Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
Livinus Makwe is a member of the House of Representatives, representing Ohaozara/Onicha/Ivo on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He shares his views on leadership crisis rocking the minority caucus in the Green Chamber amongst others.
How is your party handling the issue of the minority leadership of the House, especially as seven lawmakers were suspended?
The suspension of some of our members for one month and two weeks has already passed and the party constituted a committee which has interfaced with all the parties involved in the matter. The committee consists of very eminent parliamentarians, mostly former leaders of the National Assembly and I believe that they have spoken with both parties, that is, the elected minority leadership and those that wanted to be elected in the first place. In my opinion, what caused the problem in the first instance was that the party seemed to be distant from their elected members in the National Assembly.
The party did not interact with them as frequently as should have been. Yes, the party called a meeting at Wadata Plaza, where the issue of minority leadership was discussed, we all attended. Some people made suggestions of who they wanted and gave reasons. The understanding of that meeting was that we should go back and talk and narrow down on our preferred choice for the minority leadership.
And there was no other meeting on the minority leadership issue, until two days before the resumption of the plenary when the announcement of the minority leadership was to be made; and by this time, almost all the members of the PDP and other minority parties had taken sides.
I do not know to what extent the people the PDP sent their names reached out to their colleagues, but 111 members out of 147 members from the minority caucus already endorsed a certain structure and 90 percent of those 111 members are from the PDP, while the rest are from other minority parties. They had taken a position and their position followed the rules of the House of Representatives.
So, if the party wrote the leadership of the House without carrying their members along, that was what caused the problem. But be that as it may, I believe that there is going to be a resolution of the problem.
Let us wait and see what happens at the expiration of the one month suspension that our people were given. Both parties have stated their own sides of the matter and the people elected have assumed fully their functions on the floor of the House.
And if you remember these things have happened before in the 8th assembly, the All Progressive Congress, (APC) proposed some people for the leadership of the National Assembly and another set of people were voted, even the PDP had similar scenarios.
So, this is not the first time it is happening. But, this is the first time this kind of action (suspension) is being taken and I think it was not necessary. What the party should have done is to call them and caution them and then find a way to avoid a repeat in the future.
For example, in the Southeast caucus, I do not know how the party would just send names to the House, without recourse to us, the members or to our governors to at least ask us whom we wanted to lead us. I believe that those processes were wrong. And from what we have learnt so far, the party members have always met as a caucus and voted to elect the names that will now be forwarded to the party, which the party will now officially write and send to the leadership of the National Assembly to announce on the floors of both chambers.
There are concerns in certain quarters the leadership crisis has created bad blood within the minority caucus, and that it will be difficult for the opposition lawmakers to work together.
I don’t think so. The caucus has been working together, before, during and after the period of the contest. We have been meeting regularly and have been doing things together. Don’t forget the numbers I told you earlier. For example, in the Southeast caucus, we are 40 and 36 of us elected these people and of the remaining four members, some have even come back to and aligned completely with us. So the caucus is intact.
So, it is for the party to talk to the people that they sent their names to accept what has happened as an act of God and let us move together as one family.
What is your legislative agenda in the ninth assembly and what should the people of Ohaozara/ Onicha/ Ivo(OHANIVO) Federal Constituency, who you represent, expect from your representation?
I have a private sector background, and professionally, I am an engineer. My legislative agenda will be focusing on infrastructural development, including such areas as power, safety in the work place and improvement of the health sector. I have some ideas in the areas of our road infrastructure, our ports and harbours which I believe that our government can implement to the benefit of all Nigerians and the economy in general. I will be pushing these ideas in the parliament when we resume fully after the recess.
The second thing my constituency should expect from me is a robust representation. I will not sleep through the oppourtunity the National Assembly presents for us to better our lot as a people. I will contribute seriously on issues that affect the country and my constituency, in particular. I will raise motions when the need arises and also prepare my own bills for the benefit of my people and I hope that the Speaker and my colleagues will give their support when such opportunity arises.
On issues that affect my people, I will not just lament and bemoan our fate; I will ensure that such issues are brought on the floor as matters of urgent national importance or as bills, as the case may be.
As an engineer with interest in the power sector, how do you think the challenges in the sector can be adequately addressed?
The power situation in the country is very deplorable. I don’t know why it seems to defy all solutions by successive administrations. I have discussed this with some of my colleagues and we plan to look at this matter through a motion that we will seek to bring stakeholders from the sector together to find out what really the problem is.
From the Obasanjo administration till now, a lot of money has gone into that sector and there is no improvement. I think I read somewhere that about N900 billion has been spent by the Buhari administration alone on the sector and the situation just seems to be the same. There is no improvement whatsoever.
I think the way to go is that the House Committee on power or an Ad-hoc Committee should interface with the Ministry of Power and really try to find out what exactly are the problems and their challengs. If we do not interface with them, there is probably no way we can know what the problems are since we are not the ones spending the approved budget on the sector.
I believe that in solving the problems, they can start in a piecemeal form, maybe generate 3000megawatts first, then generate 5000megawatts and so on and we just take it up from there.
Also, the issues of the distribution companies, (DISCOS) that are not metering appropriately, so that even the little megawatts generated can actually get to the people and also that the people are not shortchanged in the billing system, like in the current situation, where people pay for electricity they never consumed. I believe that the DISCOS will even generate more revenue when they properly metre and bill their customers.
I believe that the 9th National Assembly owes Nigerians the duty of ensuring improvements in two key areas, namely security and power; we should be able to address the challenges of these two key areas.
The Transparency International recently released their 2019 Corruption Perception Report and in Nigeria the National Assembly was ranked the 2nd most corrupt public institution after the Nigeria Police. What is your take on that?
Well, I just arrived here. I am barely a month old in the National Assembly and honestly I do not know where the corruption claim may be coming from, unless there are some other activities going on under the table that are not visible to us. I say so because from what I know, the monies that get to the members of the National Assembly are either their allowances or their salaries which all go through the established systems in an open manner.