Despite being the youngest senator at the National Assembly in this current dispensation, Senator Nurudeen Abatemi-Usman (Kogi Central, PDP) comes across like a fearless politician, especially when it comes to expressing issues that border on the welfare of the country. In this interview with Chibuzo Ukaibe, Abatemi-Usman who is also the vice chairman, Senate Committee on Niger Dealta, explains his private member bill, titled: ‘Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (Further Alteration) Bill’ which scaled through first reading on the floor of the Red Chamber.
WHAT MOTIVATED YOUR SPONSORSHIP OF THE CONSTITUTION AMENDMENT BILL WHICH SEEKS FINANCIAL AUTONOMY FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT COUNCILS?
My position as a grassroots politician who is close to my people at home and the fact that the last three local government chairmen of my local government have been personal friends gave me the hindsight to know the shortchanging that comes at the end of every month after the monthly allocation by the FAAC in Abuja and advertisement of allocations due every state and every local government, and what at the end of the day the local government areas in my community report as their actual dues after the joint state and local government accounts. Being that close, and seeing how much the joint account is being abused, how much fraud it is subjected to, I concluded that if I ever had the chance, I will not hesitate to move for a statutory change because the essence of the system we operate, the three-tier system with the local government being at the base, being the nearest to the people and aimed at bringing about the impact of actual governance to the people and the base communities is being completely defeated and completely negated. With the way it is now, it is not working. And one of the reasons it is not working is that the local governments are greatly hampered by the non-remittance of the figures actually written against their names and what they really get at the end of the day. This is what motivated me to push for this constitutional point and incidentally, it is the first constitutional matter coming up on the floor of this seventh Senate by way of a bill.
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ASIDE THE FINANCIAL AUTONOMY CALL FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENTS; IS THERE NO NEED FOR THEIR TOTAL AUTONOMY AS AN INDEPENDENT TIER OF GOVERNMENT?
I can’t agree less with you. We run a federation with federating units and three tiers of government: the federal, state and local governments. I have no doubt in my mind that the local governments, particularly, have been at the receiving end. They are almost muzzled out of existence really because of the way the law has been structured before now, which is exactly the reason I am pushing for this change. Actually, it isn’t only in the area of financial autonomy that local governments need to be able to breathe more easily. They also need other forms of aid. The way and manner we have structured the emergence of local government councils is one of the issues in point by which you can make them breathe more easily. For instance, local government elections are controlled by statutory bodies known as the State Independent Electoral Commissions which in turn are controlled totally by a single man in the name of a governor, and he isn’t helping the natural emergence of a truly independent people who have ideas of how to go about running the local councils in complement of the state govt. So, it is not only the issue of financial autonomy that needs to be addressed, such issues as to how local government chairmen and councilors emerge, through which body, should it be a state electoral body or should we go back to when one electoral body was organising it throughout the federation? All these are very crucial issues as well. But I feel it is necessary to start from this point and perhaps one or two more colleagues of mine may now join me and find a new push for amendment that will ultimately strengthen and make the local government system deliver on the true objective of why we had to have a federating unit that is close to the people.
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CONSIDERING THE OVERBEARING INFLUENCE OF STATE GOVERNORS ON LG CHAIRMEN, HOW CAN LOCAL GOVERNMENTS BE WEANED FROM THEIR APRON STRINGS?
This is exactly what we seek to do. What we have now at the local government is not in its true meaning, a federating unit. It is so because you are not a government, if you are not able to provide some basic things. And chief of all, the resources needed to provide these basic things as a government is funding… it is finance. If somebody else is in control, as it is in our laws right now with the joint state and local government account, what you are describing will always be so. What has saved the country at this point are the recent changes in our laws, the recent pronouncements of the law courts whereby the Federal Government is being told that you are not in control of everything, so the states are freer. We also need to extend the same thing to the local governments. The local governments are a federating unit just like the states… indeed, just like the Federal Government. They need to be in charge. If somebody else is holding your purse, of course he controls and dictates to you. It is for that singular reason of the state-local government joint account that you find out that yes, because that is the law. You take what the governor gives you or what the state and local government joint account says is due to you because you owe everything in conjunction with the way and manner you emerged through the state electoral commission, which is a roll call. What we have now is just a roll call. We do not have elections at the local government level. What we have now is a fraud. The remedies are financial autonomy and the review of the state electoral commission. If it continues this way, we are headed for some danger. Certainly we can’t continue with the way we are running the local government administration.
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HOW DOES THE PROPOSED BILL INTEND TO MAKE ADEQUATE PROVISION FOR ACCOUNTABILITY AT THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT LEVEL SO THAT CHAIRMEN WILL BE PRUDENT IN THE WAY THEY EXERCISE THEIR NEW FOUND AUTONOMY?
You see, accountability is part of our laws. You do not have to make special pronouncement on that. Our laws and our governing rules provide for accountability. In the system of governance, there is accountability. There is a legislative arm of local government council. We also have agencies of government that will come knocking at your doors asking questions about accountability. These are not the old days. This is a new time and Nigerians are getting to know it is a new order, a new order of the rule of law.
?
?WHAT IS YOUR VIEW ON FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S PLAN TO REMOVE FUEL SUBSIDY BEGINNING FROM NEXT YEAR?
We have all the money we need if we can just plug all the holes where squandering and frauds are taking place. So much money go down the drains simply because you do not want to think outside the box. All you want to do is subject Nigerians to further hardship through the removal of fuel subsidy. We do not need to talk about fuel subsidy. Let’s strengthen our tax collection mechanism; let’s strengthen the fight against corruption; let’s strengthen our laws and I tell you we will have abundance of resources to spend. But as it is now, we so easily come to remove fuel subsidy. It didn’t start with this government. President Jonathan is doing nothing new. Governments before him have easily come to this obstacle of resources for government to provide basic amenities to the people by just simply going to the fuel subsidy hoax. No, we keep thinking inside the box, but we need to move outside of the box. There are ways of generating funds for governance. We already have them; we need to strengthen them. Tax is one; corruption is another; making the right investment is another. How can you be talking of Vision 20:2020 when you are not addressing the basic infrastructure of steel. Steel is the main prerequisite for infrastructure. When you get steel right, then you get energy right, then you get the roads right, then you get communications right because all these three sectors are dependent on steel. There is none of the 20 nations that are the most industrialised today that is not producing steel. And when you start producing steel, it gives a totally new and virgin stream of revenue that will almost rival oil.
WHAT MOTIVATED YOUR SPONSORSHIP OF THE CONSTITUTION AMENDMENT BILL WHICH SEEKS FINANCIAL AUTONOMY FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT COUNCILS?
My position as a grassroots politician who is close to my people at home and the fact that the last three local government chairmen of my local government have been personal friends gave me the hindsight to know the shortchanging that comes at the end of every month after the monthly allocation by the FAAC in Abuja and advertisement of allocations due every state and every local government, and what at the end of the day the local government areas in my community report as their actual dues after the joint state and local government accounts. Being that close, and seeing how much the joint account is being abused, how much fraud it is subjected to, I concluded that if I ever had the chance, I will not hesitate to move for a statutory change because the essence of the system we operate, the three-tier system with the local government being at the base, being the nearest to the people and aimed at bringing about the impact of actual governance to the people and the base communities is being completely defeated and completely negated. With the way it is now, it is not working. And one of the reasons it is not working is that the local governments are greatly hampered by the non-remittance of the figures actually written against their names and what they really get at the end of the day. This is what motivated me to push for this constitutional point and incidentally, it is the first constitutional matter coming up on the floor of this seventh Senate by way of a bill.
?
ASIDE THE FINANCIAL AUTONOMY CALL FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENTS; IS THERE NO NEED FOR THEIR TOTAL AUTONOMY AS AN INDEPENDENT TIER OF GOVERNMENT?
I can’t agree less with you. We run a federation with federating units and three tiers of government: the federal, state and local governments. I have no doubt in my mind that the local governments, particularly, have been at the receiving end. They are almost muzzled out of existence really because of the way the law has been structured before now, which is exactly the reason I am pushing for this change. Actually, it isn’t only in the area of financial autonomy that local governments need to be able to breathe more easily. They also need other forms of aid. The way and manner we have structured the emergence of local government councils is one of the issues in point by which you can make them breathe more easily. For instance, local government elections are controlled by statutory bodies known as the State Independent Electoral Commissions which in turn are controlled totally by a single man in the name of a governor, and he isn’t helping the natural emergence of a truly independent people who have ideas of how to go about running the local councils in complement of the state govt. So, it is not only the issue of financial autonomy that needs to be addressed, such issues as to how local government chairmen and councilors emerge, through which body, should it be a state electoral body or should we go back to when one electoral body was organising it throughout the federation? All these are very crucial issues as well. But I feel it is necessary to start from this point and perhaps one or two more colleagues of mine may now join me and find a new push for amendment that will ultimately strengthen and make the local government system deliver on the true objective of why we had to have a federating unit that is close to the people.
?
CONSIDERING THE OVERBEARING INFLUENCE OF STATE GOVERNORS ON LG CHAIRMEN, HOW CAN LOCAL GOVERNMENTS BE WEANED FROM THEIR APRON STRINGS?
This is exactly what we seek to do. What we have now at the local government is not in its true meaning, a federating unit. It is so because you are not a government, if you are not able to provide some basic things. And chief of all, the resources needed to provide these basic things as a government is funding… it is finance. If somebody else is in control, as it is in our laws right now with the joint state and local government account, what you are describing will always be so. What has saved the country at this point are the recent changes in our laws, the recent pronouncements of the law courts whereby the Federal Government is being told that you are not in control of everything, so the states are freer. We also need to extend the same thing to the local governments. The local governments are a federating unit just like the states… indeed, just like the Federal Government. They need to be in charge. If somebody else is holding your purse, of course he controls and dictates to you. It is for that singular reason of the state-local government joint account that you find out that yes, because that is the law. You take what the governor gives you or what the state and local government joint account says is due to you because you owe everything in conjunction with the way and manner you emerged through the state electoral commission, which is a roll call. What we have now is just a roll call. We do not have elections at the local government level. What we have now is a fraud. The remedies are financial autonomy and the review of the state electoral commission. If it continues this way, we are headed for some danger. Certainly we can’t continue with the way we are running the local government administration.
?
HOW DOES THE PROPOSED BILL INTEND TO MAKE ADEQUATE PROVISION FOR ACCOUNTABILITY AT THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT LEVEL SO THAT CHAIRMEN WILL BE PRUDENT IN THE WAY THEY EXERCISE THEIR NEW FOUND AUTONOMY?
You see, accountability is part of our laws. You do not have to make special pronouncement on that. Our laws and our governing rules provide for accountability. In the system of governance, there is accountability. There is a legislative arm of local government council. We also have agencies of government that will come knocking at your doors asking questions about accountability. These are not the old days. This is a new time and Nigerians are getting to know it is a new order, a new order of the rule of law.
?
?WHAT IS YOUR VIEW ON FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S PLAN TO REMOVE FUEL SUBSIDY BEGINNING FROM NEXT YEAR?
We have all the money we need if we can just plug all the holes where squandering and frauds are taking place. So much money go down the drains simply because you do not want to think outside the box. All you want to do is subject Nigerians to further hardship through the removal of fuel subsidy. We do not need to talk about fuel subsidy. Let’s strengthen our tax collection mechanism; let’s strengthen the fight against corruption; let’s strengthen our laws and I tell you we will have abundance of resources to spend. But as it is now, we so easily come to remove fuel subsidy. It didn’t start with this government. President Jonathan is doing nothing new. Governments before him have easily come to this obstacle of resources for government to provide basic amenities to the people by just simply going to the fuel subsidy hoax. No, we keep thinking inside the box, but we need to move outside of the box. There are ways of generating funds for governance. We already have them; we need to strengthen them. Tax is one; corruption is another; making the right investment is another. How can you be talking of Vision 20:2020 when you are not addressing the basic infrastructure of steel. Steel is the main prerequisite for infrastructure. When you get steel right, then you get energy right, then you get the roads right, then you get communications right because all these three sectors are dependent on steel. There is none of the 20 nations that are the most industrialised today that is not producing steel. And when you start producing steel, it gives a totally new and virgin stream of revenue that will almost rival oil.
?