Senator Magnus Abe representing Rivers South-East Senatorial district, in this interview posits that Nigeria has undergone all forms of restructuring since independence, insisting that restructuring should should not be an issue to fight about. Excerpts:
What is your stand on the current issues surrounding restructuring?
The idea seems to be that people don’t know what they are talking about; but they know what they are talking about, what you are calling re-structuring is your own restructuring, but what it simply means is that you as a Nigerian believe that there are some things that we can do better or that there are some things that are being done as good as it is, or that you are not happy with the way the country is or how the structure of the country is formed and what it is leading to, that’s what people are saying and so we need to look at that.
What we should ask the people simply is “What will they like to see that they think will make Nigeria better’’; so as many as those ideas will be, let us put them on the table, the one that the majority will agree on we change, to me it’s not an event, it is a process, like it or not Nigeria has been re-structured severally and is still being restructured every day, so it is not a new thing.
From independence we had one structure, that structure had its own problems people felt the Centre was too weak and the Regions were too strong and the minority felt they were unprotected in those strong regions and so it was restructured that’s how we came by states, so we now had a stronger centre, now people are saying the centre is too strong, the states are too weak, they cannot deliver on the expectations of the people, it’s a ‘convoluted’ system, a lot of people feel that it bestows too much power and privileges on those who control the centre and too little on those who don’t, so they want another review of the system.
I don’t see what is happening as a totally academic exercise, where we go around and say…ooh restructuring, what do you understand by restructuring, making the word ‘‘restructuring’’ become the issue rather than the country, ‘‘the issue is how do we make Nigeria better’’.
Restructuring is not a new thing and it will continue ‘‘until we arrive at a country that delivers the most to the most number, as it is now we have a country that delivers a lot to very few people and does not deliver enough to the majority’’, that is why people are clamoring, people are not satisfied, the jobs are not coming, prosperity is not spreading the way they look at it and they think that ‘‘if the structure was better organized more people will be made more efficient, because my own issue is the efficiency of the structure, I feel that the structure is inefficient, we pay too much for too little, we can pay less for more, that is how efficient organizations are managed’.
We have a structure that is too expensive and is not delivering enough, as a child I grew up in Calabar, Cross River state, I’m from Rivers state, I didn’t have to lie that I was from Cross River state for me to get free education from the then South Eastern state government, when I fell sick in Calabar my parents were living in Port Harcourt, I was taken in the school bus of St. Patrick’s College Ikot-Ansa to the Mary Slessor Hospital in Calabar, I was treated and was eating three times a day; in fact the day the school bus returned to convey me back to school I was hiding because the hospital was too sweet and I was not from South Eastern state’’.
Today south eastern state has become Akwa Ibom and Cross River state; Rivers State has become Rivers and Bayelsa, the question is ‘‘Is any child in Cross River enjoying in Cross River what I enjoyed as a Rivers son in South Eastern state, the answer is no’’. So why is it that we have all these resources and yet the people are getting less and less and less from the government, that’s the question that needs answers, so whatever suggestions they can make to make the system more efficient for the people, that’s restructuring right there.
About the Current Local Government Structure, where Governors have Joint Accounts with Local Government, what will you suggest for a more efficient system?
I am not even complaining about the number of states, what I am saying is that there must be some change in terms of the quality of life of the citizens; as a student during holidays, people were getting vacation jobs and getting paid; there was money in the pockets of students, now half the year is vacation, no one is getting money, ASUU is on strike, this and that one are on strike, all these problems are money based, there is no money in the system, how do we make the country more efficient, so that people can get more and even have more opportunity to produce and contribute.
So whatever suggestions that you can provide that could help the process, that is the restructuring that you are looking for, so I am not here to guide anybody on what we should do, I am here to focus the attention of Nigerians on what we need to do, because what I understand that the people are talking about is that people are dissatisfied.
On the structure of the local government, we should ask ourselves what is the local government designed to achieve; what can it do; what was it set up to do, we should have a broad conversation where people can speak their minds.
Here in the Senate we have asked for the Confab report so that we can look at it, if we look at it and find there is nothing good in it, but at least we have looked at it, let us take ideas from everywhere, let’s not muscle people, let’s not say what you have said is the most stupid therefore do not say it, no, let’s not go that way but feel free to collate all opinions, the one that we reject today we may take tomorrow. It’s all about the quest for a better Nigeria and I think one thing that everybody has agreed on is that we can make this republic better.
States can no longer pay salaries, is it that Governors are not thinking outside the box?
When the President gave monies to offset salaries how many paid, where is the money?
How can intervention funds be better monitored?
This is a democracy, what people need to understand is that in a democracy the Ultimate Power belongs to the people. Let Nigerians decide who they want in a manner that is unambiguous; clear and transparent, it is achievable, once we achieve that all these other things that we worry over will sort themselves out.
If you ask me my most important item, that is it, ‘Electoral Reform’, how do we make our electoral process free of manipulation; free of intimidation; free of violence; free of fraud, once we are able to get that you don’t have to worry; that way, a governor knows once you give him money to take care of something and he fails the electorate will wait for him.
A real politician likes the support and approval of people more than money, the reason why politicians are stealing money in this country is because without money you cannot even play politics in Nigeria. There is pressure on you to perpetually bring money, but if we have a system that delivers based on service you don’t have to have money to win, that way everybody will now concentrate on service, you know because nobody has enough money to bribe everybody.
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