INEC SHOULD NOT BE PLACED UNDER PRESIDENCY - IKUFORIJI

 

President Umaru Yar'Adua recently released the White Paper on the report of the Electoral Reform Committee, what is your impression of the report?

I have not gone through it, but one thing I understand is that the recommendation that the National Judicial Council (NJC) should be the one nominating the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was thrown out and I think that is sad. If we are desirous of a real reform, if we are seriously thinking of a political reform that can guarantee a free and fair election in this country for us to move forward, electoral reform that can take us to the desired destination, we should ensure that INEC is not placed under the presidency, it is wrong, it is unfair and I consider it as very insincere, and it is not acceptable.

And the issue of election petition not being concluded in six months before the winner takes office?

In fact, I think this is even worse than INEC being under the presidency, I do not know what they actually have in mind by rejecting the recommendation that election petition be dispensed before whoever is declared winner takes office. It is only fair that whoever does not win an election should not be allowed to take advantage of that office. How on earth can you allow somebody whose election is still a case for litigation take office and then begin to use the advantages of that office including the resources to prosecute his defence, against perhaps the rightful winner of that election, I think it is grossly unfair and should not be allowed to happen, this will amount to standing justice on its head.

What is your take on the scrapping of the State Electoral Commission, (SIEC)?

I honestly believe that SIEC is what we should have, there should be only one electoral body in the State and it is the one that should conduct all elections in the State Collation for the Federal election will now be done at the Federal level that is what obtains in other parts of the world. I don't believe in the duality of those roles. This should also not be controlled by the State Government. None of these electoral bodies should be controlled by any government, and they should be independent. So, the State one carries out its function at the State level and when it is a federal election, the results are collated at the federal level. There should be independence.

Now, if you are to advise members of the National Assembly on this issue, what will it be?

Very simple, I will advise members of the National Assembly, in the interest of Nigerians whom they represent, not to consider the position of the executive, they should go ahead and do their work from the panel's recommendations rather than wasting time to begin to consider the position of the executive. That way, I am sure posterity will judge them favourably; to do otherwise is to turn their back on the yearnings of the people who voted them into that office and whose mandate they enjoy.

Now, the global economic meltdown is becoming a huge concern to many world leaders, but many are of the view that Nigerian leaders don't seem to be doing enough to prepare for measures to curtail its effect, but as a former banker, how do you view the role of the banks in all of these and what should they do to help the people fair better in times like these?

I have said it time and time again and on the floor of the House only very recently, if you were around, it is clear that the Nigerian financial sector is just a camouflage, we do not have anything serious in place. It is unexplainable that the economy has shrunk so much, the manufacturing sector has almost completely disappeared, but the financial sector is booming. Who are the people getting the services? You hardly find the Nigerian financial sector financing productive projects. All they do is turn around this money from one organisation to the other, from one bank to the other and that is why the idea of the Central Bank Governor to push these people to have a common financial year will expose many things. If that happens you will see, it will only be a question of one month, of the 25 banks, we may not have more than six left.

They are just playing with the life of the nation and the services to the people are not there. They are not helping the economy; entrepreneurs cannot get anything from them. How much of these money do actually they lend to manufacturers? It is sad.

But these things work in other climes and it doesn't here, nothing seems to move here despite the resources. What really will you say is wrong with this nation besides corruption, because corruption has always been the weeping baby here, is all of our problems just corruption?

Our problem is not just corruption, but orientation, almost everything about us is wrong, our outlook of life itself is wrong.

Is that to say you believe in the re-branding that the new Information Minister is talking about?

I don't believe in re-branding that is just noise making, we had it during the Ibrahim Babangida era, when the National Orientation Agency was created, but I have not seen much that the agency has done. The leadership should also come out in all ways to show that we are really serious about the re-orientation of our society. Yes you can re-brand when nothing has changed, but our outlook of life, everything we do is in the wrong. Look at yourself as an individual, I as an individual, we are all guilty of the corruption, not corruption of money now, all our practices, everything about us is wrong.

This is a country where you will find a young man who is about to get married with a young woman and they are more concerned about the grandiose reception that they must hold. They are more concerned about a lavish party of a mighty dimension, for the noise to go around that the wedding was grand, but they are not as concerned about the real thing called the institution of marriage, no, they are concerned with the facade. Somebody goes to school; they are more interested in just passing with good grades, not in the knowledge. That is why today you will also find a graduate of English from a Nigerian University who cannot make a simple sentence in English. You cannot converse with him or her in English for five minutes and he is a graduate of English. Just five minutes conversation will reveal that he is an empty bucket. Here you have lecturers who are not happy to impart knowledge, what they are interested in is what they get out of their students and this goes round for each and every one of us.

Even those of us who are legislators, look at what is happening around the country, people are only interested in how much they make as legislators. They are not interested in the service to the people and making the society a better one and that is why you will find out that the major quarrel in all the Houses is nothing but money.

Somebody wants to be Governor, it is not because of the service that he wants to render to the people, but because he is going to control the purse of the State. I want to be Commissioner, not because of anything but so that I will be so regarded and honoured. That is why you will find out that in our social gatherings, if all our titles are not attached to our names we get annoyed.That is why you will also see even traditional rulers who will dish out the biggest of the titles in the land to a known armed robber, known destroyers of the society as long as they can give out the money or send them on pilgrimage to Mecca or Jerusalem or give them ticket to go to London on holiday, the person becomes the highest title holder in the land. So no one cares to do the right thing anymore, no one cares about the effect of his activities to the society or the nation, but just interested in the noise. It is only in today's Nigeria that you can finish from a high school or a university and two months after if you go home in a brand new Cherokee Jeep nobody in your family, compound, the area or even the town wants to find out how you got it. Some years back if you do that, your family will be ostracised , but today the few who are working conscientiously for the progress of the nation are more or less the ones that the society laughs at, so the orientation must change.

Is that the way out?

It is the only way out, it has to be a collective decision.If President Yar'adua stays there for the next six years nothing will change. Have you asked yourself, with the billions of Naira gone down on the energy thing, what have we come out with? The amount that have been spent so far, in some sane society, a quarter of that would have guaranteed us enough electricity to power this nation and that is the major thing. No matter what we do today about the economy, in as much as we fail to solve the problems confronting the energy sector, in as much as we fail to generate enough electricity to power this nation, we cannot get out of the woods. Energy is number one factor. Look at the manufacturing sector; they all died majorly because of energy. When you spend millions on diesel every month, what are you going to produce? Look at the garment industry, they are gone, none of us is ready to put on Made in Nigeria Clothes. Thank God, at least one bad aspect of us, for our social parties around here in the South-West, we have cultivated the habit of Ankara, unfortunately the Ankara that we use are now majorly from China. The Nigerian textile industry is gone, I mean, at least if we are buying  Ankara for our social parties from the local sources, it would have been okay, but we don't. So it is all of us, that is why I keep saying that the media is number one culprit, the Nigeria media is not ready and willing to see Nigeria out the woods, let the media get serious, let them give the right information and the right news, let them attack where they are supposed to attack, let them praise when there is need, but look at the number of your colleagues out there, most them are bread and butter Journalists, where will that lead us?

This is a thing for all of us to sit down to reason together and agree if we want to perish or we want to move forward. I have my members here when they cry for money I understand the situation, home back for each one of them in their constituencies. What their constituents are asking of them is not the development going on, they are not interested, it is my wife put to bed, how much can honourable give me or my mother in-law just died, I need cow and all that sorts, that is what they are interested in. So it is a thing for all of us, it is not just one man or one sector, the President cannot do it alone, the governors cannot even if they are willing and the legislators they don't have the powers even if they are constitutionally empowered to do certain things, it is we Nigerians.

The House has just began the construction of a new chamber and many people have wondered what the need for it is, considering that the old one seems to still be fairly alright and in the face of the current economic reality, does Lagos really need that now?

My brother, this is Lagos and we want to do it right, the chamber we have now was built by Alhaji Lateef Jakande and we give kudos to him. We thank him for the good job he did, but the truth remains that it has become inadequate. We know what we go through when we have special sessions, we know the failings of that chamber, when we were about to build these new offices we were also to expand the chamber, but when we looked at the bill, what it would cost and we looked at the benefits that we would have derived and we concluded that it was actually better to go for a new one. If you have noticed, we in the Lagos House of Assembly don't pass bills without inviting the stakeholders and Lagosians as a whole, so we must hold public hearing and to hold public hearings we have been using the existing lobby, the lobby is rather small and inadequate It was not designed for that purpose.  We know we need an auditorium, now if our present chamber is inadequate for its purpose and expanding it will cost so much, why don't we just build a new chamber and convert the present chamber to an auditorium. By the end of the year when this new one would have been completed, you will definitely see a befitting auditorium for public hearings for the people of Lagos State.

There is also a feeler that the offices are also to be enhanced, is that so?

We will get to that, if need be, and you will also realize that when Alhaji Jakande built these offices in 1980, it was designed and built for just over 20 legislators, so what you see as the offices of the honourable members used to be for the honourable member alone and the aides of two honourable members sharing one of the offices, so when you find an honourable member one to the right and another to the left, the office in the centre is for their aides. Because the number has increased, we have to make do with what we have. About five years ago, we had to do some little work to add toilet and you need to go there to see how that is, we have been trying to modernize the place, get things done, things that we have now were not in existence then and we must move with the time, so it is just normal that we should also look forward to doing something to the office complex.

But can we have an idea what the new chamber is likely to cost?

Well, you know I am not a member of the State's Tenders Board, but I do have an idea and it just the idea, I think it is about N400 Million.