Rep. Kingsley Chinda, who represents Obio Akpor Federal Constituency of Rivers State is the leader of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) House of Representatives caucus. He spoke to a select group of journalists on topical national issues. HENRY OMUNU was there. Excerpts.
You talk passionately about restructuring. What’s the difference between the local government autonomy that has just been allowed and restructuring?
I have heard the president passionately talk about local government autonomy. In fact, instructing council chairmen to either use their money or go to jail if they release it to their governors. I don’t know whether he said so, but I read it on social media. Wonderful, beautiful; that is the content of our constitution. Now, when we are talking about restructuring, is the Federal Government willing to also do the same when it comes to her relationship with states? So if the president is the champion for local government autonomy, the president should also be the champion for state autonomy which is the whole essence of restructuring. This is a federation; Nigerian portends to be the Federal Republic of Nigeria, not Unitary Republic of Nigeria.
So, Mr. President should act that way. The constitution has made it clear when it comes to the powers of the federation. All we are saying, is that there are things that we see as unnecessary baggage on the shoulders of the Federal Government, that it should shelve and allow states to run these issues. We take things like education; the Federal Government has no business in education. Now, go back to history. The South -West today, you see them as people who are advanced in education and the North appears to be slightly backward in education. If we had the system we have today, the South -West would not have enjoyed that advantage. You know, if these things are moved out of the shoulders of the Federal Government, the North might even overtake the South-West when it comes to education.
The entire society is moving; life itself is dynamic. We cannot continue with this feeding bottle system, with states running to Abuja for allocation and then thereafter you go back, while the Federal Government fritters away monies on projects that they cannot even monitor. So let us begin to run a federation; that is the essence, which is the entire thing about restructuring. The things that we think are not necessary for the Federal Government to overburden itself, it shelves them for states to handle. The ones that local governments can handle, let local governments handle them under the constitution. We take things like security, we have been battling with insecurity in Nigeria. The structure of our constitution does not help us.
The policeman in your village will take instruction from the commissioner of police who will take instruction from the inspector general of police, who will take instruction from the commander-in-chief and so before those instructions come down, the situation is beyond control. All we are saying on things like security, let the states that can afford have their own state police. Local governments that can afford should have their own local government police and all of them will have different functions. There are crimes that will go to the federal police, there are crimes that state police can handle, and there are crimes that the local government police can handle. There is no way there cannot be improvement in the security system. If you come to the health sector, states should be allowed to manage that sector.
The Federal Government cannot be investing in everything and that is why you have duplication of agencies. So when we talk of restructuring, perhaps people look at monies and all that, and that we are talking about states managing their resources. That perhaps, the South or Niger Delta that produces oil will now have the whole of the oil money and I think that is the pain. It brings us back to the issue of let us look at Nigeria as a state, as our state and let the interest of the country be uppermost in our minds. It will even challenge states if you say look, you get what you generate and pay tax to the Federal Government; every state will begin to generate resources.
Little did we know that we have so much gold in Zamfara State? So why not make that a formal thing? Let the state get formal resources from that wealth and pay tax to the Federal Government. Every state in this country is blessed, but we are only being lazy by the system of governance that we practice.
From what you have said, do you advocate for an amendment of the current constitution or do you support a new constitution?
On the issue of the amendment of the constitution, in fact, in the 8th assembly, I started a movement with some of my colleagues for the replacement of the current constitution that we have; that is to re-enact a fresh constitution. But we had a hitch. In fact, I was searching for a copy of the constitution we proposed and what is that hitch is Section 9 of the current constitution which provides for alteration of the constitution and empowers the parliament to alter the constitution. We looked at it and our question was, can we actually substitute the current constitution by way of amendment and a lot us arrived at a no answer. That by the provisions of Section 9, we cannot repeal and re-enact a new constitution under that section because the definition of alteration, however, you try to enlarge it does not mean to remove completely. It means to alter, to change, to amend, so that is the difficulty that we have. What I have done is to propose again for an amendment of Section 9, to allow for the repeal and reenactment of a new constitution subject to a referendum. So if you ask me my personal opinion, today you cannot bring in a new constitution under Section 9, you cannot replace and re-enact, no. Else what we have proposed is a quasi-parliamentary system with one National Assembly, one house. We looked at the cost of governance and we need to cut down the cost of governance.
The issue of restructuring, most of the items under the exclusive and concurrent lists, remove them to the states to perform those functions and the local governments. The issue of security we also looked at it. And in arriving at these things and crafting this new constitution, we took into consideration several confabs that had been held and their resolutions, wonderful resolutions that they arrived at. They looked at the problems of this country and came up with suggestions. So we incorporated a lot of them in the proposed constitution, but our problem has been the provisions of Section 9 and so, we are proposing an amendment to Section 9, praying that it would fly.
For some time now, IPOB, INC and others have been calling for secession. But the INC had a meeting with Buhari some days ago and they now prefer restructuring. Where do you think Nigeria is headed to?
The things you are seeing in terms of insecurity, secession calls and all that, only points to the fact that there is maladministration in the system. It points to the fact that Nigerians are not satisfied with what they are getting; it points to the fact that people are beginning to be frustrated with the system and that is why they are talking about exiting. I don’t think that anybody truly wants to exit Nigeria, but for the frustrations that Nigerians are facing.
And that was why we had even earlier called here that Nigerians should call on their members to commence impeachment because we felt that Mr. President was not doing enough; that Mr. President has not shown capacity and competence on the job, and that Mr. President had relinquished his functions to others. But today, you can see him meeting with different groups in the country, those who have been calling for one right or the other and that is what we expect Mr. President to do. He will need to continue with such meetings because that is the only way we can make progress. What people are talking about is the injustice in the system. You are talking about peace, you call for peace but you forget to do justice. As long as there is injustice, as long as there is imbalance, people will continue to demand that they want to leave.
But if you give them justice, they will stay back. We all want Nigeria, but not a Nigeria where you will be a second class citizen, not a Nigeria where you will continue to face injustice, no. So what he is doing is right; he is discussing with people, talking to them, trying to listen to their complaints. Listening to their complaints only gives some satisfaction. I have been saying that this government is unresponsive. Why do I say so? Because Nigerians will complain and the government doesn’t care and these are all the aftermath of the unresponsiveness of the government. When people keep complaining and you ignore them, what is the implication? If you make peaceful change impossible, you make violent change inevitable, that is where we are getting to; although late but it is better late than never.
So I ask Mr. President, now that he has woken up, let him not sleep again. Let him continue in that direction, we want Nigeria to remain peaceful. If there is no peace, I can’t be in this office. But when some of us talk, they think that we want war, we want crises, and that we want to tear the country apart. We want everybody to wake up because we want this country to get to the Promised Land. Nigeria is very wealthy, but we are not managing our resources properly
Pingback: ถาดกระดาษ
Pingback: DevOps Development services