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Senate, Reps must focus on economy-Ojo
Chief Bayo Ojo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) spoke with
IHEANACHO NWOSU and ACHILLEUS UCHEGBU. Excerpts:
THE National
Assembly would be kicking off a new legislative year tomorrow, what would you
say should be their main concern?
I would want them to focus on the economy.
They have done well in the last legislative year, at least compared to what we
had in the last four years. There are less incidences of “Ghana must Go”. I
think the present crop of Assembly members are more focused, serious and they
tend to be sensitive to the aspiration and plight of the electorate who put them
there. If you look at what they have tried to concern themselves with, like the
issue of fuel, they waded in and tried to take a middle course etc.
So I would want the Assembly to focus more
on the economy. This issue of recapitalisation of banks should be looked at
critically because the economy is in need of reforms and these reforms should
come with cushioning effect.
For instance, even if you raise fuel to
N100 per litre, if there is a proper, well organised mass transit system in all
the parts of the country, nobody will bother. If people can move from point A to
point B with ease, at affordable prices. It means that it is only going to be a
luxury for you to go and buy that fuel at N100. You probably would do that if
you can afford it and at weekends.
If I can step out of my office and take a
bus from here to my destination at an affordable price, I would not give a hood
if fuel goes to N200 or anything else per litre. But you see, the problem here
is that a policy is put in place but there is no corresponding facility to
ensure its smooth implementation. Government does not first of all put in place
things before coming up with a policy.
For example, if you say from tomorrow it
is going to be an offence for anybody to urinate in the streets of Lagos, that
anybody who does that will be fined N10,000. Now, before you do that kind of
law, you should provide public toilets at strategic places which would be well
taken care of. Now if you do that and then say from now henceforth there will
not be any urinating in the street of Lagos, it will be understandable, people
would applaud it. And it will be obeyed. Anybody who refuses to obey would be
regarded as a deviant who wants to break the law.
But if you don’t have a single public
toilet in strategic places, you then say people should not urinate by the road
side, it will be impossible. There is no magic about it.
So if we must pay economic prices for
fuel, if the vagaries of international economics or price differentials would
affect us, then there should be in place a proper mass transit system whereby
people can move freely within the city at an affordable fares.
Nobody is doubting the fact that our
economy needs reforms, far reaching reforms which might bring hardship sometimes
but the issue is that efforts must be made to ameliorate the hardship.
Facilities must be put in place to help cushion this hardship.
So I want the National Assembly to
preoccupy itself in areas which can have direct effect on the economy and make
life more meaningful for the people, so that people can put food on their table.
But there are views in some quarters that
the National Assembly should give priority to the remoulding of the constitution
to help bring the desired restructuring of the country. Do you share this
viewpoint?
We need constitutional review, but it
should not take precedent over any other thing. What is paramount on the life of
every Nigerian today is to put food on his or her table. Any other thing is
secondary.
Nobody doubts the fact that we need
constitutional review but again it cannot be paramount because there is already
a constitution in place. It is not that everything in our present constitution
is bad or unworkable. But it is just that it can be better. There are a lot of
distortions, contradictions in the constitution which need to be reviewed. And
this can be done alongside any other reforms that can make the nation grow.
I don’t believe that we should all face
the constitution and put every other thing on hold. If that is done, may be by
the time we finish with the constitution, every person would be dead.
Some people argue that these distortions
and contradiction can only be looked at vie a Sovereign National Conference,
what is your reaction to such position?
No it is not a must. See, when it comes to
this issue of Sovereign National Conference (SNC), I believe in National
Conference, not SNC. My reason is that you cannot have two sovereigns at the
same time. You can only have one sovereign at a time. There is already a
legitimate government in power. When I say government, I mean, the executive,
legislature and judiciary.
So what we need is a National Conference.
However, I have reservations as to how workable it will be to have a National
Conference. When I say reservation, it is not that I don’t want it. Not it. We
really need such conference. But how to go about it is going to be a problem. I
mean the logistics of summoning a national conference of all nationalities? How
do you appoint those who will attend the conference? How are they going to
deliberate? Is it going to be one representative per dialect in Nigeria or one
representative of each ethnic group or all ethnic groups including minorities
and majorities? Are they going to be elected or appointed?
These are things which we also need to
look into. Not that we cannot solve problems until we have a national
conference. We can solve problems especially those that need immediate
attention. But the purpose of the conference, as some people have said is for us
to sit down and look at our collective togetherness.
How we want to be together, how we want
Nigeria to be etc. Like the issue of citizenship, should it be that if you live
in a particular place for a minimum of 10 years, you are qualified to be an
indigene of the place or is it if you are born there, you are a citizen of that
particular place.
I don’t see any reason why any person who
is born in any part of the country should not be a citizen of that place. Your
parents are there, they pay taxes, when it comes to a time for you to go to
school, they tell you that you must pay a different school fees because you are
not from there. I mean, it is totally wrong. There are so many issues which
would be addressed by that particular conference. But I guess, the protagonists
of the conference will know how the conference should take place and how it
should be put in place. Really, we need a national conference, but like I said
not SNC because there is already a government in place. But we can address some
issues that are pressing now without necessarily having to wait for national
conference.
Some of the issues which many may consider
pressing that must be attended to immediately by the National Assembly include
the review of our Electoral Law. Do you think it merits such quick treatment
before 2007?
Yes I do feel so. You see the last
Electoral Law has been utilised, and we have seen the pitfalls and the good part
of it. The beauty of life is change. Nothing is permanent. You cannot get
everything right the first time. When you do something, you look at where you
have made mistakes and you try to make amend.
So there are areas in which the current
electoral law has not sound well, particularly in the area of election
petitions. The time it takes, the procedure and the level it goes to etc. And
there are a lot of other areas too, which need to be looked at. So I think we
need to review the Electoral Law before the next election.
You did give the incumbent National
Assembly kudos, how do you explain your position alongside views in some circles
that the members are rubber stamps to the executive?
I do not believe that they are mere rubber
stamps to the executive. There is a limit to what the National Assembly can do
in terms of governance. It cannot take over the functions of the executive.
Their powers are limited to oversight functions. They concern themselves over
things that derive from appropriation. So it is for them to make laws and also
oversee those laws through the oversight functions. But it is for the executive
to govern. And it is for the judiciary to moderate between the executive and the
legislature and the citizen.
So when I say they have done well, I am
saying that against the background of bills they have passed and how sensitive
they have tried to be to the plight of the common man. But like I said, National
Assembly do not have executive power and so there is a limit to how far they can
go. Some people confuse their roles and think they should do certain things. But
their primary role is to make laws and exercise oversight functions.
There is a growing concern about cultism
in higher institution. Is there really anything the National Assembly can do to
provide, a handle for fighting the menace beyond the current scratching of the
surface style?
The best way to stop cultism or any ill in
the society is adequate punishment. A lot of ills go on in the society because
when they happen, the perpetrators are not given adequate punishment.
When students are caught in cultism, they
are arrested, but eventually they manoeuvre their ways, that is why they have
continued to get involved in the act. But if they are caught and they are
adequately punished, it will serve as a deterrent for other people.
For example, you can’t just behave anyway
you like in a society. There are rules and regulations. You cannot just wake up
and start sleeping and beating up everybody you see in the street. If you do
that you will end up injuring people and then you should be brought to book. But
if you do that today, you go free, tomorrow, again, you so free, then next
tomorrow you will do it.
Because there is no sanction for that more
people will even join you and it will become an acceptable norm in the society.
But when you do it today and you are apprehended and brought to book, you will
not do it next time. So we need to adequately punish deviants, those who refuse
to obey the rules and regulations of the society.
How would you want the National Assembly
to handle the labour bill sent by the presidency which is seeking to
dencentralise the Nigeria Labour Congress?
I believe the people in the National
Assembly are very capable people who will look at the bill critically and do
what is right. But I don’t believe that decentralising labour is the solution to
labour problem or problems of the country.
I believe that if you have a problem, you
don’t start addressing the symptoms. You need to look at the cause of the
disease. If you keep treating the symptom, the disease would still be there. So
I think we need to look closely on what the problems are, what does labour want,
what is behind the frequent unrest and address those issues. Government only
needs to dialogue with the labour and that way we can have industrial peace. I
don’t believe that decentralising labour will solve our problem.
If you become NBA president, in what area
would you want to work with the National Assembly?
Well if I become the NBA president, I will
like to collaborate with the National Assembly to make laws that will bring
economic emancipations, that will bring boom to the economy. What I mean is, I
would want them to address issues affecting the economy. For instance the Small
Scale Industries (SMEs) which the government is doing, there is no machinery of
enforcement. The banks are not giving out loans as they ought to. So you find
out that a lot of industries have collapsed.
So the National Assembly should make laws
that would drive the economy. Things that would generally increase production
and affect the economy is what I will like to collaborate with the law- makers.
Once the economy is good, people would be employed. The Gross Domestic Product
(GDP) of Nigeria will automatically improve. GDP is just the aggregate of our
production. The National Assembly needs to be proactive in terms of laws that
affect the economy.
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