Senator Peter Jiya represents Niger South in the National Assembly on the platform of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In this interview with CHUKWU DAVID, he speaks about the crises in the party, the politics of defection and government’s efforts at improving the economy
Nigerians are concerned that the way opposition members are defecting to the APC that if care is not taken before the end of this political dispensation, the nation may be reduced to a one-party state. And we know the dangers in that as it affects democracy. What is your view on this?
My view is that the movement of individuals into the main party or the ruling parties, sometimes some of them are triggered by lack of internal democracy in their parties. A situation whereby some people will be shut out and will not be allowed to properly either contest or be allowed tickets to return or to even contest at all is a factor.
The second factor to me is a question of lack of consistency in terms of principle and attitude as to who you are where you belong and where you are headed so a combination of all of this to jump ship and to as it were, seek for greener pastures or be sustained in their particular position, the disturbing aspect of that has to turn the nation into a one-party state. That cannot be ruled out but again, Nigeria is a diverse and complex country.
Nigeria is a country that is such a nice place to live and so this is a very full-blown story and then here in Nigeria you know you against all hope and against all expectation you see from Nigeria thriving and getting out of near death, near collapse, system and structure. We have seen that in the past even during President Olusegun Obasanjo’s regime when the third term agenda was looming and booming and cash or money was flowing. At the end of the day, there were still people that had the structure back. And it is not going to be a new thing if such a thing happens again. But again, we must be hopeful that Nigeria will not be turned into a one-party state, and Nigerians will have the benefits of choice from the multitude or a few numbers of political parties presenting candidates for service in various offices
We discovered that the crisis at the national level, today we’re hearing that the Abia State wing of the party is suspending the chairman of the BOT, Senator Adolphus Wabara. And again, the present national chairman appears to be sitting on a hot seat. Is there no end to the crisis in PDP at the national level?
Well, there will certainly be an end but in every situation and particularly in situations like this, it is not easy to get through it. when you have people who are planted to make or mar, to destroy or to disrupt a systematic, unfolding of events or sequence of events as to having a stable polity. I think it’s all desperation, desperation from all concerned; from the political class, desperation of those of us in power desiring to stay back in power and using whatever means at whatever cost to get at whatever it is.
But again, and again God has always proved that’s what it is, himself right and not wrong. When we do things like this, we forget that there is a God in heaven that rules over the affairs of men and when at any point he can decide to do anything. We had the same thing during the Abacha’s regime, virtually everybody was having many fingers, leprous fingers but all sum up to one but at the end of the day God intervened and at each point, God always intervene but more than any other thing, I think we need the growth of our institutions and we need character development of individuals within the polity to be able to stick to whatever they believe in as principle and of course we are human beings, we are liable to bend here and there but by and large and at the end of the day the issue should be at the level of sincerity, at which we operate level of sincerity at which we operate should be opt.
Distinguished, still going back to the issue of defection, you are a lawyer and we know that no lawyer would want the law of the land to be violated. But we see a situation where these politicians defect contrary to the provisions of the law that should be obeyed. Yet, the courts have been turning blind eyes. Even when you take the matter to the court, they will still do the bidding of the ruling party.
Are you not concerned? And what do you think is the way out?
Well, the courts, and particularly those men, the courts are part and parcel of our system. It’s all a systemic issue. And nobody is free from what the system is for now. So, that is that. Then as far as the law is concerned, yes, people cross carpets, and it appears that the judges or the courts are turning a blind eye. It may appear so, but it is not so, because the situation is, if one declares or decides to move from one party to the other, the presiding officer is the one to announce and the Parliament is the one to declare that seat vacant. And if that condition is not fulfilled, then the law has not been fully observed, and the judges cannot do anything, because that singular aspect that is outstanding has not been fulfilled; it has not taken place.
The other day or in the Senate in the recent past, we had people defecting from PDP or from the Labour Party to APC but the constitution I think, states that it is the presiding officer that will declare their defection. Number one, number two and declare their seats vacant and in as much as the presiding officer fails to do that, there is nothing the judge can do, because that is dependent on the declaration of that seat as vacant, which is a bit different from the Rivers situation because there is a question of the entire house almost, majority defecting and haven’t shown even to an affidavit so that is evidential documentary evidence to the fact of the defection and the person who is to declare it himself, is part of those who have jumped ship. So, those are the issues. It’s not as if the courts are turning a blind eye; it is that the conditions precedent are not fulfilled and therefore, there is little or nothing that the judges can do. Ordinarily, people felt that injustice has occurred, but that is not injustice because the law has not been executed or followed to the latter. It’s not injustice. The law says “your seat becomes vacant when the presiding officer declares it so. If it’s true, the presiding officer has not done so.
Distinguished, don’t you think that that clause in the Constitution should be amended because it’s a serious clause?
It was not even in the Constitution before. It was part of refining the process that brought that provision to be. Now that we have seen the defects of that provision, I think with time, whether now or later, that provision will have to be looked into.
Now, revisiting the education issue we raised earlier, that the Minister of Education is contemplating an introduction of a 12-year stretch basic education model to take over or to replace the sixth, three, three system. And the Nigerians are asking, of what importance is it going to be, of what improvement is it going to do to the education system? Is it just a change of nomenclature?
Well, to me it’s neither here nor there. Basic education still remains 12 years from primary to Junior Secondary School, and to Senior Secondary School. Primary, six years, junior three years, and senior three years, making 12 years. So, it’s just a change of name. What is required to me is all about a selective implementation of some of our policies. Selective in the sense of lack of sufficient resources to run it fully. For example, when you have a comprehensive school, and you have enough teachers, but it doesn’t matter whether it is 633 or 12 at a stretch. The important ingredient is the teaching staff. Once you don’t have that, then the police are doomed to fail or to wobble.
Is it true that we don’t have resources to implement our policies or we don’t have the will power to judiciously apply the resources available to implement these policies?
We don’t have enough resources to implement them and I can say that for sure, haven’t been involved in basic education at a point at the state level, the number of teachers and the numbers of schools and students, they are mismatched in the villages you have one person as the teacher and that teacher is not even a teacher in science or arts, he’s a teacher in Religious Studies who will now be forced to teach all of these subjects. So, because and that is what I think this Universal Basic Education thing is, as good as it is, there are flaws that should be re-examined because the issue of school within so many kilometers, so that children don’t trek long to get to school. It’s good but I think it’s a policy that should be implemented gradually, say on a local government by local government basis, because at the end of the day, we don’t have what it takes to implement it successfully. So, we have to do selective implementation. If you can have a comprehensive school in a location within like five kilometers radius and it’s comprehensive with enough teachers, it’s better than having a block of classrooms here, a block of classrooms there, a block of classrooms all over the place without teachers.
There is a kind of inconsistency in the budget cycle. The Ninth Senate passed a budget circle that should run from December to January or January to December. But the 10th Senate came in and has dragged the nation back to the inconsistency in our budget cycle that the ninth tried to correct. What actually is happening and where do we go from here?
Well, it may appear inconsistent, but again, that is part of the budget process. At any point, whether or not the President adds money to the existing budget, the National Assembly is at liberty to add more money because under the doctrine of the power of purse, it is the duty of the National Assembly to appropriate.
The President may bring a proposal, but once the National Assembly is persuaded or convinced that we have enough resources to cover more than what the President presents and to be able to service the people because the essence of government is number one social service. So, the National Assembly passes whatever the President brings for the government to be in a position to service the population or the populace. So, that is that.
Now on the issue of the budget cycle, yeah! The budget cycle remains from January to December. Now the extension that was given to the 2024 budget to the end of June 2025 is to allow for the utilization of the capital budget but principally, I think we don’t have enough resources for those items. As we speak today the Minister of Finance just assured us that N600 billion is being put into the system to be able to offset a lot of the bills, particularly government contracts that have been executed and not paid for. While no government is perfect, the past governments, we are all aware, printed money to use and we spent money we did not have, and so, to stabilize the financial system, we need to overcome those defects and deficiencies in the financial system and that is what I think the government has been trying to do, to get over the printing and the usage of over N30 trillion and spending money ahead of our earnings. So, definitely it wasn’t going to be easy to get over them but systematically, I think the government has found a way to overcome that aspect and I think that was the essence of introducing one payment system.
Any agency under your supervision you can give the contract but the payment is one source, that is the Account-General’s office. So, you upload and now even the backlog that is there now with the injection of N600 billion into that, as per minister’s statement at least it will be able to clear, if not all, substantially the outstanding, so that we don’t go into either spending money we don’t have, or printing money to use.
It’s like the past government did a deadly blow to the economy?
Yeah, again, currently you are a member of the Public Accounts Committee and your committee invited people that you said did not adhere to your invitations to come and respond to the queries. For instance, during the week, the Inspector General of Police was around to clear the part that concerns the Police. Our concern is that we have been having this kind of threat from the Public Account Committee and at the end nothing happens.
Well, the Public Accounts Committee is to look into irregular spendings or failure to adhere to government financial regulations by MDAs and it is not what is cooked up by the Public Accounts Committee but what the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation in their audit exercises have exhumed from each MDA. So, the duty is to find out why it happened and to make amends where necessary and possible or to discharge where necessary. It is another check and balance on the use of public funds which power is vested in the Legislature. We may see it as business as usual but again it still creates some impact on the economy and on the MDAs.
For example, like the IGP’s appearance before the committee, even though he didn’t stay long, at least he honored the invitation and gave a preamble to the issues and left his team to do the explanations. And one of the phrases that I liked from the acting chairman was the fact that the Police as an institution should show a good example in following the laws and observing procedures because they are the ones that arrest and detain people based on infringement of the law. Now, if they are found wanting, then it becomes difficult for them going forward to execute the laws of the land. So, it’s always a check and balance and a means of correcting or redirecting our mindset to doing the proper things as far as government financial regulations are concerned.
It is known that virtually in all the states of the federation, each has a good deposit of solid minerals. These minerals are not tapped. We also learned that some of the crisis we are having across the country is as a result of people going into illegal mining, and they are now using brute force to carry out their illicit activities, shortchanging the government because the government is not going to earn any revenue from the activities. Can this be stopped? And how?
Of course, yes, it can be stopped but again when you have a messy economy as such as ours, you have the insecurity that has been unleashed on the nation. It is not going to be easy to eliminate that on the basis of the fact that you cannot fight on all the fronts at the same time. You have to select fronts on which to fight and to consolidate. And gradually these are things that can be eliminated or taken care of. But as it is. then, again, to be able to get rid of issues like this, it is dependent on the mindset of the leadership, because in a nation or in a society where money plays God, everybody goes for it.
Therefore, restraint and restrictions become difficult to apply, and until leaders will sit up and be able to say yes for the sake of the entire society and on ending tomorrow, and the youth that will become the leaders of tomorrow, there is need to have a better system, a better society. The foundation for it is there now. So, gradually, we will overcome them. But we will do better and faster if there is that policy, if there is that political will on the part of the leaders as it is now. But again, as noted, we all like money. We all want money; we all love money; and we have turned money to be our God. When we go to pray as a Muslim or to go to church as a Christian, we pray but our mindset is more about money, money, money, money. You can see that even in churches today, the emphasis is on how big your tithe is, how big your offering is, and not as to the genuineness of your mindset in worship of the Almighty.
It appears that this mindset that has brought so much vices to the system is insurmountable. The mindset of pursuing money as our God. It is surmountable. It is surmountable?
Yeah, it is surmountable. There is no country where you don’t have corruption. But there comes a time when a leader says, ‘look, yes, we all like it, but there must be a minimum standard. There must be a benchmark that we must not go below.’ And once we get to that point, yes, it is surmountable.
