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From Magnus Eze, Enugu
Chinedu Ogah is the Chairman, House Committee on Reformatory Institutions and represents Ikwo/Ezza South Federal Constituency of Ebonyi State in the House of Representatives. He speaks on correctional centre congestion/decongestion, fraud in the electoral system, NLC/Government incessant faceoff, President Bola Tinubu’s administration among other issues.
Ebonyi State is tilting towards a one party state because of the mass resignation of PDP, LP and APGA members. Does this portend good for democracy in the state?
It is all about choice. When the righteous is on the throne, the people rejoice. The people that are resigning from their parties have seen that Governor Francis Nwifuru has something to offer and they want to be part of the success story. The governor has a detailed manifesto christened People’s Charter of Needs which he is religiously implementing and people are resigning from their parties because of it. So, it is a welcome development for people to resign from their parties to join the moving train in the state and APC is very big to accommodate everybody because each person has his/her own self-contained room in the government.
Presidential candidate of PDP in the last general elections and former Vice President of the country, Atiku Abubakar, few weeks ago called on opposition parties to come together and wrest power from the ruling APC. What is your take on it?
Opposition can come together if they wish, there is no harm in trial but they cannot succeed. How many times has Atiku contested for the post of President? Have you once been to Adamawa? Some of us were once in opposition and we were on ground. If you are on ground, your people will be with you. So, even if all the opposition parties in the country come together to form alliance against the APC, it is not a problem because they are not a threat to APC. Let them form the alliance first, it is not about public statements or press releases. You cannot equate someone that has 28 children with someone that has two children, you cannot. Twenty children are always winning and APC has 28 children and we are on ground and we are APC people, proudly APC people.
INEC is being crucified in the country for alleged electoral fraud. What’s your view about that?
The problem is not INEC, the problem is everybody. A situation you elect who you don’t want and come back to blame INEC is unfortunate. If election is being conducted and you resisted every temptation to elect who you don’t want, it will augur well for our democracy. If you claim that a result is written and it is brought to your polling unit and you refused to reject it, you have accepted the criminality. INEC has ad-hoc staff, several of them are university lecturers. Some of them will collect bribe and do the wrong thing and you keep quiet. People should stop blaming INEC because conducting election is a chain process with chain reaction; INEC, civil society, security agents. If a policeman aids an ad-hoc staff to rig election, it will work, if a Professor in the University declares results that he or she knows is fake, is it the fault of INEC?
The truth of the matter is that we need to reorientate ourselves in this country by allowing the masses to choose their leaders because it will help to reduce insecurity, it will bring development because anybody not elected by the people will not look the direction of the masses and bring development to them as a reward for electing him/her.
Are you saying that INEC is free from electoral irregularities?
INEC is doing well; they are doing very well. The problem is you and I that always try to bend the laws for selfish and criminal reasons. Who wrote that thing that was written somewhere and taken to the polling unit? Is it INEC staff? Is it not ad-hoc staff? Who is that ad-hoc staff if not you and I? Everything, we blame INEC but refuse to do the right and proper thing; we always do the wrong thing. Our political parties should begin to do the needful by fielding credible candidates during elections. If you field a credible candidate in an election as a political party, you don’t need to struggle to win the election; the party that fields such candidate will surely carry the day.
About six states in the country are conducting governorship elections differently; that’s off season. Don’t you think it’s a waste of resources?
What you are saying is that you want the constitution of the country to be amended. There are three organs of government; the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. The legislature has made the law and when you are not satisfied with the law made by the legislature, you go to court. So, elections were conducted and some aggrieved people went to court to challenge those elections and by challenging the elections, the elections were nullified by the court which is the judiciary. Election of Imo State was nullified, election of Kogi was nullified, election of Bayelsa was nullified, election of Osun was nullified and the elections were reconducted to show adherence to the rule of law. So, it is not a waste of resources, rather it is implementation of the constitution of the country.
With what is going on in the country, will you say that the South East is benefiting from the President Bola Tinubu-led administration?
I don’t know why you are asking this question. Are we not benefiting from the Tinubu administration? In appointment, infrastructure and otherwise, South East has benefited from the Tinubu-led administration and is still benefiting. You can’t judge the President with the few months he has been in office but has done well in all honesty. The President has working plan which he will implement to favour all the local governments, states and all parts of the country. He has a plan for this country and he is going to implement the plan known as Renewed Hope Agenda. So, I will remain an ardent supporter of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, I remain his supporter till tomorrow.
There is clamour to decongest correctional centres in the country, as the Chairman of the House Committee on Reformatory Institutions, what do you think is the solution?
Yes, we are already working on it and the constitution has been amended and this item moved from Exclusive to Concurrent list which means that greater offenders of each of the correctional service are the states’ offenders and we have notified Governors why they should establish their own correctional centres.
But notwithstanding, according to the criminal justice system, we are already working with the Attorney-General of the Federation and all the Attorney-Generals of States to look at the cases in various correctional centres and see how they can be decongested because most of the people that are being remanded in the correctional centres are minor offenders, some are just ordinary suspects. So, there should be a review of the laws and make sure that Judges are just in the dispensation of justice. The problem is not about the Judges because what is presented before them as evidence is what they use in determining cases.
Why we have congestion in correctional centres is because of indiscriminate arrest of people by police. So, we are working seriously to stop or curb it. We are going to pay courtesy visit to the Inspector-General of Police to see how we can decongest the correctional centres, reintegrate and rehabilitate the inmates and ensure that they have something doing because it will make them to be useful to themselves and the society and that is what we are championing.
The NLC and Federal Government always have faceoff. What do you think is the solution to the incessant labour/government showdown in Nigeria?
The solution to NLC/government faceoff is dialogue, the President of NLC should imbibe dialogue because no one can achieve anything through violence. Mr. President gave him a listening ear, there is no time he seeks to see the President that he doesn’t see him. NLC has never had it so good and most of the things they are agitating for are accumulated issues. Mr President has a listening ear to solve those things. So, NLC should give him time to solve the issues they are agitating for.
Going on strike during any disagreement is not an issue because you will still come back to dialogue or roundtable to seek solution and demand for salary you didn’t work for and forget that we have ‘no work, no pay’ policy in the country as enshrined in the constitution of our country, it is also there in the labour law. So, I am urging NLC to use diplomatic ways to achieve what they want instead of being confrontational, it will help us in this country.
