Mutual cooperation between the executive arm of government and the legislature is essential if the governed must enjoy the dividends of democracy.? In this interview with MIKE UBANI, the Speaker Imo state House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Chukwuemeka Uwajumogu, speaks about how the Imo people have so far benefitted from the existing cordial relationship between the executive and the legislature in the last one year.
What are the specific achievements of the Imo state House of Assembly in the last one year you have been speaker?
One of the most important things that we have been able to achieve is to understand what our roles are as legislators.? We have been able to synchronise our political views as members who come from different political parties.? We have come together most times to make laws that have helped to improve the life of the average Imo person.?
If you see today the developmental efforts of Governor Rochas Okorocha, it is because of the co-operation between the executive and the legislature, and our desire to ensure that at the end of the day, it is the average Imo person that benefits, and not the political leaders.
May we know some of the bills you have passed?
One of the most important bills that we passed was the bill on free education, which allows the state government to provide free education from primary through secondary to the university level. And the free education endowment fund is embodied in this bill which has become law.? It is meant to ensure that education remains free even after we have left office.
We also passed the four-year capital budget bill which specified all the projects that we are going to embark on during the four year tenure. Another important bill that came here as an executive bill, is the Community Governing Council Bill, which is called Fourth Tier.?
It decentralises governance to the autonomous communities so that we can unlock the economic potentials of our communities. Most of our communities are dying because all that parents do is to give birth to children, send them to primary and secondary schools, and once they go through the university, they leave their communities and come back when they retire from service, and sometimes when they are dead.?
There is hardly any economic activity going on in our communities. In the past, we had big markets in our communities because goods and services were produced at that level.??? We have gone back to our communities because we want to re-engineer agriculture; we want to ensure that our communities get involved in the creation of wealth and in managing themselves.?
Why should a commissioner in the ministry of health in Imo state be responsible for the management of a health centre in one remote community in Arondizuogu?? We decided to create this fourth tier of government to make our communities work.
By the nature of our civil service, a lot of our civil servants are idle, and some of them have been redeployed to the communities where they will be productive.? And that is one important bill that will unlock the economic potentials of our state.
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Do you think most Imo people are happy with the passage of the bill by the legislature?
We had a two-day public hearing and all facets of the society were given the opportunity to present memorandum to the house, and those who did? included the organised labour, the NUJ and the opposition political parties, and? it was based on their submissions that we passed the bill on Fourth Tier System.
Before now, every autonomous community had a traditional ruler, woman leader, town union president, youth leader, and all sorts of internal structures had been put in place in these autonomous communities.?
All we did was to formalise the existing structures, and those things the local government failed to do because of the way that third tier of government functions, will now be done by this community governing council. It is a simple thing, but some people think we are building a political structure to further the interests of those who are in government today.
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One rarely hears anything concerning your members undertaking oversight functions on the on-going capital projects in the state.? What is the situation?
We have a project monitoring committee in the state, works committee, and all our committees are doing their oversight functions.? We always draw the attention of the executive to areas where we think need some correction and the executive has always done so.?
And if you look at the prices and rates at which these projects are being done, you know that there are attempts to ensure that there are no corrupt practices in the way these projects are carried out.
Is the Imo state house of assembly independent from executive influence?
There is no house of assembly in this country, except perhaps the Lagos state house of assembly that is completely independent from the executive.? As long as the executive controls the funds that you use to run the house, you cannot say you are independent of the executive.?
We are not an autonomous law-making body. As long as you go cap in hand to beg for funds you need to run the house, the executive arm of government will always find a way to manipulate the legislature.? But a house of assembly that is worth its salt should try and balance its objectives.
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And what is your objective?
My objective is not to come here to quarrel and fight the governor at the expense of the people of the state.? As we came into office, we decided to make sacrifices to move the state forward.? For example, before I came into office, my immediate predecessor was taking home almost N600 million a year on security vote, but today my security vote is not up to N100 million a year.?
That is a lot of sacrifice.? When we came into office there were all sorts of entitlements, like N100 million entertainment allowance, hospitality allowance – everything came up to about N150 million, which we did away? with completely.? The executive did the same thing.? We agreed to translate these monies to projects and to fixed assets.???
We meet regularly with the executive, and if there are bills that the executive want to push, and if we don’t like it, we send it back to them.? There are also bills that the state governor has not signed into law up till now, and we are still negotiating, and when we exhaust the period stipulated by the constitution, we will pass those bills by two-third majority of members of the house.?
The opposition believes in painting the legislative- executive relationship in bad light, and of course, I ask myself what are the things that we have come here to do?? The answer is that we have come to the assembly to improve the lives of our people.?
We have had our quarrels with the executive, but we also have the avenues and structures to address the issues without resorting to public diatribe and quarrels.
So you don’t agree with the description of Imo state house of assembly by a local newspaper as a ‘rubber stamp house of assembly’?
A lot of these local newspapers are owned by people who are opposed to this government.? The other day that Governor Rochas Okorocha, went to inspect a burnt market in Owerri, hundreds of thousands of people trooped out to receive him.? That is the symbol of a man that is doing well.?
He went to Aba, and you heard what happened in Aba between him and Governor Theodore Orji, of Abia state (Abia people asked Governor Okorocha to become their governor) – that is the symbol of a man that is doing well.?
There is no way this government could have done well without the support of the house of assembly, and if we are making laws that have empowered the executive to put on ground so many people-oriented projects, including good roads, free education, water and housing projects, and some people say the house of assembly is a rubber stamp, that rubber stamp must be a good one.
Is the Imo state house of assembly bothered by the fact that the local government system in the state is being run by unelected executives?
Well, it bothers us that we don’t have full democracy in our local government system. Everybody knew how condemnable the last local government elections that took place in Imo state were.? You won’t call that democratic by any means.
So any time we are going to conduct the local government elections here, we will do so in a proper democratic manner.? I won’t go deep into this matter because it is in court now.?
But I can assure you that there will be proper democratic local government elections in this state, where people who win in an election will be announced to preside over the affairs of the local government system.
Can you proffer solutions to the security challenges facing the country today?
I believe that the solution to insecurity lies in restructuring the country completely. The security situation is a symptom of a disease that has been there for many years.? During the civil war, it was the turn of the Igbos and nothing was done to stop the killings, because only one section of the country was affected.?
Today, just like they say injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere, that injustice is haunting several parts of the country.? So many people are being killed in Jos, Kaduna, Maiduguru and so on.?
We need to talk about devolution of power, rotation of power among the zones, fiscal federalism – what you produce you keep, and then contribute some quota to the federal government.? We need to talk about federal character.? Why should quota system be used in determining who enters the police and military services??
We need to look at the issue of citizenship rights. Is it right for somebody to tell me that I am not an indigene of a particular state, and therefore cannot benefit from the resources that come from that state, after I have lived there for 20 years; paid taxes and had my children there?? I believe the security challenges will come to an end if some of these issues are addressed.
You didn’t talk about creation of more states?
I don’t’ believe that we should embark on further proliferation of states.? But I believe that South East should be given one additional state to bring about equality of the zones.? What we should do is to remove local government from the exclusive legislative list of the federal government.?
Let the state governments’ be free to create as many local government areas as they may want to create, and use zones as the basis to share federal allocation.? How do you have a situation where between Jigawa and Kano states, they have more local government areas than the entire South East? So these are the structures that need to be put right, and after that we can now start talking about security.?
However, everybody knows that the push for the North to take over power in 2015 is the reason for the on-going violence in the country.? It does appear that the moment you go violent, you get presidential power.? So, how will the South East get the presidency, which we are demanding for in 2015?
Do you think this is achievable?
It is achievable if the Igbos can come together and demand for it.? We have every right just like every other person to demand for the presidency of this country.? The Yoruba, Hausa/Fulani and the minorities have produced the president, and so it is the turn of the South East to produce the next president of this country.