By Henry Uche
Senator Ned Nwoko who represents Delta North senatorial district in the red Chamber of the National Assembly in this monitored Channels TV interview, defended his numerous bills including a bill for every Nigerian to bear a licensed gun as it is the practice in America and some other countries. He also talked about the current socio-economic and political situation in Nigeria, the APC-led central government among other topical issues.
Your take on the Humanitarian Affairs Ministry, are you saying the present structure is not working?
Thank you very much for the opportunity. As a matter of fact, it’s just a big coincidence that today we screened the Minister who is coming to replace Dr Betta Edu and I listened attentively to the first question that was asked him. I have never met him before, but I was very impressed that he offered a solution going forward. He realizes that, that Ministry has been bedeviled with corruption and other practices so much so that it has never been able to reach the masses, the poor, the vulnerable, the disabled, all those people who actually need them. And you know, from his answers, I believe that we can work together, because what he has made clear to us today is that he wants to run a data- driven Ministry. And he went on to explain how this will work, almost like what I have proposed in my bill, which is that we should have data of everybody from the units, as he put it, which is the correct thing to do, to the wards, to the local governments and to the states. In simple terms, what he said today is that there should be database for everybody.
You proposed an agency called National Social Security Agency, NSSA…
Yes, this agency will of course work effectively. But as I was saying to you, the Minister has been confirmed. So, he is a Minister now, what he did was to emphasize on those things I have been advocating, which was never done before, which is to identify those who are in need from the various communities. And it’s against what is happening now or what has been happening before. You know, we have budgeted so much money in billions, hundreds of billions to this Ministry in the past. And how does it work in the past? They simply get Senators, House of Reps members and others to nominate beneficiaries and this doesn’t go down to the real people who need it.
The kind of deep corruption, how it served the interest of some political interest…
That is why I have been up against it, against the Ministry itself. But I’m telling you now that what the Minister just told us that he is prepared to do is in tandem with what I am proposing. Look, what am I proposing? Putting it in simple layman’s term; first is that we must have a national database that captures everybody, whoever you are, from Mr. President to the bricklayer, from the Ministers to the teachers, from the soldiers to the accountants, everybody should be captured within that database so that we begin to know those who are in dire need of support, and this one should be able to receive some amount of money every month as of right, without them knowing anybody.
What constitutional provision would back that?
It is a bill and I told you, it’s a bill. Good governance is about providing for the people, isn’t it? It would be an Act of the National Assembly. That my bill seeks to make it a law and Act to have this data -driven agency. Automatically, when you fall within that bracket, money comes to you without me knowing you, or without you knowing anybody, it does not matter in fact that you are in the local village.
Does it work anywhere?
Oh yes, it works in England, works in America, works in France, works in Japan, works in every other parts of the world.
Do we have what it takes to be able to functionalise this?
What does it take you? Just some level of technical database, isn’t it? Which is what this Minister talked about today, that we are going to use database. It’s all about database. It’s all about capturing every individual in Nigeria, those who are working and those who are not working, those who are sick, from those who are not sick. And being able to understand that for those who are not working, those who are vulnerable, those who are disabled, those who have suffered some other forms of infirmities may be because of accident or whatever, who are not able to continue to work, that they receive money as of right from the government. So, there should be money in that fund, not shared among relatives of politicians. You won’t receive money because some governors like you or some Senators like you, and they will nominate you, and you get say, $100 in a month in a one off payment. All I’m saying is that the system has to be transparent.
So what we have now is a failure?
Oh it is. There is no governance in terms of helping the poor.
Where do we start from?
That is what I’m telling you; the Minister said something today that I applauded. I never thought that we could have a Minister who understands what needs, and what has to be done. But hearing him today, talk to us for about 30 minutes, and then going through his resume, I think he has a PhD in engineering or so, so he understands the essence of data, and all we just need to do is to give him all the support that is needed, so that the relevant agencies and ministries will begin to compile the list of Nigerians.
So, if the National Social Security Agency bill is passed into law, every Nigerian will have their identities captured? Is it similar to the NIN?
The NIN is just one of those numbers that could be used to establish this. You know, there are other ways of doing it, but the Federal Government has to set up a database agency that will have to work with a verifiable information, with an acceptable and known information. So, if nobody is disabled and they are not able to work and they are in your village, how would they get to their senator, or House of Rep member to give them that allowance that they need to survive, to eat and pay some bills, they will never be supported by anybody. So, those are the people that we should target in advancing this country. We must look at those who are really in need, and there are many of them, but the fact is that this Ministry had never addressed that. What the Ministry has done before, let me tell you what they have done before. They simply just get some consultants here and there to help them to compile list of names, and then 100 billion is made available to them, and they decide as to who they give this 100 billion mainly to their families or their friends or those who support them, but not to those who need it. So the point is that, when that is done, those people who get those money, they are just beneficiaries of goodwill from those who put them there, but this agency that I’m proposing now, what it does is to identify those people who are statutorily entitled as a right?
We have multiplication and duplication of identities, your driver’s licence, etc, in other climes, you only need one identity…
I think they can use the NIN to unify them. It is like a security matter. So whoever you are, even if you are wanted by the police, it will be there. If you are wanted by the customs, or you have been evading tax, it will be there. So, when they put your name, your details will come up. So, everybody who is looking for you wants to know who you are, what you stand for; it will be there, and with that, we can plan Nigeria, we can begin to plan for the most vulnerable, for the most poor in our country.
How urgently do you think this should be done?
Like yesterday, let me tell you, I understand that some more money is being released to the Ministry and all that. No, before they start releasing money. This can be done quickly. Let’s fix it this first, we can get experts and say -you go and handle Delta; you go and handle Lagos State, you go and handle so and so state and then they bring them together. It would be biometrics of course, and it will be reliably used for anything.
Your bill for the Prohibition of foreign currency use in Nigeria is actually captured in the CBN Act. The usage of foreign currency for transaction in Nigeria is illegal, yet people still use it; for school fees, for hospital bills, isn’t what you are proposing going to be duplication for what is already obtained in the CBN amendment?
No, it is an amendment to the Act. The fact is that our economy as it is, is in tatters. It is in some kind of quagmire, if I may use that word. And it doesn’t matter how you look at it. It doesn’t matter what policy they try to introduce here and there, nothing will work. Nothing will work as long as we keep tying the level of exchange rate to our consumptions, nothing will work. Let me tell you. Let me just try and break it down for you. You know, when we became an independent nation, we had Naira, and our currency was quite strong. Then suddenly, we began to have other currencies, dollars, particularly, and pounds. And now, of course, Euro. There is no country that I know in the world that uses multiple currencies. Every country like Britain, they use pounds, America uses dollars, France uses Euro. Now, if you go to any of those countries and you, for example, go to the UK and you have dollar, you must change it at the BDC. You cannot pay for anything in dollars in UK. Everybody is paid their salaries in Pound in the UK, same thing when you go to America. Everybody uses dollars. So, for this to work, assuming that all of us agree that we should prohibit the use of foreign currency in Nigeria, what it means is that if somebody is coming to buy oil or buy gas or buy gold in Nigeria, they will require to use only Naira as formal transaction. So, if they are coming from UK, for example, what they will do is to look for Naira so that they can transact because they know they cannot use any other currency. So, they must look for Naira. So, if they come and if they want to transact with any other currency in Nigeria, they cannot.
So, they must look for Naira. Currently, nobody looks for Naira, because we have made it so easy for them to transact with other currencies. There is no obligation for them to look for any other currency other than their own, so they can come here with any currency. And that means, effectively, that there are no global demands for our Naira. So, given this scenario, if this law is passed, anybody who needs to transact in Nigeria must use Naira, so there will be a demand or demands for the Naira in those countries. Do you understand that? It means that when there is demand for Naira, what happens to it? There will be a rise in the value of Naira, because currently there is no demand for Naira anywhere; even if you carry a truckload of Naira to hit through airports or anywhere in UK, what happens to that? There is no need for it. People will tell you there is no value for it. So, you have no value. Our money has no value beyond Nigeria. So, for this to work, what we need to do is just to prohibit the use of foreign currencies. And when that happens, people will begin to look for Naira. When they look for Naira, you will see the currency appreciate, and when it’s appreciated, you can take Naira to UK and you change it at the airport, because they need Naira. They know that the businessmen who are coming to Nigeria to transact business would need Naira, so they will be happy to take Naira from you to keep for future transactions. But now they don’t have any need for the Naira.
Does that solve our economic problem?
Oh yes, it can. This is the solution. This is the simple solution. You cannot go to Morocco for example and use other than local currency. Is it difficult to understand? For instance, how our economy has been bastardized; we sell our crude oil in dollars, then CBN takes this crude oil and we sell it to some speculators. Then you have what they call parallel market: Some official, the other one unofficial- involving dollars. Parallel market has to do with official dollars. So, why do you need Parallel market in your own country? Why would you need to subject your own currency to this humiliation where you know you are allowing the other currencies to box it into a corner? Nobody respects Naira.
Isn’t this going to be over simplification of the economy?
And the President has been trying to do that through some unification of the exchange rate. That is one step in the right direction. He has also taken other steps based on something that I have been advocating, which is that anybody who wants to buy crude oil must pay in Naira. I have been talking about this! So, the EFCC for example, they have also said that you can’t transact some other businesses in Nigeria with Naira; it has to be wholesome approach. Now, look at foreign workers in Nigeria, all foreign workers in Nigeria are paid in foreign currencies on the Nigerian soil. That is discriminatory! That is not acceptable! Because I said, if you go to other countries for example, in France, it doesn’t matter who you are, you are paid in Euro. Again, you go to the UK, you are paid in pounds, it doesn’t matter what work you do. You go to America, you are paid in dollars, it doesn’t matter who you are. So, we must unify our currency. We must seek to protect our currency, and this is something that has to be done with the prohibition of use of other currencies. Just take, for example, most people have foreign currencies in their local accounts here. We don’t need to have that. That also has to be prohibited. You know that this is the biggest problem we have. It is not over simplification. It is a fact that when you stop the use of other currencies and also stop the importation of goods, then you begin to protect local companies, local industries, local manufacturers, local producers. But you must take a step in doing this. I know some people will ask, but how do you prohibit everything? We can prohibit virtually everything, except all those very limited items. As far as most of these luxury items are concerned, anything that we cannot produce, we should forget it, and look inwards and begin to manufacture. These are all part of the bill.
Dangote was almost begging marketers to patronize him, does it bother you?
It does! There is just one single solution different from what we have seen before. What the government must do is to prohibit the importation of crude or refined products into Nigeria. We cannot continue to import anything and expect something different to happen in the economy. So, what has to be done is just to prohibit the importation of refined products. People are still importing refined products. They are still competing with Dangote. So, we must protect that industry, that refinery, and then we must also take steps to repair the other government owned refineries across the country. We have no reason whatsoever. This is the only country that is oil and gas producing that is importing refined products.
You talked about accountability particularly in your state- Delta. Some believe that maybe you have a personal grouse with the governor?
I don’t have any. I mean, I worked for his election. I worked for his nomination. I worked for his election. We have been friends. But beyond that, I have my obligation to my constituents, those that elected me, they are asking for power supply, and we have the source of power supply – just to step it down. So, the state government cannot tell me, oh, it’s a Federal Government’s duty. It is not Federal Government’s duty. It is your duty to step it down because this is something that will affect the populace- our people.
Is the governor listening to you?
Look, whether he listens or not, the people will listen, and people will know what to do. So, we need to have power supply that is constant for our people, and the plant is there, supplying about 1000 megawatts of light to the national grid, yet the people through which power goes out are living in darkness. Total darkness. So, what the government needs to do is to pay the contractors who have been contracted; the contracts have been awarded by the Federal Government, so pay them to complete this step down. With that, you have complete power supply in Delta. The argument as to, oh, it’s the Federal Government’s job to do…. Federal government will not do it, because if they do, the agreement is that there should be 100 megawatts taken from that 1000, so if they take 100 megawatts from that 1000, it would mean less for Abuja, it would mean less for Anambra State, it would mean less for Kogi State, so the Federal Government is not in a hurry to do the step down, because they know that there would be some kind of deficit. So, the state government might as well pay for it. But they were not going to pay for it. I have told him, look, I have got two companies that are willing to fund it. All they just want is a guarantee from the state government that their investment will be safe and secured, so that they can pay for the step down and then get their money from billings over time, say 20 years to 25 years. Same thing with the water dam in Ogwashikwu, that Dam has been built, completely built by the Federal Government. Now the Federal Government has said to us, it’s not for your government to do the water reticulation, and it’s not been done for over 10 years that the Dam was built. This has not been done. I could have spoken to any other governor before.
Aren’t you able to do it as your own constituency Project?
We are talking about 25 billion or 30 billion. Not even the Senate president can afford to do that. So, it’s something huge. What we need is either the state government to put in money to do it, or allow some financiers to do it and collect money from the billing to the people. If you don’t do this, I mean, so what are you doing? What is the essence of governance?
You have queried the performance of the Delta State governor regarding utilization of the funds from the allocation available to the state. Are you able to validly substantiate your claim?
It’s very simple. Before I went public on this, the governor’s people have come public to say that the state was owing some hundreds of billions of Naira, and that the governor has been able to pay just about less than 220 billion out of it. So, it’s in the public. Everybody knows. His media team could have gone out to say this anyway, that the state has huge debt profile, and that they are paying so much; they have paid so much, and they will continue to pay and service that debt. But that is not my problem, because every government can borrow, if they have such revenue every month from the Federation account, and so much of it goes towards servicing of these loans, it does not stop them from borrowing to meet the needs of the people. How do I explain to my people? That, sorry, we can’t do the waters for you, we can’t do the light for you; we can’t do the road for you, because the government is paying debts incurred by previous governments. Is it an explanation? So, there is pressure from the people.
You are also pushing for the creation of Anioma State. Is that possible?
It is very possible.
What is the need?
Well, the need is for self determination. Let me tell you this. I represent nine local government areas. My constituency is made up of nine local government areas. Out of these nine local government areas, six of them are oil and gas producing. We are predominantly agricultural, agrarian people, and of course, some of it have been devastated through oil pollutions. But to have a state is something that our ancestors have been clamoring for over 50 years. We the Aniomas are Igbos, likely Igbos. We will be the sixth Igbo state, because I mean, we are getting the support from South East. The fact is that the Federal Government is going to create one state. They will create one state. But I wanted it to be created to assuage the Igbo because they have been marginalized.
Marginalised? How?
Yes, they are. Look, you’re talking as if you are not part of Nigeria. South East is the only zone that has five states. Others have six states, except Northwest that has seven. You don’t call that marginalisation? And if you also listen to the youths who are killing and maiming, what are they clamouring for? Those who are in IPOB or ESN and the rest of them, what are they clamouring for? What are they crying about? Talking about being marginalized! And one of those areas of being marginalized is that they have fewer states than others. So, we are on the other side, the Igbo on the other side of the River, we were called Bendel Igbo or Western Igbo and now we are called Delta Igbo. If we also have a state that could become the sixth state of South East, or even if it’s going to be seven state in South- south at least, the average Igbo person will feel okay, something is being done for us.
You moved a bill for every Nigerian to be able to carry arms. America is suffering from that particular policy, do you think that would solve our security problem?
Oh, it will. It will. Look, let me tell you this, my Senior Legislative Aide, SLA was killed in November last year, and the wife told the story. The wife said that the estate was attacked by some kidnappers. They were going from house to house, and they knew they were coming to them, but they couldn’t do anything; when they got to their door, they literally wanted to knock down the door but my SLA who is late now, said to the wife, look, you go and hide somewhere. Let me talk to them. Of course, the wife and kids went to hide under the bed in one of the rooms. When he went to open the door, he was taken, and we never saw him alive. Nobody saw him again. As a matter of fact, those people moved away and have been arrested, and the body of my SLA was also recovered by the police. Now, if he had a gun, or if members of the community, or those people in in that estate had guns, you think the kidnappers would have the audacity to be knocking from door to door, knowing that people are armed, that wouldn’t happen. It’s not as easy as that, but for you to have the licence to have a gun, first you must go to a training school, a shooting School -which is retraining school. You must get a confirmation from two doctors that you have stable mind. You must get a report from the DSS and from the police and you must be confirmed by your local traditional rulers to attest who you are.
