Crude oil theft has crippled Nigeria- Nwodo, ex-Enugu gov

A former governor of Enugu State, Dr Okwesilieze Nwodo, speaks on the newly inaugurated 10th National Assembly lawmakers and the need for proper oversight functions in the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). In this interview with Linus Aleke, the former National Secretary of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), also tasked President Bola Tinubu to investigate the allegation of oil theft against the Nigerian military to unravel the real economic saboteur

Some Nigerians have expressed concerns about the obvious over-bearing influence of President Tinubu during the election of the principal officers into the 10th National Assembly. Do you think it would make the legislative arm rubber-stamp in this dispensation?

Let us be honest about it, even though I am in the opposition party, my many years in politics have taught me that every President wants to get a leader in the National Assembly that he will be comfortable working with, and therefore, President Tinubu will not be an exception. He tried and he succeeded, some presidents before him tried it in the past and failed. In Buhari’s first term, he tried it, but Senator Bukola Saraki and his group frustrated him. When I was the National Secretary of PDP, we wanted a female lawmaker from South-West to be the Speaker, but Aminu Tambuwal and his group went against the decision of the party and succeeded. This is an ongoing thing, recall also that when Olusegun Obasanjo was the President, it was the turn of the South-East then to produce the Senate President, he made sure that anyone who did not comply with him, was removed and all the five states in South-East ended up having a shot at the Senate Presidency. This, for me, is a stage of the development of our democracy. Democracy is a long walk, and we still have a long distance to go. With everything happening in our polity, we still have not gotten it right, and that is why there are always so many cases in court after elections and several other cases in court after party primaries. We have to keep improving, and I believe that the more members of the National Assembly that got to the Parliament with an independent mind to serve Nigeria will look for leadership that will serve Nigeria rather than the one that will serve the government. But for now, the government has succeeded in installing who they want. At other times in the past, they also failed to have their way, but we would keep working on it.

By way of agenda setting, which areas in our legal instruments would you want the new lawmakers to improve on to enhance better governance?

I would want them to focus more attention on two areas. The first is constitutional reforms, and the second one is an effective oversight function. We know that they have seen lots of pressure from various quarters, on reforming certain aspects of our constitution. Some people go to the extent of demanding that the current constitution should be discarded, to give way for the writing of a new constitution. They argued that the current constitution was given to Nigeria by the military, and to that end, they need a constitution written by the Nigerian people themselves. So, we still have a long way to go, in getting a constitution that the people will identify with. If we cannot have a new constitutional conference to do that, we have to keep amending this one until we get it right. One thing that most Nigerians will like to see is the devolution of power. There is so much power at the centre, and development in a large country like Nigeria has to be done at the grassroots level, if development is to reach every nook and cranny of the country, we need to devolve power from the centre to the federating units, and the local governments, to develop the countryside. Secondly, the autonomy of local government is also very critical, especially financial autonomy, as well as monitoring how that financial autonomy is implemented. Most Nigerians live in their local government areas not in the cities, and we have to take development to these local areas. Electricity, water, good health facilities, good educational institutions, good roads, good markets, etc. It is the local governments that are in the best positions to do that and if we continue to allow state governors to use local government funds as they like and live the council chairmen with money to pay salaries, the countryside may never be developed. Unfortunately, some of these Governors just embezzle these funds not that they put it back to meaningful development in the state.  So, there is a lot of constitutional work that this Assembly has to do, if we are not going for a fresh constitution. Now, in the oversight functions, they can plug a lot of loopholes, in the implementation of the budget and have the budget properly implemented. But if those who are going for these overnight functions to the ministries, go there and expect the ministers to give them money, and then, they approve whatever is going on there. Then, the ministries will take the remaining money and executive what they ought to have done because the National Assembly had taken 1/3 and the ministries have also taken 1/3, and then no project is ever completed in our country. If this plays out, we would continue to have underdevelopment in our country. So, the lawmakers must brass up and understand that they are there as watchdogs, to ensure that whatever is appropriated is judiciously used for the development of this country and not to go there looking for pocket money. I think these are the two areas I want to emphasize for them.

Is the removal of fuel subsidy by President Tinubu timely, considering the untold hardship it has visited on Nigerians?

If we remember, the four major contenders for the presidency in the 2023 general elections, Bola Tinubu of APC, Atiku Abubakar of PDP, Peter Obi of Labour Party, and Rabiu Kwankwaso of NNPP, all promised to remove subsidies during their campaigns. So, it is long overdue. This fuel subsidy was really not helping you and I and the common people to buy petroleum products at cheap prices, and then use the rest of our money for whatever is important. After all, the whole thing was a fraud and few people were benefiting from this fraud. Former Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala started fighting its way back, and that fight has been going on. So, everybody knew that subsidy was due to go. The only thing is the ways and means that the government went about it, some people will say that they put the cat before the horse and that they should have given a cushioning package before removing the subsidy so that the negative effect will not be as bad as people are feeling it right now. Now, a lot of people have packed their vehicles because, if you spend ten thousand naira to buy fuel, I don’t know how far that will take you and how much time you can do that in a month. When you use all your salary to buy fuel, what about other expenses for the family? People were expecting that whoever, became president and was going to remove the subsidy would have thought about palliative before the removal of the subsidy.

This issue of palliative, especially as it relates to the removal of subsidy has become largely relative, what do you mean, when you advocate for palliative from the government to cushion the effect of subsidy as you said earlier?

To me, the government has to look at how palliative has worked in successful democracies. What is palliative in America? What is palliative in Britain, France, Germany, and other European countries? What are the kind of palliative that have worked for them? We cannot keep throwing money at people. Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) keeps printing worthless money, not even as expensive as tissue paper and we call that palliative, no. There are things that the government will invest money on and whatever we are getting as salary will be enough for us. For example; if they put money into education, especially from primary school, up to secondary school level, for every Nigerian child. After that, the child would have grown and educated enough to take care of himself. Those who want to go further can go further and while we train them in primary and secondary school, we also give them skills, so that those leaving school at the end of secondary school have acquired skills, that if they don’t want to continue academically, they will have a skill that can feed them. That will remove the burden of school fees from parents, from the time their child is born until he completes secondary school. That is a big burden removed for those paying school fees for five, or six children. We go to health, everybody falls sick now and then, and many people who cannot even afford three square meals cannot watch their child die, or watch themselves die when they are sick. So, if you give free medical treatment to children within the age of five years down, that would be another burden removed from the parents. Then, any woman that is pregnant should also enjoy free antenatal care until she delivers her baby and we take care of the baby until he is five years. Then the elderly people, from the age of 70, that is when most of our parents and the people that we need to take care of begin to fall sick because of old age. If the government can give them free treatment from that age, you will see that the working population will have a lesser burden. These are the kind of palliative that makes sense to me, not giving anybody you say is a poor person five thousand naira, what does that mean? How many days will the five thousand naira last, we have not helped the person at all, we have just wasted the money.

Asari Dokubo last Friday accused the Nigerian Armed Forces of involvement in oil bunkering in the Niger Delta region, what is your take on it?

Asari Dokubo has managed to convince the out gone President and is trying to convince the incumbent President that he is the only person who can solve the problem of oil theft in the region and that the people who are stealing our oil are the military, especially the Navy. The government, I believe, is in a better position to find out whether what he is saying is true or false. The Navy and the Army are also there to defend themselves, if they say it is not true, they should come forward and say so, and let him also prove that what he is saying is true. I don’t think that the needful has been done on his allegation, I think that more investigation needs to be done, and not just an investigation but an investigation to deal with whoever is responsible for this theft. We cannot imagine the amount of money that Nigeria has lost in the oil sector. Almost about 100 percent of our output is stolen, and we depend mainly on crude oil to finance our economy. That is why the country is crippled, there is no money to pay for our debt, there is no money to run the government and there is no money to do anything because a few dishonest citizens are selling the crude oil and diverting the money to their private pockets. Some of them are richer than the government. The government needs to find out those behind this oil theft. Are they above the law? If we find somebody guilty and we don’t punish him, how would it stop another person from doing the same thing to benefit himself, when those who were caught in the past walked away with their stolen money? Nigeria must learn to punish people who are found guilty and punish them according to the law.

Some critics have alleged that President Tinubu’s appointment so far favours his ethnic group – the Yoruba, do you share that sentiment?

I don’t want to be in a hurry to pass judgement on this particular allegation because if you noticed, the National Assembly approved 20 advisers for him, and he has appointed just eight. The majority are yet to be appointed, if these eight are the areas that are critical for him, and he has chosen the best eight he can find from those areas, then let us give him the benefit of the doubt. As he moves further to make additional appointments, he may do those with federal character in mind, which of course he promised to do, to reduce the criticism that trailed the Muslim joint ticket of his party.