Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
Hon. Toby Okechukwu represents Awgu /Aninri/Oji River Federal constituency of Enugu on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In this interview, Okechukwu, who is also the deputy minority leader speaks what Nigerians should expect from the ninth assembly.
There are concerns in certain quarters that the House minority caucus is more or less an appendage of the majority party, because of the politics that preceded the emergence of the minority leadership
What was the politics?
For the first time, the party generated a list and the Speaker announced another list said to have been generated by members of the minority caucus.
I don’t want to go into that because it is a house keeping matter for the PDP. But if you know the practice in the assembly, you will know how leaders are elected. You cannot talk about how the minority leadership emerged because you wouldn’t know how they did.
Is it by our advocacy in the parliament or outside parliament that you will imagine that people will not advocate for the benefit of Nigerians. How? Have you checked our past? Have you checked our activities. So, your question has no place in our history as individuals and as a collective.
Our legislature is for the benefit of Nigerians and as opposition, we will do our job to make sure that this government tends properly. And if they don’t, we hold them in checks. It is our responsibility. That is what we are elected to do.
How intact is the opposition caucus?
Completely intact, whole and entire. The division you are imagining is in your mind. Not with members of parliament. How many times have you seen us go against ourselves?
The parliament has a culture. And don’t forget that we have been colleagues for upwards of eight and more years. So, don’t go and begin to inject bad blood and say the opposition is not intact. It is your own imagination. We are intact and we will tend properly. You will see. And it will be self evident to you.
Some of you were believed to have worked against your party, the PDP during the election of the presiding officers of the House.
How? I don’t want to go into that, because the leadership of the House has a way of emerging. And he has emerged. Why do you want to go back to the past. You don’t run a race and look backward. You will be losing momentum. What you should be talking about is how Nigeria is going to be better and how the Speaker will do his job properly. How do you want to assess the ninth House of Representatives by the time we finish? It is not about conjecturing or talking about how the House leadership emerged.
You were the chairman, House Committee on Works in the eight assembly, how would you assess the state of infrastructure in the country?
In the eight assembly, I was opportune to be House Committee chairman on Works. And essentially, our responsibility was regarding road infrastructure throughout the country. We had opportunity of making an assessment. And we diagnosed the problem in the sector in three ways. There is the issue of governance. There is the issue of funding. And there is also the issue of professionalism-capacity building in the sector. And we made deliberate efforts to provide legislative solutions to those issues.
First and foremost, we did the Federal Road Authority Bill. The Federal Road Authority Bill deals with the issue of governance. And it is aimed at having some sort of legal person. To have an entity with a statutory flavour, that will make it possible that you can run it like a company. And it will have the muscle to undertake certain activities. You can see how FAAN, as well as the NPA does its thing.
Actually, that Road Authority Bill has been in the making since 1971. But for the first time in our history, the House passed it and the Senate passed it. It is aimed at making sure that the entity becomes more functional. When it becomes a legal person, it can borrow money, and it can also lend money. It begins to inculcate some of the capacities and the practices in the private sector. That is governance.
It was sent to the President and it was returned. The amendment was done and was sent back. That is the legislative solution provided.
The second one is the Road Fund Bill. Let me tell you clearly; without the Road Fund Bill and without us paying attention to the funding of our roads, even the President cannot help himself. No Nigerian leader can help himself.
I will tell you why. You annually budget about N200 to N250 billion (for roads) and you have commitment of N4trillion. And you have outstanding liability of about 300billion. That is what they have worked and you are supposed to pay them. And you are budgeting about 200billion. You have not even budgeted enough that will be able to pay your outstanding liability and if you continue to fund at N200billion level annually, what does it mean? It means that you will take about 20 years to finish all the contracts.
And which road in Nigeria can be designed to last for 20 years? So, by the time you are finishing, when you are in kilometer zero, you finish kilometer one to ten, and by the time you are getting to kilometer 15 in the third year, the kilometer zero begins to develop potholes.
So, it is a huge problem and unless we start doing what is practised in other places, we are not getting anywhere.
During our last budget defence in the eight assembly, the Honourable Minister, (Raji) Fashola said we needed a ten trillion naira bond. I am completely in agreement, because we need that level of intervention to overcome the present perdition we are in. But the point is if you raise the trillion bond, the people you are raising the bond from will want to know how you want to pay.
So, you must have a way of generating fund on your own. It is an annual budget, they know that before you budget N10 trillion for roads in Nigeria, it will take about 40 years.
We need to be clear headed that Nigerians must learn to pay for what they use. For me, it solves two problems. First and foremost, it makes sure your roads are in good shape. It makes sure that it is cheaper for you to go from Enugu to Onitsha or from Abuja to Kano and you payroll, probably about 500 or 1000 and you get there at an appropriate time. Than having to go through bad road, you have to go with a lot of security. You have to spend a lot of hours on the road, because of potholes. . You run the risk of being kidnapped because the roads are not good. And the wear and tear on your vehicles because of potholes will make it much more expensive.
So, the opportunity cost of paying that token and routinely collecting money for maintenance of our road is far better not to do so.
As a matter of fact, when you are talking of employment, it is not going to be guaranteed by contracting, because after two years, three years of contracting it is gone and you become redundant, if you don’t win another contract. But getting employment is through maintenance. Whether you are talking about road maintenance, bridge maintenance, these are retainers of personnel. Because what it means is once you concession a road to any company for 40 years, if you hire about 100 engineers to work on that road, that is a life time job, because Nigerians are expected to retire after 35 years; it is guaranteed. And the consequential effect, the collateral consequences of what it will get in benefits in terms of the number of jobs; you are certain that these people are employed for these number of years, multiply it by the number of roads we have in Nigeria, you will be providing clear employments.
So, there is actually clear benefits in having that. But if anybody tells you that intervention will be by way of annual appropriations, it can never work. In other jurisdictions, funding is critical. And what the Road Fund Bill does is essentially to find processes to encourage some level of road user charges, either by way of tolling, by way of little air taxes on road related issues like petroleum importation, charges on international travellers in terms of people who are going across the border. Then the advertisement you do on the highway.
These will become seed capital for funding of Nigerian roads. Appropriations should simply be an intervention and not on the basis of funding maintenance and development of Nigerian roads.
What should Nigerians expect from the opposition in the ninth assembly and what should the South East expect from their South East caucus?
What we expect is that we want to be on the same with Nigerians with to the advocacy on the problems we have. That is why we are asking the executive to come up with clear cut legislative agenda that will deal with these issues. I think we should have legislative solutions to the issues of security, to the issues of infrastructure and then to the issue of the economy, basically employment. And when you want to address employment, it must be structured. The environment must be enabled, to make sure we stem down this restiveness.
The opposition will be on its toes to make sure that the government works. If they don’t work, then they should give space to those who can work. That is our expections
South East legislators will keep their eyes on the ball, to make sure we do our jobs properly. The basic problem is that the Igbo man is created an enabling environment to ply his trade. We will continue to refocus on the issues of the network of roads we have.
The second Niger Bridge is a rested issue now. And the recent issue of Akanu Ibiam Airport. These are issues that must be dealth with. And essentially, what the average Nigerian want, particularly those from the South East is an environment that works for everybody. That is our hope.
That is why we were bent on having the South East Development Commission. So, it becomes a vehicle, where government is unable to address issues, it becomes a legal entity to harness the capacity of the South Easterners. I believe the Speaker and leadership of the House and the South East should be able to drive it to make sure that the President gets it endorsed.
We also expects a few things from our constituents. They should bring some pressure on the presidency to sign. Those are the basic problems.
When parliament passes some bills, the President should also be made to sign or see the need to sign. That is where citizen advocacy should come in.