Professor Sola Adeyeye is one of the progressive lawmakers of the current political dispensation in the upper chamber of National Assembly representing Osun Central Senatorial District of Osun State on the platform of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). Adeyeye had earlier represented the Boluwaduro, Ifedayo and Ila Federal constituency between 2003 to 2007. In this Interview with SEFIU AYANBIMPE, he spoke on many issues including the subsidy probe, the country’s security challenges, and the scrapping of some federal institutions.
What have been your challenges in the National Assembly?
First and foremost, I left the House of Representatives more than four years ago (2007) so I will speak in respect of my experience in the Senate and the House of Representatives. First, the challenges that we face in the House of Representatives and Senate are different. When I was in the House of Representatives, we were not facing for example this issue of oil subsidy and we were not facing Boko Haram. Perhaps, the biggest problem we faced at that time was the attempt by the then President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo to subvert the constitution by his attempt to have a third term for himself and the approach that any assembly have will be put on the heights of problems that arises. Issues like Boko Haram are not issues that you can talk about as freely as you wish because of the nature of the security problem. The security problem is not an issue anyone can talk about flippantly.
I don’t call the House of Representatives the lower chamber because the two chambers are actually co-equal. The Senate cannot pass any law without the House of Representatives and if there is a deadlock between the House of Representatives and the Senate, I can assure you there will be a joint session in which the House of Representative will always win because in a joint session, it will be a one man, one woman vote, that is why the state itself is careful not to precipitate a situation where there would be conflict with the House of Representatives. In fact, when we were in the House of Representatives, we enjoyed it because we knew that we must surely win when it comes to joint session. But in addition to the fact that you are older, the senate also tends to be a little more célèbre, less emotional. For example, often times in the House of Representatives when I would speak, people would clap and I would enjoy their applause but you cannot do that in the senate; it’s not allowed. So, the style is different, the procedure is partly different and the tradition is different despite the fact that even when you look at the rules in the senate and the House of Representatives they are almost the same.
Now, as for the challenges that we are facing, of course, this issue of the oil subsidy, you know it came because there was a motion by Senator Bukola Saraki to look at the fact that the budget of our republic voted a little over N200 billion a year for oil subsidy and that the investigation that we were spending four or five times that amount. I happened to be one of the principal co-sponsors of that motion, the motion was debated and in the end, it was referred to a committee to look into it, it so happened that the House of Representatives later brought the same motion and couldn’t act because right now all that you are seeing is what have come from the House of Representatives when in fact the senate had also met on the same issue. I am convinced that it is too late for anyone to try to hide anything. I believe nothing will be hidden. Now, I don’t want to prejudge what the outcome of the senate finding would be, but they may find the same thing that the House of Representatives has found; there might be slight differences. I think it behoves me to wait to see what they would find.
I believe that what will happen in the end would not depend on the apathy, indifference, zeal, enthusiasm, whatsoever of politicians alone to a large extent. It will depend on the men of the fourth estate of the realm (the press) to defend and the civil societies. It will depend on labour, it will depend on the citizenry at large who must say 1 trillion, 2 trillion is not a small sum of money. If we bring that money to capital development, we can create enough jobs that will fast occupy our young people and arrest this orgy of violence from jobless youths who are being misdirected by organization such as we have found in Boko Haram. It will create infrastructure that will make our lives better. It will create better schools for our children for I believe in the end, the ball is in the hands of all of us.
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Is it possible for the National Assembly to task its members on the fuel subsidy removal probe?
Let me tell you, in other parts of the world, when you submit a report from the legislature, usually within a month, the executive will act on it. What makes it difficult in Nigeria are two things. First, the National Assembly is a domination of the one-party system and yet we call it democracy. I cannot talk in the senate unless the senate president allows me to talk; if I talk, he may rule me out of order. I must sit down, if I refuse to sit down, the sergeant of arms will be asked to walk me out, if I refuse to walk out, I will be suspended. Jesus Christ said that it will be easier for a giant camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Jesus was not a Nigerian. In Nigeria, a pregnant camel carrying a hippopotamus on its back will pass through the eye of a needle and will wave. Honestly my prayer to God is that we will get it right, if we don’t get it right, it’s a question of time, and we will be consumed by revolution. I don’t want it.
No society can cheat history, how it will come, nobody can predict. The implosion of the Soviet Union showed to the entire world that military might and the power of cohesion is not enough to keep a people together. So, my prayer is that in response to social responsibility to legislative responsibility and to decaying of patriotism, my prayer is that perhaps now or in the near future, Nigeria’s leaders will get their acts together so that we will do that which is right to this republic, if we don’t, it is a question of time for what has befalling bad leaders across the world to also befall us.
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Is President Goodluck Jonathan really in charge of the administration of this country in lieu of what is happening?
Well, as a senator of this republic, I must be guided in how I talk about my Commander-in-Chief but as a citizen of the republic, I have the right to tell my president when he is wrong. I don’t believe that the president has done enough; I don’t believe the president has spoken rightly on those occasions you referred to. The presidency of a nation is a political purview and it’s also a moral purview and the presidency ordinarily should be much guided in his utterances and if there would careless talk, it would be left to the lower rank of the political structure for utterances. But having said that, honestly, I sympathize with the president because how do you solve a problem that is coming from enemy you are not sure about?
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What is your opinion of the statement of the National Security Adviser (NSA)?
I did not know the man personally, but I am impressed that up until now, nobody can point to one moment when the man has made a reckless statement. Up until now, he has not been a man who has been known to foam in the mouth. He has not been a man who we can say, talks before he thinks. Therefore, because of his track record, because of his training and because of the length of years that he has brought to that office, I will give him the benefit of the doubt to say perhaps he knows what he is saying. What ought to happen is that the appropriate quarters of government ought to say to him, “Ok, what did you know or did you see before you said what you said”. I won’t be surprised, quite frankly, if he felt he had to say what he said to jolt the entire citizenry to the reality that certain bottlenecks might
be preventing him from doing what he would have wished to do to solve this problem. I don’t know about that, it’s just a conjecture on my part but all I am saying is, nowhere in the world will a National Security Adviser speak flippantly and I don’t believe he was speaking flippantly.
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Do you think the activities of Boko Haram are a treat to the unity of Nigeria?
The answer of course is an emphatic yes. Let me tell you, about eleven years ago, a United States intelligent report said Nigeria has less than 16 years to survive as a corporate entity. Two years later, they said they were wrong, we don’t have up to 16 years, they reduced it and brought it even nearer and every pretentious Nigerian patriot abused the hell out of the Americans when in fact what we should have done is say ok, what is it that you have seen that is making you say this because? it is not the first time that they have predicted countries that are about to collapse and in some cases, they have been wrong but in other cases they have been right, so what did you see?
The truth is in our lifetime, we saw India split into India and Pakistan, some of you might not have been alive but in our lifetime, we saw Pakistan split into Pakistan and Bangladesh. The country that stands as the rally point for the third world alliance was Yugoslavia under Tito. When Tito died, we saw how a crisis developed, the Austrians, the Serbians, the Croatians, and how that whole place became a theatre for the most evil genocide and murderous orgy. We have seen what has happened in Albania, we have seen what happened in Georgia and part of the former Soviet Republic where they have been tension and endless unrest. The attempt of Nigeria to invoke nationhood has remained an attempt. Let’s not deceive ourselves, that’s why somebody was once quoted as referring to Nigeria as a mere geographical expression and somehow we have been patching it over. Now, we have come to a point where unless we want to completely deceive ourselves, the handwritings are on the wall are bad.
Let me tell you, personally, I want a united Nigeria and I will tell you why, when you look at what is happening in the world, countries are coming together to form bigger blocs of power. Europeans were like tribes too, they fought each other not for years, not for decades, for centuries, we they realized that they we were not able to compete and they began this EU business, one by one they came together and remember when they became ten or twelve up to twenty something, they came together to form bigger spectres of influence whether politically, military or economically.? If they allow Nigeria to break, I pray it doesn’t break. If we can break peacefully, fortunately for me by accident of birth, not my own wisdom, I come from a part of Nigeria where we have access to the ocean and if we start war in Nigeria, all of all Africa will turn over because Nigeria is more than 50% of the population in West Africa. Nigeria alone is one quarter of Africa. So, for that reason, I will pray that instead of having the kind of array of region that have ruled us for almost fifty years of our independence, that by the grace of God, God will just give us the miracle that we can have good men and women who can rule this country in such a manner that Cameroon will say, Nigeria we want to join you. Togo will say lets join you so that we will have one country from Senegal to Cameroon that is what I would want. When you look at the history of the world, the collapse of countries has come more from internal rots, decay than from external aggression and that is what is happening to Nigeria. So, do I see Boko Haram as a threat to democracy? Boko Haram is not only a threat to democracy, it is a threat to the very survival of Nigeria as a country and I pray that God will give us a miracle out of it.
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What kind approach would you suggest to bring an end to Boko Haram crisis?
Honestly, I believe, at the root of most social problems are economic discontent when people cannot get their daily bread, when people have no hope for shelter, when people have no hope for employment, when people have no hope for a future for themselves or for their children or for their love ones, then you tend to become prone to exhibit behaviour. If you look at those who are used as area boys or as thugs in the south and you look at those who are being used for Boko Haram in the north and you study them sociologically, you will not be surprised if you see the same common trend of hopelessness, of lack of access to employment, of lack of good education, of unpreparedness to be part of the modern world where certain skills are required to navigate live itself and the nation must wake up to address this issue. If it means granting certain concessions to certain areas, so be it. When the unrest in the Niger Delta got to a point because of the strategy we created there, we have no choice but to grant certain concessions, if that what we need to do again, I am for it because the situation where I am sleeping at night and every time I hear a noise, I don’t know whether it’s a bomb or something, I don’t want it to be over me.
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Concerning the merging and scrapping of some federal institutions, what is your take on this?
I support it 100%. Let me tell you why, much of our research institutes are comatose. You either retrain them or you say if you are not going to do the working we ask you to do, let’s close it down. Honestly, I believe that we have reduced governance in Nigeria to nothing but the creation of bureaucracy. That is not governance. What has happened is that this bureaucracy siphons so much of the resources of the states of the country to the extent that you then have no money left for development. So I agree that some things have to be merged. If you go and read Bola Ige’s book and you see the photograph of the initial cabinet of Balewa, you will laugh. Balewa has a cabinet of about fourteen people. We have used bureaucracy to kill our republic.
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