BY OLAYINKA AJAYI
Senator Nnamdi Eriobuna a member of the 2014 National Conference, in this encounter, attributes recurring defection of politicians from one party to the other to lack of ideology among the political parties and says independent candidacy will help redress the problem.
What do you make of General Muhammadu Buhari’s decision to contest the presidential election for the fourth time in 2015?
That is the beauty of democracy. He has the right to vie for the office of President. But the decision of who becomes the President in 2015 lies with the electorate. He accused the ruling PDP of wanting to steal forever. This he claimed triggered his presidential ambition to stop corruption in Nigeria.
Interestingly, the transformation agenda of the President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration is passionately addressing the deficiencies affecting us as a nation, such as corruption, provision of good living conditions, good roads, airport,railway lines and efficient power supply.
Is your view on power supply not informed by your stint as chairman of the Senate Committee on electricity because many people are complaining of poor power supply and crazy bills?
Sen Nnamdi Eriobuna
Sincerely, from my observations of past administrations, President Jonathan has made huge progress in improving on the power sector. Without any contradiction, I travelled to my village in Anambra State recently, I realized there was electricity for the whole two weeks of my stay. In 24 hours we had electricity for up to 17hours. When I travelled to Asaba, there was power supply for up to 15hours in a day.
Contrary to your finding, both small and medium enterprises still rely on generators to run their businesses…
Even in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja they still power their offices with generators. But electricity should be quantified by hours you have power to hours you don’t. I maintain that people don’t understand how the electricity sector works.
If governments intend to make power sector improve with either gas or hydro, they have to place orders by putting their specifications based on peculiarity of our environment. The company that manufactures power plants gives them time based on the data given them which could take two or three years to be ready.
The ruling party has been very successful when compared to the military era. When I visited major power stations for an oversight function in 2002, I found out that out of 12 turbans, only three were functional. The military neglected the power sector for many years. For the ruling party to correct it over night would take time because you have to put into consideration the generation, transmission and then distribution. You may have the power plants in place and the distribution line would be under construction. Delay is inevitable. Hopefully, in the next two to three years, electricity outage would be a thing of the past. I rate the Jonathan administration very high with regards to electricity and national development.
On the House of Representative’s proposed removal of immunity clause for presidents and governors
The major reason behind it is that those in power act with impunity. They are protected by the constitution. Less you forget governments are made of laws rather than men. There will be more sanity whereby everybody knows that he is under the law. But the immunity clause makes Nigeria different from other parts of the world. Immediately the immunity clause is removed, governments will be made of laws rather than of men.
On the prevalence of defections among politicians in the country
The problem is most political parties are without well-defined ideology. If political parties have good ideology, you will not act in any way that contradicts it. Currently, there is no clear-cut ideological differences and it does not even make sense moving from APC to PDP.
When politicians vie for an election and win in one party, when they perceive the chances of not being nominated again they defect to the other party. It should be enshrined in the constitution that political parties should have a well defined ideology known to Nigerians. So if ambitious politicians are joining any party they will be aware of the party’s ideology.
But because political parties have not stated what they want equivocally, politicians go there with their personal ambition. This is the major reason politicians move from one political party to the other shamelessly. But in civilized societies like Britain, we have the conservatives, Labour and others with well defined ideologies. During the 60s all political parties had their ideology well spelled out and politicians followed it passionate. These days we don’t know the difference between all the political parties. Most political parties are after what they would get from politicians rather than the ideology that will transform our great Nation.
How can the issue of defection be addressed in our polity?
During the just concluded National Conference, we tabled an avenue for a form of independent candidacy. If you can vie for an office as an independent candidate by stating what you intend to do to the people; if you succeed, you continue championing that which you stood for. Independent candidacy will solve the problem of political prostitution in Nigeria.
His take INEC’s creation of additional 30,000 polling units ahead of the 2015 elections
The INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega is not being sensitive to the plight of the people, especially at a time elections is around the corner. If he does not have a bad intent, why must he insist on such action? The constitution may have empowered him to go ahead which is some of the lapses we have in the constitution but it could be detrimental to our nascent democracy. Jega should suspend his plans till after the elections when he can now look at everything holistically.
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