Deputy Minority Whip of the Senate, Biodun Olujimi, in this interview with EZREL TABIOWO explains why President Muhammadu Buhari should urgently address the issue of impunity by his administration.
Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), has said that government may not be able to fund the constitutioncy projects due to the current economic problems in the country. What’s your take on this?
That is part of the interference we are talking about here. I am very angry over that. ‘You brought in something in the budget that is our statutory role’, to ensure that we bench it. The moment it is passed on the floor, and it is appended to, it becomes law and there is no going back. Here, we passed it and the president assented to it. And all of a sudden, somebody is coming up to say that government would not be able to implement, that is one of the impeachable offences that are on record, because the president has already assented to it, meaning that he can do it.
How can you just come up with this kind of thing? It is just one percent of the money in the entire budget. By not implementing our constituency project, it means that we, as legislators, will not be able to do anything to make our people happy. The SGF is the highest administrative nominee of this government and whatever comes out of his mouth must be a policy statement that has to do with government. I have a secretary to the government in my state when she speaks, she speaks responsible because she knows whatever comes out of her mouth will be taken as very important.
In the last few months, we have had an SGF that has being speaking carelessly and has being meddling with the affairs of the other tiers of government and that is not right. The SGF himself called the confab of such eminent Nigerians, a confab that was put together to see how we can take care of the problems of Nigeria and people came together to talk about Nigeria, to talk about our existence and talk about moving forward, he called it a job for the boys. The next thing he will do was to say constituency project that have being approved by this Red Chamber will not be properly implemented. That is unbecoming and there is a need to call a spade a spade. That is what we are saying today, the SGF has not represented the government well.
The councilors and House of Assembly members will be better than us if we go home without taking our constituency projects to them, it doesn’t have to do with any party. We are all elected to represent our people and that is what we have come here to do. If we are here to represent our people, we also deserved to be honoured and respected by that token that is given to us to give back to them. We are not going to take it from anybody. It is time for us to say that we will not allow our political nominees take this chamber for a ride any more. They cannot deride us, they cannot disrespect us, they cannot talk carelessly about issues that border on the livelihood of Nigerians.
Federal lawmakers, especially those in the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), are being rumoured to be threatening to impeach President Muhammadu Buhari over allegation of violations of certain portions of the constitution, can you confirm this development?
That is a private matter, they were offences that have been committed in the past and if you ask, the Senate President will tell you that he has always been the one saying ‘no, no, no. Not this government and not while I am on seat, nothing can happen and nobody can think about that. But we all have our personal views.
Are you saying that some lawmakers have actually been thinking towards that direction?
I am not saying that, I am saying that it has always been in the mind of everyone including the APC people because they know that if there is so much impunity, there would be a reason for it. And whether you like it or not, when PDP was in power, the predominantly led PDP legislature moved against the government when they thought the government was being too high-handed and was not minding its business by restricting itself to its own tier of government.
So, if a sitting government could have his party move against it, what is new?
But if this alleged witch-hunt and interference of the government in the other arms of government does not stop, do you see that happening?
I hope it stops, that is the only advice I can give, I hope it stops.
If it doesn’t…(Cuts in)
Well, I am just hopping that someone out there will just be able to learn something. I hope it stops.
There are insinuations that legislators are broke and can’t pay most of their bills anymore. How true is this?
It is not rumour, that is the truth. Funds are not forth coming, salaries are paid late, what can you do? And yet the people out there are being poisoned to believe that we are getting so much and living in affluence and when ‘you can’t meet their demands; they look at you with different feeling. The truth is that we are nearest to the people and because we are federal legislators, we are expected to be better than the others.
But where is the funding coming from? Normally, when ‘you wake up and put on your phone, you receive calls from people requesting assistance for issues of wives who just put to bed, children who are to be paid school fees, children being ill and people who cannot meet up with their bills and you were able to attend to these problems. But now, you can no longer give. I had to tell my people that I can no longer pay school fees. Normally, we were helping to pay school fees but the situation we are facing now does not empower us to do that again.
The crisis in your home state, is yet to die down and there are fears that the state governor, Ayodele Fayose, might be impeached, following calls to that effect by some stakeholders. Do you have fears about political development in the state?
There is no crisis in Ekiti State, it’s just that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, is busy hounding the governor and his men.
That is not new because he is used to being hounded by the EFCC. The only problem with the latest hounding is the new dimension attached, where they want to arrest the House of Assembly members. But the House of Assembly members know that the governor is clean and just being falsely accused of what the EFCC is dishing out except that they would be indoctrinated against the government when they get to the EFCC, but they know that that era has passed. Nobody can try what they tried in 2006 today. We are grappling with it, the governor is a strong person and he moves 20 miles ahead of everyone, he can think ahead, he can think far ahead, he can visualize things. So, it’s going to be very tough for them (EFCC) to succeed.
Why are they so desperate on someone that has immunity? If he is out of office, he can be prosecuted,there is nothing to it. Right now, with what is happening, they are stalling development of Ekiti, which is wrong because when you spend your time, looking behind your shoulder, looking at who is coming, and what next is being plotted, then everything will just slow down. I think that is the system of this government. They just want to slow down every other arm of government that is not their own and that is not fair. Right now, with what they doing, they are stalling development in Ekiti.
