Large turnover of legislators in NASS, huge national loss – Senator Uhroghide
…says Tinubu’s emergence true reflection of wish Of Nigerians, rules out ING
Senator Matthew Uhroghide, a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain represents Edo South senatorial district in the Senate.
The ranking senator, who heads the Senate Public Account Committee will not be returning to the Red Chambers. In this interview with TITUS AKHIGBE, he dwell on the Presidential election; PDP’s lingering crisis; consequences of experienced senators not returning and other crucial issues affecting the polity.
Sir, we just came out of an election. The results have been announced and some persons have won and lost. What is your assessment, from the Presidential to the State Assembly polls?
For me, to be very honest, I was not expecting a perfect election. When I say perfect, I mean a flawless election. The reason is that these are human actions. And there is no human being that is an embodiment of accomplishment. That is why the law says substantial compliance to the law or the laid down rules or INEC guidelines.
I will say that to a very large extent the results that came out were a true reflection of the wish of Nigerians. The outing of some parties, particularly the Labour Party surprised the country and I don’t think that anybody will say that the election was manipulated by Labour Party.
The Labour Party was a child of circumstance and nobody knew that they could pull the support during this election, nobody thought they could do that. So, the Labour Party coming and doing what they did, we are not surprised. Some even believe they did better, even in the states.
They did better in Edo, if not for some manipulations here and there, the results would have been better in Edo. I want to say that what happened was the true expression of the people’s wish through the ballot box.
Senator, you are not going back to the Senate, where you have been for past eight years. We are going to have a set of new Senators. And your committee (Senate Committee on Public Account) is very strategic. What are we going to miss?
Let me say this, without fear of contradictions, parliament all over the world or the National Assembly is a place driven by knowledge, it is a repository of knowledge, and you get better in the business of lawmaking and other legislative activities the more you stay there. It is driven like that, whether it’s parliamentary or presidential system,It is driven by experience.
That is why they tell you that the number of time you come in there, ranks you. That is what they call the ranking. The more ranking you are, the more experience in legislative processes. The push to have good governance in the land comes from the parliament, they are not cooked overnight.
It is the only place where you have the true representatives of the people. Why? That is where you have a largest number of people who represent the people. They don’t only represent their constituencies; they represent the interest of the masses.
The president or vice president are the only two persons in the executive that were elected in the presidency. Then they will go and get ministers, advisers and other aides. The two persons may not be easily accessible to the over 200 million Nigerians.
That is why when you get to the Parliament, you see the representatives of the people, who get feedback from their constituencies, using the law to compel the executive to do what the people really want. And that is why we say that National Assembly is truly the symbol of democracy.
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The National Assembly is what makes the difference between military and civilian rule, because, in military rule, you still have the executive and the judiciary, but you don’t have the parliament, that is what drives that Institution. It is an Institution that is driven by knowledge.
At the state level too, you find out that you have the governor and his deputy, being the only elected officers, while the other commissioners and aides are appointed. But, the 24 members of the House of Assembly are the true representatives of the people.
They are representatives at the local government level, they have the feeling of the people and input it into governance, while the executive will execute. Unfortunately, here, the people in executive arm want to manipulate that arm of government (legislature) and equally want to manipulate the judiciary.
That is what you see. So the true test of democracy is that the three arms of government are independent of one another, but work in synergy to elicit good governance in the land.
So, if you take people out of the National Assembly and you keep feeding in new members, what happens to institutional memory? What happened yesterday will be lost. The way we did it yesterday will be lost. Nobody will ensure continuity. Nobody will develop what we did yesterday. Nobody can say we did it like this yesterday and this is the result we got, lets do it differently today.
There are going to be learning processes at any point in time. It is a huge loss. Since, I got to the Senate about 8 years ago, put conservatively, I have been trained up to 20 times outside the shores of this country.
What happens to the experience?
As Chairman Public Account, I have been to the British Parliament. I have been to the American Congress; I just came back from Morocco. I have been to the United Arab Emirates for training. All that now is gone, because the training I have received for the past eight years is going with me, it’s not transferable.
It has to do with intelligence; it has to do with personal development. It is just that, you have to put it at work. For example, the jinx I broke in the Senate, that is having to submit the report of the Auditor General of the Federation and submit same result to Senate plenary for consideration, which they have adopted.
It is not possible for someone to come and understand how it’s done, unless the person starts it, but if he starts, he probably must comeback after eight years to complete it or else, it will be lost again.
Virtually all of us, from the states where there are rivalry, envy and jealousy are not coming back.Go and check all the states senators are not coming back. If you check the states, starting from South South.
In Rivers State, apart from Senator Impiggi,no other senator is coming back. The one we call the respiratory of knowledge (Senator George Sekibo is not coming back. The same thing In Cross River, Akwa Ibom,Delta, Edo and also in Ondo State.
The same thing happened; the leader of the party is the one who stopped them from coming back.
They know the advantages of having a ranking Senator return to the Senate. In terms of budgetary allocation, What will be appropriated to me as a ranking senator is not what a new senator will get. If I was to become a principal officer, I will probably get times five. But, if I am going to be a presiding officer, I probably get times twenty. All these things are lost.
So, the rivalry, jealousy and ignorance they have displayed have robbed us of all these things.
Unfortunately, by those who know, but choose not to take the way that will benefit our people. Today, less than 20 percent of senators are coming back from the 109. It is a huge loss to this country and all the parties, one of the lessons they must learn, is to protect the National Assembly.
If the PDP have done what they are supposed to do by telling those senators in its folds that we will protect you,that you will return to the National Assembly. Uche Secondus did it and that is why we all returned in 2019.
The reason is that the governors out of their own will or selfishness think that going to the National Assembly is their exclusive reserve; they don’t even know that those in the executive arm of government don’t know what happen in the National Assembly.
Some of them have attempted coming there, but when they get there, they found out that it’s not a joke. As the Chairman Public Account, I know what I have put in, there is no governor that can do that.
No former governor can do that. Why? They cannot domesticate themselves by sitting down to put those things together. They can’t. Some of them in my committee don’t come. They hardly come.
So, when you go to the state and you are holding such position, the state doesn’t value you. As the Chairman Public Account in the Senate, I am the Chairman Public Account in the country.
All Public Account in the State Houses of Assembly, I am the Chairman. We are supposed to have the same prototype, the same system on Public Account. But, will the governors allow it? They will only publish what they want people to see as their audited account. All these things are all manipulated figures.
What we do in the National Assembly, they don’t know when we are doing investigations into certain things. I conducted one. All withdrawal from Savings Angle. Savings Angle is what you put in the basket, after you have done all budgeting, you have some amount kept aside in case there is short fall from the recurrent or capital expenditure ,you can see where to withdraw from. Savings Angle is within 750 billion to 1.9 trillion naira.
So, people started going there to withdraw. Who is supposed to authorize withdrawal from there? It is the president.
He can also go through the Minister of Finance, but people were going there to abuse it. They were going there, until there was an over short in that provision. To carry out that investigation, it took us months.
All those who collected money from there, all the MDAs, over 900 agencies of government. We called them and they came. When you are doing this work, instead of your state to give you accolades, and say you doing well for government, they we’ll be looking for a way to remove you.
But they cannot erase my records. My records in the National Assembly cannot be erased. I give glory to God, but when you come to your state, they treat you like a piece of rag. As if to say you are not human.
The DSS came up the other day to say that some persons are planning to install an Interim National Government. Do you think it is possible when we have a president-elect?
That is not possible. This is not military rule, when we have our grand norm, which is the constitution. There is no such provision in the constitution. Only, if you tell me that President Buhari is the one planning such a thing. I think it’s something thrown-up by some people to divert attention. But it is abnormal.
Instead, DSS should go and look for the persons planning the Interim National Government, unless they want to tell us that Buhari is planning such a thing, because it is only the President that has the force or the instrumentality of government in place to do such .
Otherwise, it is one of those street talks that you should not believe. Unless, they are just flying the story to tell those coming in, that Nigerians want government of National Unity. In that case, you will take from all sides.
There is nothing interim; we already have our time table of four years. Nothing interim there. There is no interface, and no state of emergency has been declared. The only person that can declare a state of emergency is the president, ratified by the National Assembly, which after six months it will be renewed.
Unless you are going to have military intervention, where you break down the structures of democracy, Suspending the National Assembly, set aside the constitution, because that is the first thing they will do.
But we have not gotten to that level. Except, they are saying that there will be change of government through a coup, which the military has assured us that there is nothing like that. The Armed Forces have told us that they have subordinated themselves to civil rules.
