As the 10th Senate settle down for parliamentary work, indication has emerged that legislative duties may not be business as usual.
Indeed, the Senate Deputy Minority Leader, Senator Olalere Kamorudeen Oyewumi (PDP, Osun West) has disclosed that the upper legislative chamber is poise to change mistakes of the past, saying the 10th Assembly has been tagged “Corrective Assembly” by the 109 senators.
In an interview with newsmen in Abuja, the lawmaker emphasised that the minority will keep the ruling party on their toes to enhance good governance, politics Editor, SAMINU IBRAHIM was there.
EXCERPTS
Qu: Following the emergence of principal officers of both Chambers, specifically the Senate, there were spontaneous reactions from political parties, the platform they used as template to come to the parliament. There were reactions that the parties were not aware of the list that was announced by the Senate President as regards principal officers. How did you feel when you heard about this?
Ans: In the first instance, let me correct that impression. The party I represent, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), there was no any official reaction. There was no any condemnation by my party. All those ones you are hearing are rumours. Yesterday by 10am myself and the Minority Leader were with the Acting National Chairman of our party and we held a very good discussion. You know, there is no way you can take such decision like that and everybody will be happy. It is not possible. Even if you are chosen as a Councillor of a ward, there must be some grumbling but the system will correct itself. Everybody is now back on the same page and we are moving together, no problem because Senate has a rule that guides its operations- section 27 of the Senate rule says: ” The Senate shall appoint its principal officers from among the members and we did it very official in the Minority caucus and people signed; 36 out of 50 appended their signatures. What you saw as a reaction was that, time did not permit us to visit some of our Senators to canvass for their support. That was the reaction. Some people didn’t know that some people were signing because we were on recess that time and we were travelling and looking for some people. We went to South, North and west and everywhere. It was practically impossible to visit all the senators and they felt aggrieved when they discovered that about 36 Senators have signed and they said why didn’t you contact us, did we say we were not going to sign? That was the reaction from the the Minority caucus and we have explained the reason and we are now together.
Qu: Your emergence was due to a list allegedly supported by Wike against some group within PDP
ANS: That is another rumour. That is another very big rumour. I am from Osun State, South West. To the glory of God , the Minority Leader is from Plateau State. I have a governor in my state, senator Ademola Adeleke who supported this post I am holding. My chairman, Senator Simon has a governor in Plateau State who equally supported his emergence. It was not a one-man show. Leadership of the party too, governors were involved but because the whole thing looks like a surprise to a lot of people. There was no external influence on our emergence that is why we went on signing. We signed across board- Labour Party, Accord Party, YPP, SDP and the PDP. Even within the PDP majority signed for us – 22 to 24 signed for us. So are they saying that it is Wike that is controlling everybody in the party? It was a spontaneous reaction that happened because people were not expecting new faces. May be their mind was somewhere else and when it came the way it came and the number was overwhelming; more than 2/3, so people will say something. That is the politics.
Qu: Associated with the rumour is the fact that we gave been covering the parliament before now and in parliamentary democracy, what obtains is that the list of principal officer normally comes from the party, signed by the Secretary of the party to the Senate President. We are not aware of any consensus, this is the first time we are having this, that is why it is giving room….
Ans: Cuts in.., you know that is happening in all the parties here not only in Minority caucus even in majority caucus. What the party does is that the party guides, there is no problem about that. Even look at the Senate Presidency, the majority party suggested somebody and they worked for it. They didn’t just put the name of somebody and went to sleep. They worked it out. If they did not work and sat down and watched, different story would have happened. So the party can guide but it is an advice. The major thing that guided the choice of the minority was fairness. Before we chose our minority leader, the current Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio is from Akwa Ibom (South South) Nigeria, the Speaker is from Kaduna (North West), the Deputy Senate President is front Kano (North West). Then when the House of Reps wanted to pick their minority leader, they picked if from Rivers another (South South). We are the last. We are the last, we now said in the National Assembly, the South South has produced Senate President and Minority Leader, the North West has produced the Speaker and Deputy Senate President and within the PDP, two people were eyeing the position of Minority Leader namely: Senator Aminu Tambuwal or Senator Dickson. Sen Dickson is from the South South where the Senate President and minority Leader of the House of Representatives come from. His Excellency senator Aminu Tambuwal is from Sokoto ( North West) where the Speaker of the House of Reps and Deputy Senate President come from.
We now discovered that the North Central is virtually empty and there are some of us that are like-minds and we said fair is fair, whatever you want to preach you have to do it first. Let the North Central go and produce the minority leader and nothing in the south west also in the National Assembly and we said the south west should go and bring. It was not by accident, we sat down and agreed and that is why the uproar did not last. Once you are able to explain to people, they quickly understand.
Qu: You said North central and if you look at it, Sen Abba Moro is also from North central. There was 65 percent hope that he might emerge Senate minority leader. Are you saying that the rumour that the Senate President wouldn’t want anyone who will be at loggerhead with him occurred the way people are saying it outside there? Secondly, you are a Senator from Osun, we have seen that senator Fadahunsi performed well that the APC was beaten squarely in the whole of his senatorial district, will you surpass his performance?
Ans: My answer to the first question is that Sen Abba Moro signed for us. He was number 31 on the list and that has put rest to the question. He was among the 36 that signed. I think you are satisfied with that. About performance, no problem. We are just starting. By the time I finish this term, I will ask you to go to my senatorial district and let the people do the judgement. There is no person that will go to the market and will tell you that his product is not good but when you buy it and you get home, you now feel the taste with your tongue. This is not the first time I will be here, God has been so fair to me. I have held so many positions in my life. After I left National Assembly, I was one of the longest serving local government chairman in Nigeria. I served as local government chairman of my council for seven years. I was the ALGON Chairman of Osun State for four years and the story is in Osun State. When I left there, I was a federal commissioner of National Population Commission in Abuja here for five years. So it is not by accident that I came here. That I got 137,000 votes is not by accident. People know what they expect from me. The only thing I will say is that I will not disappoint them.
Qu: Distinguished, you made mentioned that the uprising did not last because of the diligence of the Senators. Now in the 9th Assembly there was a kind of unity amongst legislators in the two Chambers. Now, will the 10th Senate take that trajectory. Moreso, now that you are a principal officer, what should Nigerians expect from Godswill Akpabio-led 10th Senate?
Ans: You see, we have christened this 10th Assembly “a Corrective Assembly” and that is the tag we have given it and that explains to Nigerians what to expect from us. We are very fortunate that there are a lots of leaders there, ranking Senators are there – 5th term and 4th term, so we have seen a lot of things and we have come to the reality that a lot of things need to be corrected. Nobody is in National Assembly to fight, no. People didn’t vote for us to go and fight. If you want to go and fight go to the ring so that people will watch you fighting. That is not why we were voted. We are here to better the lives of the people. We are here to secure the people. There are so much problem in this country. What the National Assembly stands for is check and balance, from the legislature to the executive. It is like you have a child and you set up business for him and give him money, you must monitor. National Assembly is in charge of budget, appropriation. We give each agency money. Then we monitor what they do with our money. If they do well do you fight? If they don’t do well there will be noise. It’s not fight. It’s a noise – you are not doing well my brother, where is the money I gave you, that is just the synonym. The National Assembly will do their work, we will keep the ruling party on their toes to make sure that Nigerians get the best from this 10th Assembly. That is what we will do. When they are doing well we do it together, we will give our maximum support and where we need to disagree, we disagree honourably. Where we need to agree, we agree. We are not ready to play politics at the National Assembly, no. We are here as the Senators of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and our people must be first in our minds. That is our agenda. We have sat down, we have designed our agenda and we have all pledged not to let Nigerians down.
Qu: Distinguished, you have said that the 10th Assembly is christened Corrective Assembly and that the function of NASS is checks and balances. We didn’t see these in the 9th Assembly. What we saw was a rubber stamp 9th Assembly. Today, almost the same scenario that played out in the emergence of the 9th Senate played out in the emergence of the leadership of the 10th Senate. Are we expecting that the Senate of the 10th Assembly will not be a rubber stamp? Secondly, over time, we have seen that the Senate function of oversight has not been done convincingly. It has been done in the interest of the Senators in the sense that if a budget is given, once the Senate is compensated, they will go and give pass mark to whatever they set out to oversight. Is the oversight of the 10th Senate going to be departure from what obtained in the 9th Senate.
Ans: Thank you very much. You see, how somebody emerges is not very important. It is what you do with the position that matters. It was not by accident that we coined this Assembly “Corrective Assembly”, It speaks something to you that we noticed some lapses by ourselves, not anybody telling us. If we could seat down, 109 people and we all agreed unanimously that in this NASS something must be corrected, I think it gives some meaning. It suggests what you should be expecting. You cannot be doing the same thing the same way and expect a different result.. If everybody is saying the past government is bad, there are some of these people in NASS that are part of that government. Was it a one man show? Was it only Buhari? But those of them that had opportunity of coming here knew that some things were not properly done the right way and since we are here now, by the grace of God, it now behoves on us to make the correction by ourselves so that the people will have a different perspective of this 10th National Assembly.
And issue of oversight in the interest of the Senators, you see the whole issue is very complicated and that is why this morning, the Senate President announced a committee, we called it ‘Legislative Compliance”. At times you do oversight and make recommendations but it will not be followed. That is the truth and if you watch since last week, a lot of issue have come up that the Senate has said it wants to investigate and we have said now that there is a committee on legislative compliance, that any decision we take must be followed to implementation level and if that is not going to happen, Nigerians will know that from us. I think for just this three weeks, within the next few months, people will start seeing the result of our actions. There is nothing we will say now, some may not believe, but seeing is believing. By the time the product of our action starts coming out, Nigerians will know that “ten” is a special number.
