Senator Matthew Uhroghide is the Chairman, Senate Committee on Public Account and Senator representing Edo South in the National Assembly on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In this Interview with FRANCIS OGBUAGU in Benin, he bares his mind on the outcome of the last general election, the governorship elections in Edo State next year, among other issue…..CONTINUE READING...CONTINUE READING
We just came out of an election. The results have been announced and some people have won and lost. What is your assessment of the process and outcome of the presidential and state assembly polls?
For me, to be very honest, I was not expecting a perfect election. When I say perfect, I mean a flawless election. The reason is that these are human actions. And there is no human being that is an embodiment of accomplishment. That is why the law says that elections should be substantially in compliance with the law or the laid down rules and guidelines. I will say that to a very large extent, the results that came out were a true reflection of the wish of Nigerians. The outing of some parties, particularly the Labour Party surprised everybody and I don’t think that anybody will say that the election was manipulated by the Labour Party. The Labour Party was a child of circumstance and nobody knew that they could pull the support during that election; nobody thought they could do that. So, the Labour Party coming and doing what they did, we are not surprised. Some even believe they did better, even in the states. They did better in Edo, if not for some manipulations here and there, the results would have been better in Edo.
Senator, you are not going back to the Senate where you have been for the past eight years. We are going to have a set of new Senators. And your committee (Senate Committee on Public Account) is very strategic. What are we going to miss?
Let me say this without fear of contradictions, parliament all over the world or the National Assembly is a place driven by knowledge; it is a repository of knowledge, and you get better in the business of lawmaking and other legislative activities the more you stay there. It is driven like that, whether it’s a parliamentary or presidential system. It is driven by experience. That is why they tell you that the number of times you come in there, ranks you. That is what they call the ranking. The more ranking you are, the more experience in legislative processes. It is the only place where you have the true representatives of the people. Why? That is where you have the largest number of people who represent the people. They don’t only represent their constituencies; they represent the interest of the masses. So, if you take people out of the National Assembly and you keep feeding in new members. What happens to institutional memory? What happened yesterday will be lost. The way we did it yesterday will be lost. Nobody will ensure continuity. Nobody will develop what we did yesterday. Nobody can say we did it like this yesterday and this is the result we got, let’s do it differently today. Virtually all of us, from the states where there is rivalry, envy and jealousy are not coming back.
The DSS came up the other day to say that some persons are planning to install an Interim National Government. Do you think it is possible when we have a President-elect?
That is not possible. This is not military rule. When we have our grand norm, the constitution? There is no such provision in the Constitution. Only, if you tell me that President Muhammadu Buhari is the one planning such a thing. I think it’s something thrown-up by some people to divert attention. But it is abnormal. Instead, DSS should go and look for the persons planning the Interim National Government, unless they want to tell us that Buhari is one planning such a thing, because it is only the President that has the force or the instrumentality of government in place to do such. Otherwise, it is one of those street talks that you should not believe. Unless, they are just flying the story to tell those coming in, that Nigerians want a Government of National Unity. In that case, you will take from all sides. There is nothing interim; we already have our time table of four years; nothing interim there. There is no interface, and no state of emergency has been declared. The only person that can declare a state of emergency is the President, ratified by the National Assembly, which after six months will be renewed, unless you are going to have military intervention, where you break down the structures of democracy.
Your party, the PDP is in crisis. The National Chairman, Dr. Iyocha Ayu has been suspended. We have an Acting National Chairman, Damagun; while the governors are eager to remove Ayu. What is your take?
I don’t know what they want to achieve. But, like I said before, all these internal crises are nothing, but a recipe for failure, whether at the state or the national level. At the national level, the crisis that resulted in our failure to win the presidential election was avoidable. All the people that left were part of PDP, including Peter Obi, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso were all part of the PDP family. The five governors that frustrated the efforts of the party too are part of the party. Although, many of them got burnt because those that wanted to go to the National Assembly did not win.
Their states lost woefully. Look at Benue State. It was a disaster. Those governors have made their point that they wanted Ayu to step down, but he was claiming that there was no such provision in the constitution. The courts are there, without preempting what the courts will say. It is an uphill task. If it doesn’t work, PDP should go back to the cooler for another four years.
But the problem that PDP has is who will lead it, who will have the moral right to lead PDP? Is it those governors now that will say, ‘come now that we have scattered the party, let us rebuild it?’ Who is going to give you the support? It is not going to be easy. Okay, what can you say of PDP in Edo State? Who is going to bring PDP together in Edo State? You won’t get the support that we had. I was Publicity Secretary of PDP in Edo, because I had to concede so that we could build the party. And we rebuilt and used it and I became a senator twice through it, believing that we should keep the sanctity, so that other people can use it and win elections, but they destroyed it. The governor that is there today used it to acquire power and after they came in, they disrupted it. If anyone is telling you that PDP is one in Edo that person is telling you a lie. Who tells you that PDP will survive?
I doubt it. At the national level, do you know what it takes to organise a party at the national level? If not that Labour Party is very infantile, all these things they are throwing at the party, is to destroy it. It is external forces that are throwing all these things at the Labour Party. Yes it may be true that people who are midwifing the party, the leadership, like the national chairman, may have done one or two things wrongly, because they are humans, but people are capitalising on that to hurl all manners of things at them to deflect the party. When Uche Secondus was the Chairman of PDP, we had that problem with Ali Modu Sheriff; we had an agreement with the chairman and they were deducting 200,000 from our salaries every month. That was what they were using to prosecute the case and run the Secretariat. That is why Secondus said we will compensate you for what you did, and that is how we came back.
In view of the fact that the last election took ethnic and religious lines, what do you expect the incoming government to do in order to bring Nigerians together as one?
There is no doubt that Nigerians have never been as divided as we are today. But those who have always thrown up the ethnic and religious cards are those who want to work on our sensibilities. They bring out everything that is touchy about us into the game of seeking power. Oh! You are a Christians! You want to raise a national team. Ah, the national team? Is it supposed to be only Christians? Why not put some Muslims.
To me, the man that is most deficient is the man with ethnic background, most nepotistic and religious bigots. It is the way we are. If our brothers in the North who are Christians tell you what they have seen, discrimination, harassment by their Muslim brothers. You will think the Muslims in the North are Devils. Let me take the National Assembly for instance. They have been compiling names of people who could be Senate President.
Let me not mention names so that it doesn’t look like I am campaigning for anybody. If you say this person will do well as Senate President, the person may not be taken. Maybe geographically okay, but he may not on the grounds of religion. No! Because, people may be saying ‘the President is Muslim, the Vice President is Muslim and then Senate President Muslim again?’ Those fanning the embers of tribalism in our country have done it. See what has happened in Benue State where over 400 people have been killed. In other climes, it is enough to move our armed forces there. Forget about the face of Governor Samuel Ortom! Forget about the way he talks, forget about the way he is, a troublesome man, talking to the President anyhow. Can that be equated to the lives of 400 people? Tell any Benue man that the Fulani man likes him.
Will he accept that? Even if the President did not send them, he has not taken any visible action to remove the impressions that he did not send them. So, how can you convince the Benue man (to the contrary)? You see that from one generation to the other, it is going to be the same. All these problems that we have created, the incoming President has a lot of work to do. You can imagine, some people being told, ‘you only came to Lagos to trade, and you don’t come to Lagos to look for power. If you don’t want to vote for APC or our candidates, you will not be alive to tell the story,or don’t come close to the polling units.’ That has never happened before where the ethnic card has been so promoted. Lagos State is a Yoruba or APC state. Is every Yoruba man APC? Those that are saying ‘if you don’t vote for APC, leave Lagos,’ is Lagos owned by APC? Is everybody in APC Yoruba? Gbadebo Rhode-Vivour that ran on the platform of the Labour Party, is he not a Yoruba man? Those things are taken by leaders of the party, or else, how many leaders of APC said ‘don’t touch them. Let anybody vote for the party or candidate of their choice?’ So, the incoming President must know that he has a lot of work to do, in terms of integration and to work on the people’s sensibilities to erase that mindset or psyche; a lot of re-construction and rehabilitation. I don’t know how he will do that. What will he tell families of those that have been massacred; those they want to devour and take their land? Because the problem is that they want to take their land. You take your cows from the North and you are going to the South and a man says, ‘as you are passing you are destroying my farm.’ And you kill him?
How is your relationship with the Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki and is it true that you want to contest the state governorship election in 2024?
Let me say it again, that I supported Governor Godwin Obaseki to come back to power the second time. Let me say it openly that it was to the dislike of my compatriots who are in PDP with me – Hon Ogbeide-Ihama, Dan Orbi and others. I saw him as the shortest means for PDP to come back to power in Edo, the easiest way to Osadebe Avenue. And the reason I supported him was that that was the greatest wish of Chief Tony Anenih, before he passed on, that whatever it takes us, even if it’s a blind man, or one legged man to get to government house, let us do it. That is why I did it.
But, I have no regrets, contrary to what people are saying, maybe because I did not get the party’s ticket. I know what happened. I am not a baby. I ran for Senate for the first time in 1992, before most people here. I have lost elections more times than I have won. Thank God I have the opportunity to represent our people for the past eight years. Maybe, what is left is to become governor and president. At the national level, I have cut my teeth. I can’t go anywhere now and people will ask who is this? And mind you, I wanted to be governor in 2003, I went the length and breadth of Edo State. The way I am known here, I still have people in Edo North and Edo Central that worked with me.
In fact the Labour Party National Chairman is one of those that worked for me. He coordinated my campaign in Edo Central. They are all there. Coming to the issue of 2024, I want to say that I don’t see anything wrong with me contesting the 2024 Edo State Governorship Election. Just like some people were looking forward to me being Senator, so that I can do what I have been doing. Some people are saying, ‘we never knew the Senator could build roads, and schools.’ Go to Ufunama, Ovia South West. I built schools, not one, two or even three. I spread it, and those that got the jobs were across party lines. I have been able to set the record for anybody coming to take over from me.
Thank God the person coming to take over from me worked with me as a Senior Legislative Aid for eight years. He cannot do otherwise but to build on what he met on ground. He is lucky that he already has the structures on ground. But if anybody has won and comes to me, I would have made it available to the person. That is at the representation level at the state level, I wanted to be governor before and there is nothing wrong with that ambition. Because, I still see that there are things you can do differently in this state. With due respect to those who governed and those who are governing this state, they have done their best, but there are things we can do differently. The things I see here starting from my environment, the general despondent on the faces of people. I am not happy.
Is it money that you need to do some of these things? Not necessarily money, but political will. All the things I did as a Senator- provision of infrastructure, the street lights, the town halls, roads, schools, the empowerment of over 6,000 persons were made possible because I did not exhibit personal greed. Those things would not have been there and if I had told the contractors, ‘let’s share the money, I will sign for you. That is how it is done.’ But I challenge any contractor if I have any deal with them or any person working with me has any deal with them. All the people that are working with me, I told them, ‘if you do it. That is the end of my relationship with you…..CONTINUE READING
