After over two years in power, APC should stop blaming PDP for its failures –Martins

Chief Kenny Martins was chairman, Police Equipment Foundation, he is worried about the political situation in the country and the fact that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) was yet to achieve many of the promises it made to the people while seeking election, yet delight in blaming the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for its failures. To him, if the PDP had done well the APC would not have been elected. He is also angry with governors who simply refuse to pay salaries of workers after collecting bailout for such. He recently spoke with journalists in his office. PATRICK OKOHUE was there and reports.

How will you assess the state of the nation, will you say things are going on well, and the nation is on the right track?
It will be difficult to say things are going on well, it is not possible to say that, definitely things are not going on well, and this is reflective in many directions, platform and context, the most important thing in life and the most crucial issue in a democracy is the economy, that is the democratic dividend.

Everybody goes to the poll to vote because, they believe they have some payback coming their way, and what are the paybacks they expect.

Their payback expectation is to have their standard of life sustained or elevated, for their security to be guaranteed and have job opportunities and to have peace and stability,

once these human expectations are taken care of, the people usually appreciate any government in place, but a case where they vote in a government and notice some deficiency or major deficiency, that is why the people always clamour for a change of government.

So, it is easy to score this government in power if it has done well or not, in the area of provision of infrastructure, social services and utility, are we faring well? Whether at the state or local government level or federal level?

We always try to assume that everything that goes wrong or right with us as a nation is the democratic government or Federal Government issue, some of these issues are issues that stem from the grassroots, local government level to the state and the federal level.

If I were to score the government in power at the national level on these five points now, the government will score below average, and that is not too good.

The government in power do say the mess in the economy was not their own making, and it was their predecessor, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) led Federal Government that messed up the economy and coupled with the recession in the economy, that is what is slowing down the efficient performance expected from this administration, do you agree?
The APC led Federal Government cannot be blaming their non performance and their inability to improve the economy right now on the PDP, because they should realise that if the PDP government then had performed,

Nigerians wouldn’t have voted for APC government, so they should thank the non performance of the immediate past government, because that made it possible for Nigerians to buy in into the APC change mantra and voted the party into power.

Now that they have been in power, how well are they grappling with the problems, also putting into consideration, the problem of global recession, dropping of prices of oil that the government in power is experiencing, there is no doubt that,

some of the actions of the past government will still reverberate, in terms of negative considerations, but over two years in government is a long time to find their feet and move away from those setback and move away from the liabilities of the past government.

If there were enough money in the reserve when Goodluck Jonathan was leaving office, the money in reserve would have been used to cushion the effect of this setback that the nation is facing,

but that should not be enough reason, for what we are facing now, there are some things that are not excusable, it took some states led by Ekiti State, to come out with the law regulating grazing of cattle, before there could be peace in those states.

The menace of herdsmen is worrisome and it is appalling that none of the herdsmen has been brought to justice, they constitute menace to any community they invade; there are reported cases of loss of lives.

Though, the Federal Government had done everything within its power to bring the menace of Boko Haram insurgents under control,

but there are cases of insecurity in other parts of the country, which ranges from cases of kidnapping, ritual killing, and all kinds of security threat that is taking a monumental dimension now, which therefore discourage people from visiting Nigeria.

I think the government has not done well enough in the area of internal security, in the area of provision of jobs, nothing concrete has been done in that area,

and to make it worse, you hear of state government laying off their workers, giving the excuse that, they don’t have money to pay their salaries as they had when they were recruiting the workers.

In the private sector, there is high rate of retrenchment, from the banking industry which was as a result of introduction of single treasury account, which could have been a good anti corruption move.

Lack of regular supply of electricity has grounded activities of industries in this country, it is disgracing that after almost two decades of being in civil rule, we have not been able to increase power generation and distribution in any major marginal way, beyond what the military left, it is sad.

It is sad for a government that promises so much and now took on the last administration on their short coming, and those in charge of the power sector precisely,

who were the major critics of past government capabilities and incapacity not to be able to meet expectations of Nigeria, that I don’t think has to do with recession.

If the government provides power, the industries will rev up, and if the industries are kick started and attain the level it ought to be, the issue of unemployment would have been better taken care of.

If they claim they provide jobs, I do ask in what area of the economy are the job opportunity provided, and I want to know the people they gave the job opportunities to, I keep wondering if they were ghost.

I quite believe the government needs to do so much on the issue of power.

In terms of provision of infrastructures, not much has been done, Lagos to Ibadan road was being done at enviable rate when the last government was in power, until when that government was voted out of power, and the road construction was halted,

and I am quite sure there was quasi private sector involvement then, suddenly it was stopped and put totally under government budgeting process, you can still see that till today construction work is going on the road, but much success would have been recorded , if they had kept to the initial arrangement.

We have always said that if the government in power can’t take care of these roads, why can’t they consider privatising these roads, we always harp on the fact that the law does not allow government to cede roads under its control to private sector.

The government can build the road and cede it to private sector, who will then maintain the road, collect tolls, do Private Partnership transfer,

share part of the profit on toll with government and ensure the roads are maintained, otherwise the government will not have enough money to maintain these number of roads that we have, that is why we are where we are today.

There is no private sector involvement in building, running and maintaining the roads, government effort is not enough.

I can see the enthusiasm on the part of the government, and they have positive proclamations and hopeful pronouncement on the side of the government, these are very helpful, but do they translate to a reality that is the question.

You did mention herdsmen killing, but none of them has been apprehended and brought to book, also Boko Haram is said to be technically defeated, but the insurgents still wreck havoc by bombing and killing unsuspecting members of the public, there is also increased cases of kidnapping, coupled with the problem of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), don’t you see there is a need to address the security challenges facing the country in a more proactive way?
Yes, there is the need to address the security challenges, issue of kidnapping is worrisome, I believe there is a need for collaboration among, army, navy and air force, more so state governments should collaborate with them in tackling these security challenges, because the Federal Government alone cannot tackle this problem.

If the Federal Government gives directive that the states should parley with the security agencies it would help, you will discover that most of these security challenges are even beyond the police.

The Federal Government should provide the necessary support, and in dealing with these challenges, party sentiment should be put aside.

Take for example, the Ekiti State government first passed the anti grazing Bill into law and other states followed suit, why did it take other states so long to act, the governors need to be proactive.

Sometimes we have the assumption that, only Federal Government should get certain things done, but no, we need to take the state governors also to task on some of the challenges facing us as a nation.

There is a need for job creation, tackling security challenges, provision of infrastructural facilities.

You know when people want to invest in the country, their first port of call is the state, and some of the state governors, do demand for impossible conditions from the investors.

It is the business of state governors and local government to give investors a receptive welcome, but that is usually not the case.

The state government need to take the bull by the horn, even the issue of power supply, I see no reason why the state government can’t tackle issue of power generation,

and there is no law that forbids states from building their power station, instead some states are selling off power plants built by their predecessor, instead of them building more.

The problem is the placement of the responsibility, or placement of these expectations should not rest squarely on the shoulder of the Federal Government, local government chairmen and state governors have major roles to play in ensuring security and stability in the system to attract investors.

With this your position, does that not lay credence to the call for having state police?
On the issue of state police, I agree there is the need for state police, it is a necessity, there is no way we can continue to shy away from it.

At federal level, they keep talking about community policing, but until it devolves to the ward level, local government level, until that, there can never be an effective community policing because, no local government or ward policing.

The last time the badoo group struck in Lagos State, and every week there were reports of people’s heads being broken, and their blood were said to be wiped with handkerchief for ritual purposes,

but when the deputy commissioner of police then, now the commissioner of police visited the affected areas, and called all the traditional rulers to a meeting, and threatened to hold any king with report of badoo incident in his domain responsible,

since then the cases of badoo group killing has gone down. Traditional rulers are the first and the nearest point to feel the pulse of the people, no person that comes to the community that they don’t have information about,

so I support state police, we need it, but all these can be done without the coordination at the centre, to use Nigerian term, community policing has gone nuclear, in Britain today,

it is a country with very high number of cameras that can monitor everything, if you go on shopping there, you would have been captured 60 to 120 times under an hour, everywhere is under surveillance.

There is the need for Federal Government interference, because the local government, the ward or the state government cannot afford that kind of coordination, it is a system copied from the Americans and Europe.

While clamour for state policing, there is also the need that, we know the Federal Government has to provide the camera for monitoring.

The issue of campaign against corruption is assessed from two angles, while some commend the Federal Government for dealing with the corrupt people, others see it as being vindictive in the approach, in the fight against corruption, a situation where you see security agencies fighting against themselves to protect an individual, or wanting to take over a case, like the face off between EFCC officials and men of the DSS, in all of these, how do you see the fight against corruption vis a vis inter agency conflict?
There are two areas I may be unpopular, one, when this government came on board, we advised on amnesty on corruption, as anti corruption crusader,

let say you have record of three people A, B, C of being corrupt, and you have the figure of the amount they have embezzled, you can tell them to return 50 percent of the amount stolen, and 25 percent to be invested by the culprit under state supervision,

and keep the rest, and the person should be given time frame to get it done, and if the person fails to do as directed, the government will unleash the instrument of state on the person.

I am happy that, that is the pronouncement of current president of Zimbabwe 24 hours after taking over, why I am supporting this approach is because it is what the Asian countries use, when they became sane, just as we are trying to become sane now, to develop their system.

If we don’t follow that path, then you need to go and look for a system whereby you will arrest them, shame them, maim them, take them to court, until when they sign voluntarily or you win the case.

Mind you, we are still fighting for the money stolen by General Sanni Abacha, how many years after? Our money won’t be available when we need them most, they will be left in those countries 20 , 30 years.

Those countries would have invested the money, what they now pay us is the interest on the money, and that is where we found ourselves, have we won any case since this government came on board, but if the approach I suggested was applied, the government would have recovered a lot of money.

I do not believe the corrupt people, the anti corruption agencies are going after are only Buhari enemies, let him fight any form of corruption, either his enemies or people close to him, at the end of his tenure he will leave office, whoever, succeeds him will fight the other side, there is no time limit to fighting corruption.

Don’t you think that approach will encourage corruption?
No, it will not, you have to draw a line, so whoever steal after amnesty for the corrupt people would be jailed or killed like in China, but for those who have stolen before then, that is what I think we should have done.

What about inter agency conflict?
I think that is a dark side of this government, it portrays the President as not being in charge, because, there are things that are happening now that has never happened before, for EFCC officials turning to arrest DSS boss, such never happened,

it won’t happen in USA, it will not happen in Ghana, why should such happen in Nigeria, to an extent where we have seeming rivalry between the government and the party and has degenerated to a pitiable level, there is the need for government to call all these actors to order.

Even between the Presidency and the National Assembly over confirmation of a candidate or not, we don’t need those distractions. It all started when Senator Bukola Saraki emerged as the Senate President,

it has happened it has happened, the President do not have preference and you want to use apparatus of the Senate against the winner, APC members fighting themselves,

and that is the beginning of the disconnect and discord between the National Assembly and the Presidency and it has not healed up till now, and business of governance get bogged down and the masses are at the receiving end.

I believe there is the need to still work on smoothness and interrelationship of government actors. Take for example the invasion of judges houses in the dead of the night,

if they are guilty they are guilty, why invade their houses in the mid night, they should have made the arrest in the day, it resonates negatively,

these are the things the government need to work more on, especially by Mr. President, he needs to be advised to call a harmony retreat where all the three arms of government will agree to work and fight corruption and uphold government policies.

Issue of giving bail out to state governors to pay salary of their workers was not the practice before, but since the Buhari administration came on board, it has been giving bail out to state governors, recently another bailout was given with an instruction from the President to the state governors to pay all the arrears they owe their workers before Christmas, with this development what do you think is wrong with our system? Does the President have such power to issue such directive?
There is the need to know what the bailout is all about, is it money due to the state, or Federal Government money and out of largesse decided to assist the states.

If it is the Federal Government’s share, not money accruable to the states, the Federal Government’s own percent of share earning they are giving the state, then the President has a right to advice them how to spend it, because he is giving it to them on such purpose.

I am aware of many times, when the President with a condition of a particular road that is critical will say state government take money and rehabilitate it, you can’t take the President’s money meant to rehabilitate a road and apply it somewhere else.

If they were given the money to pay salary they can’t apply it somewhere else, I am sure in using the money accountability must have been done.

But some of these governors have been collecting the money and they refused to pay salaries, in some states what they earn at the end of the month is half of their salary, does that augur well?
It is totally wrong for governors not to pay salary to their workers, some governors are mean, and criminals, they should realise they have families and dependants and some responsibilities to perform,

even in their various political association they have roles to play, and for them to be owed for months that is in defendable, there is no way anybody can defend that. If the excuse given by some of the governors is hinged on paucity of fund,

and they have more workforce than what the fund available can take care of, but that excuse is not tenable when fund is provided to pay the workers.

Quote
Improve the economy right now on the PDP, because they should realise that if the PDP government then had performed, Nigerians wouldn’t have voted for APC government, so they should thank the non performance of the immediate past government, because that made it possible for Nigerians to buy in into the APC change mantra and voted the party into power. Now that they have been in power, how well are they grappling with the problems

Quote
It is totally wrong for governors not to pay salary to their workers, some governors are mean, and criminals, they should realise they have families and dependants and some responsibilities to perform, even in their various political association they have roles to play, and for them to be owed for months that is in defendable, there is no way anybody can defend that.