong to point accusing fingers at one person. Now I will give you an example. If you are detained today for any crime, I’m sure that your colleagues, if they think that I have the contact to help you, will come to me to persuade me to help. And if the judge is perhaps my brother and I cry to him, he will help.
If you blame the judge, you forgot about those who came to me, you forgot about myself who went to him. So it’s a cyclical motive. And that’s why I keep saying that, look, we all need to be properly enlightened. We all need to look at society first. But if I have in mind that what you have done is wrong then you will be punished just to deter others from doing the same thing. When we set you free, other members of the association will also develop some level of impunity to say if it happens, there will be people who run around for me. So you can’t blame the Judiciary for insecurity. No, that would be completely wrong.
Minority Leader, Hon. Kingsley Ogundu Chinda, the lawmaker Born on the 24 March 1966, is Nigerian politician and member of the Nigerian National Assembly. Representing Obio/Akpor Constituency in the Federal House of Representative.
