Senator Uche Chukwumerije in his contribution thinks that the watchword for the year 2011 should be  security as this is the year of political rallies, and what happened in Jos should not be allowed to repeat itself anywhere in Nigeria.

Hence, he advises government to step up on the issue of intelligence to avoid a repeat occurrence.

What should be the focus of government this year?

The level of violence in the country is quite alarming. At least, the explosions witnessed in Jos are quite rattling. We should be wary of these things and as we are now in the new year, we are close to events that would require large communal activities. I’m talking about public rallies, political activities and nominations of citizens who will bring about change in the polity. All these require that government should be steps up in maintaining peace and unity across the country.

In this new year, I must say that the emphasis should be on  effective security. In fact, I will lay emphasis on intelligence. We need the security forces to find ways  of getting to know about these events before they happen so as to prevent them from happening. The kind of thing that happened in Jos shouldn’t happen at all especially at this period of rallies and political activities. These things shouldn’t be happening.

The next thing government should pay attention to is  employment. There should be more jobs for the youths to engage them meaningfully in production. This will reduce some of these violence and skirmishes in the polity and government should also ensure conflict resolution.

There was heat on legislators the last year because of some of the agitations made by them to become automatic members of NEC of their parties and the allegations of 25 per cent overhead expenditure. How would legislation be this year?

Some of the issues are not justified. The issue of automatic ticket is not justified. I, personally was not around when the issue came up. I read about some of these issues on automatic tickets and the fact that it did not fly on the floor of the national assembly.

I was surprised to read about the House of Reps passing the issue of automatic membership of NEC of  parties.

The issue of NEC membership should not be applied in such a way that those who are to be regulated would now become the regulators of the party. There is a standard for doing things in a democracy and this is global. There is a format that applies in certain parts of the world and Nigeria should not be different. Democracy has a standard and that standard has to be maintained.

Now, on this issue of 25 per cent overhead expenditure, it s not partially correct. Overhead cost is different from salaries and emoluments. When you talk of 25 per cent overhead, for what purpose is it? But there is a point there I want to make. We are now about 109 senators and a greater number of Representatives as against what used to obtain in the past. I quite agree with the public outcry that draws attention to the consumption patten of legislators but that information is partially incorrect .