Hon. Mohammed Ali Ndume, is the leader of  ANPP Caucus and Minority Leader in the House of Representatives. He is a second term member  representing Chibok/Damboa/Gwoza of Borno State . Ndume, a former lecturer and business man, has brought vibrancy to the minority parties and ensures they have their say even though they may not have their way. He spoke to SUNDAY SUN on various national issues.

ANPP in 1999 started on a strong note with nine state governors. In the National Assembly its assent was needed to pass bills, today, the party is fading, what is the cause?
The problem is not only that of the ANPP, it is the set up in a democracy. One is that the majority party itself is not comfortable with opposition, so it was making deliberate effort to kill the opposition.

Secondly, look at ANPP itself, after it failed to win, some could not endure to be in the opposition, so they are tempted to shift to the ruling party, especially so with the attitude of our leaders in the majority party and our winner-take-all type of democracy, ANPP members were tempted to move over to the majority party and as you can see, most of the founding members of the then APP moved over to the PDP dragging us to almost one party state.

Another reason is that the formation of the party was fundamentally faulty. Parties are supposed to be formed based on ideologies, but PDP, ANPP are merely parties whose only difference are in their names, not in ideologies. Then politicians had no problem with their conscience while switching parties, these are the fundamental issues that brought ANPP to its present state.

Since our polity lacks basic ideological leaning, would you support a one party state?
No, I do not support the idea of a one-party state. To me, one-party state is like no democracy. At least there should be two parties or more, but not the number that we have now, fifty where some parties merely exist in Abuja or on paper, some only exist in INEC office when they appear to collect their subvention. We should have a minimum of two parties or a maximum of four.

Is the ANPP as a minority party making any impact?
I am not good at assessing myself, but you know that the Minority move this House, I can proudly say that we are the engine room of the House. Most of the issues that touch on the welfare of Nigerians brought to the floor of the House are moved by the Minority. We get a lot of cooperation from the Majority, but the House is vibrant as a result of the matured role the Minority are playing.
The issue of renovation of the Speaker’s accommodation has cropped up again, as an item in the 2008 budget.

Yes, this time around, it is the FCDA that is going to do it, that is the resolution of the House, since the FCDA is responsible for maintenance. Right now, if you go to the Speaker’s House, it is pathetic, very degrading. It is okay for us as members to go there because he is our colleague, but as a Nigerian, I do not think you would want him to receive any foreigner in that house It is not the issue of Bankole, it is the issue of House of Representative of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, that we should have a befitting house that represents our image.

But on the issue of him as a person taking charge of where he is going to stay, it is not proper, so we said that the FCDA should be charged with that responsibility and money has to be actually voted for that. I do not know specifically, about N500 million. We also made provision for the purchase of guesthouses for the Speaker and Deputy Speaker, which is really meant for all the members, that is guest houses for Presiding Officers of the House of Representatives. Like the President has various Presidential Guest Houses, but there is nothing like that for the legislature. If the leadership wants to work outside the National Assembly, they have to go to hotel, and there is a different interpretation to that, plus disturbances.

If the Speaker's house is being renovated with about N500 million, why was Etteh removed?
Hon Etteh was not removed as Speaker because of the renovation contract for the Speaker’s house, she was removed for non-compliance with due process in the award of the contract. Officers in the Works Department were saying they were not consulted, we in the Minority said we were not consulted, these were the issues behind her removal.

Recently, you moved a motion opposing the move by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to pay part of the allocation to States in dollar. The House rejected the motion, but the Executive rejected the move itself. What really happened?
I feel vindicated. It was a constitutional issue, but politics came into it. It was politics that killed the motion, because I am the Minority leader. Few PDP members supported the motion, we call them PDP opposition members, because they temporarily come to the side of the Minority if we agree on issues. Another factor that worked against the motion was because some
of the members were angry over some issues in the House and my motion became a scapegoat.
But thank God I had been vindicated in the sense that the Presidency said they wouldn’t pay in dollars and the States said they do not want to be paid in dollars, and so the CBN reverted its position.

Some have suggested that Nigeria should adopt   the British Parliamentary system, and that the National Assembly should be part-time, with members being paid only sitting allowance, what is your reaction to this?
No, I do not support such view. In Nigeria’s case, the presidential system we operate serves as part of the cake sharing process, because if you have 360 legislators from various constituencies, people from those constituencies see them as their closest contact with the Federal Government, and we are closest to the masses. The Parliamentary system makes the Federal Government concentrated in the centre, and the people in the locality do not feel its impact.

The Electoral Act 2006 has been criticized as being defective, which portion should be amended?
The independence in the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC); how can you say the Commission is independent, and it is the President that nominates who is going to chair it? The independence is constrained. Secondly, the composition of the Commissioners is also by the President who belongs to one party. In view, the independence, composition, and administration are all faulty. The conduct of the election should be participative, that is to say at each local government level, for example, the electoral officers for the purpose of the conduct of that election should consist of all the political parties in the area, so that after counting then the election result will only be announced if all parties agree to it, if they dispute, that dispute should be sorted out first before the election result is announced..

The PDP, the majority in the past legislature, had been accused of manipulating the drafting of the Act, the ANPP still remains the minority, how would you ensure a perfect law is brought into being? 
What is happening today is that the PDP had been caught in its own trap. Nigeria would have been in a position that would have been worse than Kenya after its election. We are lucky that the judiciary is truly independent and impartial, and had been able to stand for truth and fear of God. The April 2007 election was like war, it was robbery. People believe that they can get justice from the judiciary after their mandate was stolen.
They are hopeful since justice had prevailed in some cases, and these reduced the tension and frustrations. The ANPP had already constituted a committee on the amendment of the Act, and as leader of the Minority parties we are going to present a case which would be open for all Nigerians to see.

The local government council as the third tier of government seems to be gradually dying due to the manipulations and interference of the state governors. What do you think should be done?
Actually we have structural defects in our constitution, and this is one of them. The local government councils should be independent, as the third-tier of government. And unless we ensure that just as the Federal Government does not interfere in the funds of the state governments, the state governments should not meddle with the funds of the local government.
Everyone wants constitutional amendment, and this should be part of it.