Senator Dahiru Kuta (PDP, Niger East) is a radical, yet unassuming politician. He had always been in the opposition in his home state until of recent when he found himself as member of the ruling party. He single-handedly sponsored a private Bill that gave birth to the HYPPADEC which aimed at funding the power generated states in the country, a replica of what NDDC is to the oil producing states. In this chat with BAYO OLADEJI, he bares his mind on the state of the nation on issues ranging from tenure elongation, budget implementation, epileptic power? supply among others. ?
The National Assembly was in the news in the last dispensation for bad reasons as people were saying members were insensitive to their yearnings and aspirations. With the take-off of the seventh assembly, would there be any difference this time around?
The National Assembly are the real representatives of the people even in the last session. I believe we were representing their interests and their aspirations all through, particularly our constituencies. Even in the last Senate ,we came here ready to work for the people of this nation and we did that to the best of our ability. And this time around, the collection of people that we have in the National Assembly today is the collection of those who are versed in so many areas of endeavour and you could see this in the robust contribution to debates and issues on the floor of the National Assembly. And I can assure you that this time around, there is going to be a tremendous improvement from the record of the past assembly and we are going to be more responsive to the yearnings and aspirations of the people.
So, we are ready and we have always been ready to ensure that the welfare of the people remains our priority. We would ensure that there is peace, progress and unity of this country more than ever before. We are to see Nigeria first before any other thing, I think we are all ready for that. The atmosphere has already been created with the caliber of leadership that we have put in place. Though the committee leaderships have not been put in place, but it would be done as soon as we resume. But with a leadership that is focused , leadership that is committed, leadership that is ready to bring all of us together for the purpose of bringing a lot of succour to the people of this great country.
Your home state, Niger used to be a stronghold of the PDP until of recent when the CPC made an inroad into the state and almost caused a political earthquake. What would you say was responsible for this development?
It has always been so in Niger State, opposition parties normally make inroads despite the fact that the state government has done a lot, but Niger State is a conglomeration of so many interests, that is why we always see these type of things.
A particular section of the state always feels agitated, one way or the order, whether they have been well taken care of or not, whether development has reached their areas or not and if you look at the history of some sections of Niger State, it is a collection of people that have been in touch with the politics of the old days. So, they are always fault finders and they are always yearning for change.? In many cases, when that happened, you would realised the parties that were used as opposition in the end would just be a flash in the pan. It not by accident that the CPC has one or two seats in the National Assembly, but that does not mean the CPC has a lot of support in Niger.
By the time of next election, things would become be clearer, you would see what will happen during the coming local government elections, you would realize that CPC is never a threat to the PDP. Not only in Niger, it is all over the country, many people just wanted a change for the sake of change after that they would realise that particular change was not actually required, so, they would return back to the fold. This was what actually happened even in Minna during the election for the House of
Representatives member where PDP lost due to mere sentiments that someone has been in the House for a long time. It is not that because he has not performed, but they wanted a change. Like in any other places, where you have the ruling party, the opposition would always be taking a critical approach to the state government.
Throughout my political career until of recent, I usually identified with the opposition, and I always have more to say against the ruling party because they have been tested, I have not been tested, so I have more advantages to hit sat them and the moment you hit at them, people would be happy. Once you mobilised them, people would be with you. When I brought the PRP to Niger State, I was the state chairman and I contested for the senatorial seat, I knew that I actually won the election but unfortunately, the election was overturned against me, but all the same, I produced the only the PRP member of the National Assembly the party had throughout the country in Niger State. So, it has always been like that. Minna, the state capital has always been identified with the opposition, we have always won our election on the side of the opposition, the same thing in Kontagota area, they are always identified with the opposition, they are very politically conscious, they would critically examine your manifestoes and program before they would decide to vote for you or not.
In the spate of bombings rocking the northern part of the country, Niger had its own taste in Suleja shortly before the last general elections and another one after. What would say was largely responsible for the insecurity of lives and property in Nigeria?
The first bomb blast that took place in Suleja happened on the day of my flag off campaign for the senatorial election and everybody knew very well that my strongest base in the state was Suleja and that was the reason why people felt I was the one they were targeting and because of that, people felt that things are beginning to change for the worst, but they don’t understand that what happened was a peculiar one.
Since 1975, with the relocation of the federal capital from Lagos to Abuja, we began to see changes, influx of people from all walks of life into Suleja, different people, different culture with different approaches to issues.
And one of the remote causes of this violence is unemployment in the country, people from these different backgrounds who relocated to Suleja began to influence the people and had actually brought strange things into the community noted for its peaceful atmosphere. The none indigenes are now more than the indigenes and that is why we can see people who can handle local bombs and people who are selling Indian hemp and other hard drugs, people who have been to so many other vices.
So, Suleja is now seeing some strange things happening there. With the pressure on the infrastructure, people are now finding it difficult to stay in Suleja, because there are so much pressure on the infrastructure provided by the state government, they have been so overstretched that so many attendant problems have to follow.
On a larger scale, the whole country with the problem of unemployment, the problem of poverty, people have found so many other ways to feed themselves. When you get to Borno State where you talked of Boko Haram, they are doing so not because they want to propagate Islam or to purify it, but the troublemakers see people they can recruit to carry out their nefarious activities that were created by some social factors.?
People have gone to school without jobs for them, so they are now saying education that could not give them jobs is a haram, it is illegal, it is illegitimate and that is what the Boko Haram is all about. So, they capitalised on the army of unemployed youths to cause havocs all over the place. I think people are becoming more and more frustrated. And the propensity to accumulate wealth in the country is another problem, the propensity to be ostentatious is bringing a lot of frustration, particularly in the North, where poverty has eaten deeper than anywhere else, it has been very difficult.?
Start from the North come down, desert encroachment is very fast coming down and in the process, people are getting out of job. Particularly 70 per cent of our people in the north are farmers, now that there is a desert encroachment is taking over all the fertile land, there is an increase in insecurity and armed robbery.
Look at Lake Chad, Lake Chad only has one type of the volume of the water we used to have in that place, people who were using it for irrigation farming had to move away from that place for other things to do because irrigations they were used to are no longer possible, because the volume of water is too much. So, it is a multiplicity of problems, hydra-headed so much that it would be difficult for us to begin to talk about the Boko Haram without looking exactly at the root of the matter.
How do we solve the problem of unemployment?? The skill acquisition program all over the country by the NDE, and the NDDC has not achieved much, and if it has achieved much, most of them would go into welding even at that? where do you have enough power??
One day, you would see a revolution taking place; we are not too far from revolution because when you begin to see people getting frustrated and agitated, the common man would have nothing to do but to attack you. That is why because of unemployment, we now have the professional looters. People who are just ready to take advantage of a small crisis, to start attacking shops. There is very little element of religion in all these crises and violence we are witnessing in the country.?
The whole city of Mecca is consuming about 5000 megawatts of electricity, that is what we have not been able to produce in Nigeria. Look at Heathrow airport, it is consuming about 4000 to 5000megawatts of electricity. The whole country cannot even generate up to 3000 megawatts of electricity. The 1330 megawatts we are expecting from Egbin power outstation in Lagos, it has not been able to generate up to 400 megawatts because along the line, the pipelines used were vandalised. The Shiroro that is supposed to be producing 650 megawatts, Jebba 580 megawatts and Kainji 750 megawatts cannot do that because of lack of maintenance culture.
The Turn Around Maintanenance is not there. Money is set aside for this, but it does not take place so, in the end, what do we get out of 1950 megawatts that we supposed to provide and that is about 50% of the power being generated in the country, we cannot get up to 700 megawatts out of these three hydro power stations. The Appar power station near Port-Harcourt, cannot produce up 800 megawatts but we can get up to 300 megawatts. 50 per cent of the job opportunities required power supply and this is the problem. Iran of about 75 million people is producing 60,000 megawatts of the electricity and it requires only 40,000 megawatts for its own use and the remaining 20,000 is exported. Brazil with about 180m people is producing over 100,000 megawatts of electricity. So, once you can have that, everything can follow.
…(cuts in) but wait a minute if money voted for the turn around maintenance (tam) is diverted then what are you people doing with your oversight function? A few days ago, you were probing the BPE and you had done several in the past, what are you doing with your reports?
I do not want to sound alarming but if I tell you that I have not seen a clean copy of the 2011 budget you would not believe me. Now look at the whole situation, by today the 2012 budget is supposed to be placed before the National Assembly, but we have not heard anything about the 2012 budget and by the time it comes, it would come as an envelope of what were allocating to each sector, we don’t allocate money. The Presidency would allocate N70 billion to Ministry of Power and you can hardly say yes, this is enough or not enough, by the time you it is not enough, by the time you increase it, the President may refuse to sign the budget into law!
Of course, we can veto it but it is not as easy as that. Because there are so many variables involved, and it would be difficult to get the two-third needed to veto it. So, the issue generally is that the National Assembly has little impact on the budget, we have attempted several times to do that but, in many cases, the presidency would not sign that budget. And what happens is that the budget would be returned to us politely and asks us “to look at it again that this is the way we want it because this is the amount of money we have.”
You have spoken about the BPE probe. Yes, there is nowhere in the Constitution where motions from the National Assembly are binding on the Executive. All the resolutions of our motions are not binding on the Executive. This is just for you and me to know that Nigeria has a lot of money but Nigerians have also spent the money the way they want it and this is what is killing the country. But this time around, the EFCC and ICPC would be on ground to take note of what we have been able to discover from this probe, after all they have given all the powers required to continue where we have stopped. Actually, the committee has done a thorough work and it is only the implementation that remains and once you have an enabling environment they would have no problem.
Already, we have seen what is happening between the Attorney-General of the Federation and the Minister of Justice and the Chairman of the EFCC, when you go to China, you go to Hong Kong and other areas where you have put in place similar agencies, they report directly to the President unfortunately again, they would tell you that we did that for (former President Olusegun) Obasanjo and Obasanjo was using the EFCC was using them to chase his political enemies, if not, they are not to be under anybody but the President but again I am beginning to see if it is possible for us to make another amendment on the provision of law establishing EFCC and the ICPC if there is any way they could be more independent by reporting directly to the President.
And this time around, the President should be honest enough not to use them to witch hunt anybody, or to victimize anybody but as long as they would still be operating under the Ministry of Justice, they would still be having problems performing their duties.? This is because section 174 of the Constitution allows the Attorney-General of the Federation to stop any prosecution against anybody at any stage so that it is not strange you found an Attorney-General to do that.
In Niger state, you have one policy that is unique on the way the governorship is being rotated among the three senatorial zones; don’t you see the need of bringing same into the constitution in order to address the political tension we always have in an election year? Is there any harm in making the rotational presidency part of the proposed constitutional amendment?
I think the problem with us now is that we want to be making the same mistake we made during the Obasanjo regime. There were beautiful proposed amendments to the Constitution unfortunately what was put before us was the tenure elongation, so, that was why we threw the water and the baby out gabadaya. So I am beginning to hear that in the amendments they are proposing now, they also want to look into this problem of rotation, from the senatorial districts even to down to the Local government level.
Once that one is entrenched in the Constitution, that would be very good and unfortunately what they are putting before us is the unpopular tenure elongation and which may lead us to throw away the whole package. I am a member of the constitutional amendment committee but I know that once we being to think about the issue of tenure elongation for six or seven years and without thinking of other proposal to amend the Constitution, in the end what we are talking about, we may not be able to achieve. If the rotation is entrenching in the Constitution, it would give everybody a sense of belonging when power is moving from one section to the other. Section 44 (2) of the Constitution asks that every appointment must take into consideration various interests within a state. I supposed this should be entrenched in our Constitution. But whether it is done or not, Niger State has that unwritten constitution guiding the rotation of the governorship and there is no way somebody that can say no to it especially from the ruling party. You cannot just reverse it. Now that zone B is having its turn, it would soon be the turn of zone C.
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Where do you stand on the six year single tenure? If the executive has any hidden agenda, are you saying the national assembly cannot amend the constitution in a way that would foil the plan?
I cannot be categorical on the matter for now because the executive has not come out to tell us why this should be. They need to convince Nigerians why there should be tenure elongation. They should not create an environment for a dictator, somebody who is going to be there for only one term does not care about what comes in later. They are saying there has been so much acrimony during election because somebody wanted to return to the office but what stops him from also fighting hard to sponsor a person he wants him to succeed him?
The acrimony they are talking about would still be there. And they are saying that the presidential candidate should not spend more than one billion Naira for his campaign.? Why don’t we first ensure that you don’t spend too much money during the campaign? The problem is that we do not have some machinery in place to take care of all these things. What people are saying is this is not our problem and I quite agreed to that. What concerns the common man is where to sleep, what to do, what to wear and what to eat. We need to re-orientate ourselves to be sensitive to the yearning and aspiration of our people. To say that two terms would bring acrimony and too much spending of electioneering campaign does not make sense.
What you need to do is to find means of enforcing the electoral law. Once this is done, the rest is small. There are provisions for the maximum of what a candidate should spend. Personally speaking, for or against, I have not taken a stand but I am telling you that that is not the solution. One single tenure of four years is not enough to make a good impact on the people and making it seven years tenure would encourage dictatorship.