Mr. Victor Afam Ogene who represents Ogbaru federal constituency of Anambra State has blamed the Nigerian government for the increase in violence.? Speaking with journalists, the deputy chairman, House Committee on Media and public Affairs also attributed the peace enjoyed in Anambra State to the leadership style of Governor Peter Obi. RUTH CHOJI was there for LEADERSHIP WEEKEND.
There were reports of discontentment among legislators over the selection of committee chairmen and their deputies. Would you say you were satisfied with the outcome?
The first part of the question of whether I was satisfied? Yes, because we have a proverb in my place that goes thus, “Before you pinch someone, you should pinch yourself first and have a taste of how it feels.” When trying to assess someone, you should put yourself in the place of that person. In this case, the selection of chairmen and their deputy was not an easy thing. I think members of the National Assembly came here with the sole task of serving the Nigeria people. A lot of us are not after titles, we are after delivering good services to Nigerians; that was why you did not hear so much grumbling. The speaker said that as humanly possible as it can get, he would try to put round pegs in round holes by putting people in areas where they suited best. For instance, if the committee is of construction, an engineer is made the chairman, and I don’t think that any member that is in that committee will be angry.
The Constitution Review Committee has been set up, what are the main areas the committee would be concentrating on?
The process of constitution making is an on-going thing; it should be work in progress. No country picks a book and says that it has an amendment and new laws coming at the time. It is that body of laws that eventually form the constitution. In our situation, the constitution we are using as amended is not the people’s constitution. When the constitution says, “We the people,”
I find a bit of disconnect because that constitution was packaged under a military administration.
Last year, some portions of the constitution were amended, you could see the reflection, particularly in the Electoral Act we all hailed; this time around, for as long as there are yearnings for improvement in our day to day activity, the constitution will continue to be reviewed. Take for instance, the Land Use Act, it was a law promulgated under the military to give government land that could be used for developmental purposes.
Are you a proponent of state police creation and what is happening to the laws on the creation of more states?
Before independence, we had fiscal federalism; the regions as it were, were allowed to develop on its own. That was why we could have the type of development that we had, then there was no oil, the east developed with palm plantation, the west developed with cocoa, the north had groundnuts and other products, and they were all paying a token to the center.
Are you advocating a return of regionalism?
No, what I am advocating is that more money be given to the state, while the center deals with the issue I mentioned earlier – defense,? internal security and the rest; government should not go into doing business, they should create the rightful environment.
There are fears that governors could use the state police on perceived enemies?
?I am not a proponent of state police. On state governors using them to intimidate people? Yes, it will happen. In every developing society, you see pockets of that happening. But over time, people begin to adjust. Our presidential system is model after the American system, they have the state police and the FBI; you can petition when the state government uses the police to intimidate you, just like when the FBI shows up, the state police hands off. Two, crimes are localised, a criminal in my village is probably known by that people in that locality, the policeman working in that environment will know them; but in a situation where the police man has to wait to take orders from his DPO, the DPO has to wait to take orders from its area commander, that one too takes orders from the commissioner and the commissioner refers to the inspector general, that is what put impediment into crime fighting. Just like one advert puts it,
‘Criminals are not spirits, they are human beings like you and I and they live among us.’ Three, if we are afraid that governors would misuse it, someone appointed the IG, why are we not afraid that Mr. President might miss-use the IG? Of course you will see in every instance, every good law can be made bad with a bad man in power. We have seen a President who had encouraged the police to break laws. Four, we have the judiciary that we can always recourse to and they have been able to rise to the occasion in most cases.
On state creation, I talked about the imbalance in state creation, the six geo-political zones we always talked about is unconstitutional. It is not mentioned in our constitution, the zone thing came from a proposal by Chief Alex Ekweme during the 1995 constitutional conference, a lot of Nigerians have bought into it, but we have not made it a legal entity; even if we are going to adopt it as we have smilingly done, it is also imbalance. The North West has seven zones; all other zones minus the South East have six zones, leaving the South East with just five states, which I think is skewed in injustice. I think that the South East should have six states or more be created so that we can have a balance in the system.
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