There are many wicked people in govt

•Senator Adeyemi

Senator Smart Adeyemi (PDP Kogi West) is gradually becoming a brand name in the Senate of the Federal Republic owing to his radical position on issues.

In this interview with Daily Sun Senator Adeyemi expressed concern about the budgetary process wants it to be more participatory and people driven in practice.
The former President of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) now known for his radical ideas in the Senate which has earned him the title of “Senator Radical Solution” is however disturbed about the spiritual disposition of people in government saying; “There are too many wicked people in government that were elected by the people.”

Senator Adeyemi who stood firm in support of the desire of his people to have a Ministerial slot on the floor of the Senate during the Ministerial screening exercise as against the choice of Kogi State government, said that he had no regret standing on the side of his people even as he said that the development put him at cross purposes with the State government that is bent on sponsoring a candidate against him, saying that he is not deterred by such moves since the people know what he has so far done for them.

The journalists turned politician declared that it is ungodly for people to start talking about 2011 now when there are more pressing and challenging issues to be addressed saying that he does not want to be distracted from his programmes for the people.
This was even as he said that the Executive arm of government is aware that there is so much corruption in budgeting system in Nigeria.

Excerpts:

You have evolved radical ideas in the Senate that you have been labeled “Senator radical solution”. What do you really what to achieve with radical solution in the National Assembly?
Over the years, we have been following the same system of governance, the same approach to budgeting and the same approach to solving problems. We do a lot of grammar and a lot of talking and nothing has changed in Nigeria. If you maintain a particular position for about fifty years and it’s not yielding results, won’t you start looking elsewhere? Over the years, our approach to solving our problems has not yielded any result. So we need to evolve a system that is more drastic within the framework of the Constitution so that things can work. So, radical approach to issues, for me, is to abandon the old system of solving problems so that we look at more challenging approach.

They may be expensive, but it’s the best approach; radical approach in the sense of looking at issues without sentiment. In Nigeria over the years, opinion leaders, people in government and the executive have been looking at issues from mundane point of view. The time has come after fifty years that we must address issues with the zeal and political will that is required to succeed. In doing that, you should do away with sentiments. You do not look at the implication of your action, vis-à-vis how people want to interpret it. You look at it from the objective you want to attain, which is basically to improve the standard of living of the people and to do that, you have to step on toes. I’m sure it has never happened in the history of the Senate that the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria will read out the names of people who were involved in the collapse of banks in Nigeria.

That was a radical approach. We must be courageous enough in solving our problems. We must be courageous enough to dispassionately address issues, rather than looking at it from the perspective that we do not want to step on toes of people. There cannot be any meaningful change as long as we continue to do things the way it’s been done over the years. There can only be a meaningful change in the socio-economic and political development of our nation when we take a new approach, which of course will take into consideration the failures of the past so that we do not fail.

So, radical approach is to jettison the old order that has never helped us and we look at it from the angle of the challenges of governance in the 21st century. Nigeria has been run on a kind of analogue system over the years in the sense of the approach we inherited from the colonial masters. Even the colonial masters have jettisoned those processes in their own countries so we have to jettison the old order and face the reality of the 21st century. It’s like somebody still using typewriter today when already people are going to moon. So, we must fathom a new approach to solving our problems.

Late chief Awolowo said one of the advantages of developing nations is that they do not have to start the approach of development the way the developed nations started. We met developed nations at the peak of where they are. But in Nigeria, we are not ready to meet them at the peak. We are still going back to the process, which the white man went through to reach where he is. If we want our nation to develop, we will not have to be looking at issues from the centuries past of the white man. We will be looking at the level of achievements and development of the white man of today.

Threat to Senatorial position towards 2011
I’ve had cause to excuse myself from passing comments on 2011. I’m still very busy working for the people and because I’m still very busy, I would not want to be distracted. To me, it would be ungodly for anybody to start talking about 2011 by now. Tomorrow is in the hand of God. My father taught me that whatever I’m doing, I should do it very well. So, for me to be talking of 2011 today will be a distraction to me. I don’t want to go into any campaign for 2011. I’m presently too busy fighting for those who elected me. The project I have at hand, which I’m currently pursing here, is to persuade the University of Ilorin to look at the possibility of moving the Institute of Education to Kabba. Those are the things I want to engage myself with now.

I’m a member of the Constitution Review Committee and I want to engage myself more on the problems confronting my people at home – Local Government creation, State creation, looking at how we can attract more Federal Government presence. To me, it’s too early to be talking of 2011.
I’m aware the government is propping up somebody. The people will decide whether the government of Kogi State will have to appoint a Senator for them or the people themselves will elect the person who will represent them. I’m a member of the PDP and the PDP governs Kogi State. The only problem I have with the government of Kogi State was my disagreement over the Ministerial nominee. I had a choice of whether to be a government man or to be the man of the people. I chose to stand by the wishes of my people. History taught me that there is nobody that stood with his people that ever regretted it. As long as you stand by the need and aspiration of your people, you will never regret it. That is what I have learnt over time in quite a number of biographies of people I have read. So, I chose to stand by my people, rather than compromising the position of my people. That is the only offence I have committed.

My conscience is clear that I have represented my people very well. I have defended their aspirations in Abuja. I have equally given them dividends of democracy within available means and I’m sure they are happy for that. if defending the position of my people is the sin I’ve committed against the Kogi State government, when the time comes, the party will decide as to whether I did well or not. Don’t forget that the issue of party ticket is the responsibility of the political party. Don’t forget too that in a democratic setting, there is always an option. If you don’t get the ticket and you are convinced, you can go to court and you can protest. There are so many options. So, what is important for me is not to be distracted over these issues. I want to focus on the programmes I have set before myself for my people and I’m pursuing these programmes very well.

For your information, I’ve provided not less than 25 boreholes for my Senatorial district. As I’m talking to you, I’m constructing a cottage hospital at Odo- Eri. It’s going to be a 30-bed hospital. As I’m talking to you, I’ve just completed a 30-lockup shop at Odo-Egbe market. It cost me some N25 million. I just completed the Oba-Palace road in Isolu town. I’m constructing about three roads in that town and I’m constructing a road in Odu Eri. I’m constructing another health center in Igbagun. Just last week, I ordered 60 cars to be given as empowerment.

Already, 15 cars have arrived Kabba now and a multi-purpose town hall in Kotonkarfe. There are quite a number of projects like that. I want to engage myself more with the needs of my people rather than election. When the time comes, the people will speak and the work of my hand will speak for itself. When the time comes, God himself will speak. God is more powerful than any Governor. So, I’m not going to engage myself on the pages of newspaper against a Governor or a Commissioner who is supposed to be busy thinking of how to improve the well-being of our people but he has chosen to be campaigning for now. When the time comes, God will use the work of my hand to justify whether I should be a Governor or a Senator. It’s not for me to decide. For me, I’m focused and I don’t want to go into any campaign. Let me just say that my people are happy with me and I’m happy that I’m serving my people.

I’ve taken the risk of confronting the State government not out of hatred for my Governor but out of conviction that I’m elected to speak the minds of those who have elected me. There is nothing personal between me and my Governor. The disagreement I have with the Kogi State government is basically because of the fact that as a journalist practicing politics, I can’t allow my people to be oppressed and I keep quiet. Then I have not justified my mandate. You know I served as NUJ Chairman in Kwara, I became Vice President and National President two terms. That’s just very simple background and I don’t want to forget the fact that I’m a journalist.

The issue of budgeting has continued to reoccur in the Senate. In your own view, what do you think are the problems of budgeting in Nigeria?
I hold a very strong view that budgeting in Nigeria is faulty in the sense that it has failed to meet the needs and aspirations of the people and to a large extent, budgeting in Nigeria to me, has not really improved the well-being of the people. This is so because over the years, we have a kind of command structure and military approach to the issue of budgeting. Budgeting must take into consideration the needs and aspirations of the people. But what we have is a system whereby somebody sits down at the centre and determines what you need and what you get down the ladder, which is wrong and, of course, undemocratic. We must democratize budgeting in such a manner that the representatives of the people who are given the power by law, to come with the needs and aspirations of the people participate fully in the initial process. That is when you can say the people’s budget. What we have today is budgeting just for the sake of budgeting. Our budgeting system today is corruption driven and faulty. That explains why successive governments in Nigeria at the federal level do not implement budget proposals to the latter.

Under the Obasanjo administration, I think about 40 percent or 45 percent was implemented throughout the tenure of that government. We have just been told a couple of weeks back that only 20 percent has been implemented in the 2009 Appropriation bill. The hidden fact which no government would want to tell you is that the Executive is aware that this structure we are running is faulty. But none of the successive governments in Nigeria have had the courage to say let us change this approach because doing that probably means conceding powers of the Executive to the Legislators. Until when we have a government that is courageous enough and that can muster the political will for a change for the better that we can have a realistic budget that will meet the expectations and aspirations of the people. So, in a nutshell, what I’m saying is that our budgeting over the years has been driven by corruption. It’s a budgeting system which has legalized and institutionalized corruption and that explains why they are not implemented; and when they are not implemented, nobody has had the courage to take the Executive to court for non-implementation of budget. Even in the process of budget implementation at all tiers of government that are involved, there is element of corruption along the line.

You need to give a legal backing or a legal teeth to the process of budgeting. In essence, those who have been elected should be allowed to say the needs of our people and they should be held responsible when they are not implemented. Until when you do that, the common man on the street won’t have improved standard of living, the common man wouldn’t have his needs and aspirations met in budgeting. So, if we want the common man on the street to have the impact of governance and to have the impact of the Appropriation bill, those who have been so elected by the people by law should be able to come with the needs and aspirations of the people. If it’s going to be in 6 different sectors and you have 2 critical areas in each of these sectors to be addressed, if at the end of the year, the 12 points which is 2 per sector from your own Senatorial District is not implemented, then you have a responsibility to take back and give a feedback to those whose standard of living is tied to those requests.

If for instance the education sector and health sector of Kogi West have two critical projects and at the end of a particular year, those two projects in each of these sector is not met, I am in a position to tell my people why those projects were not carried out. I am in a position to tell my people why they were not met and we now look forward to the following year. But today, we have projects which were initiated by the first civilian administration in Nigeria in the First Republic and many of them have not been completed because there is no monitoring system for proper implementation of budget; there is no feedback and there is no check and balances in budgeting in Nigeria. There are project proposals that are not completed or executed and that’s the end. Nobody asks question. That project may not see the light of the day for another ten years because of the command structure. But when you have a system whereby the representatives of the people are compelled by law to give account of the budget of that particular year, then they can look forward to another year, if much is done in a particular year.

As it is today in this country, for instance the 2009 Appropriation Bill, there are quite a number of Senatorial Districts without a single project. This is so because their representatives are not involved in the process of budgeting. Somebody sits down in Abuja and determines what you get.
You will recall I was the first to kick against the budget in 2007 when it came to the Senate. I said this is not budgeting and I don’t have any input into it. One major aspect that will differentiate a democratic government from a military government is when budgeting itself is democratized in such a manner that those who have been elected are in a position to say these are the needs of our area.

How then can we get the representatives of the people really involved in budgeting?
It’s not a difficult thing. The executive must be determined to muster the political will for a change and the people themselves must show concern. Nigerians should know that the Appropriation bill is meant for them and not for the Executive alone. So, when budgets are not implemented, they have cause to ask questions as to why projects are not done. The first and foremost thing we should do as a nation is to put in place the legal framework for change of budgeting in Nigeria. I’m talking about a bill that will effect a total change in the way and manner budgets are prepared.

Don’t forget that President Yar’Adua was about taking the National Assembly to court to determine whether or not we have a right to insert projects in the body or we are empowered by the Constitution to examine those projects that are coming from the Executive. I would have loved the President going to court so that we get some of these things corrected once and for all, as to who has that power. Is it those who have been elected by the people who are accountable because the Executive is not really accountable to the people? Those who are accountable to the people are the legislators who have been elected by the people to represent their interest.

The President and the Vice President are duly elected by the people but the Ministers are not elected. They are appointees. So, the Ministers do not have power to determine budgets.
But today in Nigeria, it’s the Minister that determines what you get. The Ministers in the Ministries prepare the budget proposal, based on the input from the Civil Servants, whereas the reverse should be the case. The Legislature should submit to the various Ministries the need of each Senatorial district. I would like a situation whereby the Local Government Councils, through their Councilors prepare their budget proposals, take to the State house of Assembly to scrutinize and is then pushed forward to the members of the National Assembly of each Senatorial District of each state. That is when you can have the budget of the people by the people.

The advantage that will give to us is that those who will now be Councilors will be educated people who will know the needs and aspirations of their people and who will now forward this to the State House of Assembly, whose duty is just to vet and scrutinize what they are sending to the National level that these are their needs for next year from Kogi West Senatorial District. It gets to the Senators and House of Reps members. They will scrutinize it and put a covering note back to the Ministers of the various Ministries that are responsible or that are in charge of such requests. That is the way it should be done. If it is not done the following year, you can then revisit those issues that were submitted to the previous year and you push it forward. That is the only way we can do that.

Again, that will equally help us to keep data and information. For instance, how many people are unemployed in your Senatorial District? Once you know that, you have a responsibility to feed the Federal Executive. The Federal Government would be able to collate and devise a means to solve the unemployment problem. But as it is today, we don’t have a proper data or statistics as to how many people are unemployed in Nigeria. Nobody can give you an accurate figure. But if you democratize the budgeting system in such a manner that Councilors, Council Chairmen and Honourable members of the House of Assemblies of the States are involved, then you can now have an idea of the needs of every area. You can have an idea of even the medical problems, the needs in education sector and in labour. All these things would be easily collated and it would to a large extent minimize corruption.

Why is it difficult for National Assembly members and states to look at the sincerity or otherwise with which budget proposals come before them?
I just mentioned to you that sometimes last year, President Yar’Adua contemplated taking the National Assembly to court that we do not have rights to insert new projects in the budget. We made that attempt because we discovered there are lots of misplacement of priorities at the Ministry level. There are quite a number of projects that when you ask the Ministries, they cannot even give you the location where those projects are situated yet they are in the budget. There is something fundamentally wrong about the way we do our budget.

The man who is in Abuja cannot be telling you about Gboko whereas there is an Honourable Member from Gboko Local Government; or somebody in Abuja in the Ministry of Works is telling you that the health center in Ogori-Magogo requires additional ward. You ask him what his statistics is. He doesn’t have it. You ask him how does he know that in Kabba, there are over 2,000 unemployed youths and he cannot answer. Yet, he’s telling you that they are preparing budget. Until when we have a framework whereby legislators and Local Government Chairmen have input in the nation’s budget process, what we have today is a kind of military budget structure, which cannot fit into democratic dispensation.

Is that why budget cannot be implemented?
Again, you have a system whereby there is institutionalized corruption in the process of budgeting in such a manner that it is equally legalized because those who are preparing the budgets at the Ministry level are not representatives of the people. The Minister who is presiding over that Ministry is not elected by the people. He was appointed. So, he’s not going to have the same commitment because he did not stand election. I stood for election. I made promises as to attracting Federal Government presence. I made promises that some of the roads that the late Sardauna started in my place that he couldn’t finish, I will bring it to the attention of the Federal Government. But today, we are not involved in budgeting because there is no law compelling the Minister to ask me what my area needs. So, he goes ahead to award contracts across without asking me which are the areas that my people need government attention.

Why is it difficult to enact such a law when you members of the National Assembly are feeling the pinch?
In a democratic setting, you discover that there are quite a number of issues and interests you must take into consideration for even bills to be passed into law. You need the political will of the party and of the Executive. We are all members of the same party. So, if you want to make a change, you must ensure that the Executive and other stakeholders are convinced in the need for that change.

Have you made that move?
That explains why we are Holding Zonal workshop for inclusive budgeting process in Nigeria. I was happy when I saw the NGOs that came. We need such pressure groups to make things to equally work even in the National Assembly because that helps us to get to know the pulse of the nation on such issues. When you see the NGOs around, you tend to believe these are serious issues that the people would want to see us effect a change. When we brainstorm and get back, I can tell you that I’m going to push for a change. Personally, I’m going to work towards looking at the possibility of sponsoring a bill towards changing the budgeting process.

That’s the life wire of any government and many governments would find it difficult to relinquish the power of budgeting from the executive to the legislature. To them, it’s like relinquishing political power. These are the issues that people find difficult to discuss. Why is it that the budget is not implemented 100 percent and nobody is talking? It’s because even the Executive is aware that there is corruption in the process of budgeting in Nigeria and they are in a dilemma as to whether they should relinquish the power of budgeting to the legislators.

How do we get out of the constant crisis over budget between the executive and legislature?
It is so because there is no proper legislation in place. It is so because nobody questions the Executive. Don’t forget that so many people you see in the Executive today were in the military government in the past. So, they still have this mentality of a military government that is why they get pricked easily on why you are questioning their budget. So, they just expect the legislators to rubber stamp and pass the budget.

By: AMOS DUNIA