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•Fuel subsidy removal, greatest thing to happen to Nigeria
President of the Pan Niger Delta Forum, Senator Emmanuel Ibok Essien, has said there was nothing wrong if President Bola Ahmed Tinubu probes the immediate past administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari.
In an interview with VINCENT KALU, the member of the Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)wondered why religion and ethnicity should still be the defining factors in this country.
Religion and ethnicity seem to now define the country, as witnessed during the last election. Why do you think this is so?
It is unfortunate that we have found ourselves at this level in the political development of the country where religion and ethnicity still play a major part in the nation. A nation that wants to grow should look at competence as a yardstick for its development. Ethnicity and religion are something that should be forgotten about if we want to grow. Take America for an instance. Nobody talks of religion as far as development is concerned. In other developed climes, it is the same thing. It is only in Africa, especially Nigeria where you have people clinging unto ethnicity and religion in whatever they want to do.
These should not be the defining factors in the development of the nation if we have to progress. So, in the last election, it really played out. Some people even came out after the election to categorically say that they were out for religious and ethnic cleansing. Are we not all Nigerians? Why should it happen in a country that you are thinking that you are superior to the other person in the same country? We should be our brother’s keeper and show love to one another. We should show understanding to one another as one nation, and yet, our motto is “Unity, faith, peace and progress. But we don’t do any of these. It is rather unfortunate.
These issues have created a wide chasm in the country. How can it be bridged?
The gap is getting wider by the day, but bridging it depends on the leadership of the country who should redefine Nigeria as one homogenous country where peace, love and unity exist. Leadership is just all it takes to achieve that.
People are applauding President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for the courage he has taken so far in some of the actions he has executed. What is your take on this?
President Bola Tinubu has to depart from the ways of the last administration, and show good faith in what he is doing to move Nigeria forward. In my view, that is what he has been trying to do.
If Atiku Abubarka had been declared the president, would he have had the same courage to wield the big stick as Tinubu is doing?
Well, he wasn’t declared the president, so I won’t say whether he would be able or not to do what Tinubu is doing. The taste of the pudding is in the eating.
There are still arguments over the removal of the petrol subsidy. Some say it is a pointer in the right direction, while others argue otherwise. What is your opinion?
The country was grinding to a halt because of the fuel subsidy fraud. Quite a proportion of the fuel that was being subsidised was taken to other African countries at the expense of Nigeria that was subsidising the product. So, you find out that it was only the illegal smugglers that were making the money. Also, you find out that these illegal smugglers and their collaborators, some of them were part of the government or government agencies. These were the people benefiting from the subsidies, and the fraud was getting too much. There were over invoicing, turn around, round tripping and all sorts of things. People would not supply the fuel but they would produce invoice and claim billions of naira from the government.
So, all these things were weighing down the economy of this country. The masses, if they really want to know what was happening, should realise that they were not the ones benefiting from subsidy. It was very few people; the racketeers that were benefiting from it. So, the removal of the subsidy was the best thing that has ever happened to this country. If we have to go with the figures that are coming out from the fuel that was being consumed when the subsidy was in place and what is consumed now, you see that more than 60 per cent of the so-called fuel was fraud. I strongly support the removal of the fuel subsidy and I know that the money that normally goes to subsidise the fuel would be used in the improvement of social services in the country like, salary increase, mass housing scheme that would make houses affordable, road infrastructure.
For the past many years, capital projects are not existent, and the money saved from subsidy would be used to tackle capital projects. Infrastructure was collapsing while the money for it went into subsidising petrol that was being benefited by fraudulent fuel racketeers. With its removal, there would be money for the government to execute massive projects and the lives of people would improve, as there would be injection of funds in to small and medium scale businesses and the development of some industries.
We need to go back to industries; we need to go back to agriculture, we need to produce what we eat, we need to manufacture what we wear, what we need in this country. A country that cannot feed itself or manufacture what it needs cannot progress. We cannot be importing everything, including toothpicks. So, I strongly support the removal of fuel subsidy because it would lead to the development of the country.
Why couldn’t the law enforcement agents go after those defrauding and sabotaging the fuel subsidy regime?
Most of them compromised and collaborated with the fraudulent people. These government agencies collaborated with the racketeers in defrauding the government. Once there is collaboration among the agencies in these racketeering and fraudulent activities, you can’t catch them. Who will catch the thief? That is the challenge. With the removal, you realise that everybody is returning to ground zero. This is the situation.
What is the PDP doing to sanction its five governors who didn’t support the party in the last presidential election?
The party is meeting. The National Working Committee (NWC) met, the Board of Trustees (BoT), the caucus met, a special committee called the Select Committee met last week. As these segmented organs are meeting, I’m sure before they called for National Executive Council (NEC) meeting, they would have come up with something.
There are rumours that the G-5 governors want to move en mass to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). Wouldn’t that be the end of the PDP?
If you are holding a political office in a particular office and you move over to another party, you lose your seat. Many people have lost their seats by defecting from one party to the other. I believe that anybody who won an election on a particular platform would be doing himself more political harm than good by jumping boat. There are many decided cases of people losing their seats because they moved from a party that gave them ticket to another party.
But there are instances where some elected people, especially legislators, moved to other parties and nothing happened thereafter?
That is where the parties are not serious. In Akwa Ibom State, when some people in the state House of Assembly moved from the PDP to the APC, they lost their seats as the court declared their seats vacant. They didn’t get it back; even the appeal court confirmed it. That is the way to go, except the party doesn’t seek redress in court. If the parties seek redress in the court, the pendulum will always swing in their favour.
Don’t you think that the G-5 governors will move to another party instead of allowing the PDP to sack them?
Like I said earlier, various organs of the PDP are meeting and thereafter the NEC would meet and a decision on them would be taken.
What’s your viee on the arrest of Godwin Emefiele and his arrest?
I’m not a lawyer.
Emefiele is in court and they have fixed a date for his bail application and other decisions that the court will pronounce. Since he is already in court, we should allow the court to finish its work.
At this critical stage of the country with the attendant challenges caused by fuel price increase, what advice would you give to Nigerians?
They should realise that sometimes you go through extreme difficulty to get success. There is no doubt that we are passing through very difficult times in this country. I’m appealing to everyone that we remain calm while believing that some of these decisions would be to the best interest of the country. Protests sometimes do not help because there is no way you’d go for a peaceful protest like the EndSARS that before you know it, you see people losing their lives and that is not good for any country. Nobody wants his or her person to die and nobody wants to die. I believe that by God’s grace, solution would come to the country.
Some people are calling on Tinubu to probe Buhari’s administration. What is your opinion on this?
There is nothing wrong in looking at certain areas where some of the things were done criminally and the persons involved should be brought to book. In America, you find that even former President Donald Trump is standing trial. There is nothing wrong; we are in a democracy and democracy processes include accountability. So, there is nothing wrong about Tinubu probing Buhari. People should be accountable in whatever they have done so that some other persons would know that he would be called upon to account for what he has done.
