By Ben Agande

Erstwhile spokesman of the House of Representatives and now Chairman of the House Committee on Civil Society and Donor Agencies is in his second term in the House. A lawyer and a businessman, Eyiboh’s cerebral gifts were quickly recognized in his first term by his brainy colleagues in The Initiatives who appointed him as their Dean of Faculty.

In this interview with Vanguard’s Ben Agande, the former spokesman who was in the frontline in the battles of the Dimeji Bankole House analyses the problems of that House, speaks on the merits of the single term proposal for the President and Governors and the security situation in the country among other issues. Excerpts:

Eyiboh

What would you consider as the mistakes of the Speaker Dimeji Bankole led House of Representatives?

Whatever the members of the sixth session of the House of Representatives did whether wrongly or rightly, it was done in the best interest of their belief and knowledge thinking that it was the most reasonable thing to be done in the circumstances they found themselves.

It would therefore be wrong for me to say something was done wrongly. If the outcome of a legislative process the House undertook turned out to be wrong and unproductive, it was not that it set out to do so. What the House did in the course of its duties was done in the best interest of the country. But what the present Assembly can do is to learn from the experience of the past assembly in order to do better. Governance is a responsibility which must be accounted for.

Would you say that the events of the last days of the Sixth House where money was borrowed by the leadership of the House and allegedly shared was a tar on the image of that House?

In Nigeria, tar brush is freely used on individuals and institutions. As much as I would not want to discuss the issue of the former speaker because it is sub-judice, I want to say that there were a couple of things which took place in the sixth assembly which to my mind, were either blown out of proportion or were products of perception.

As chairman of the Committee on Media and Public Affairs, I knew most of the things that took place and I can tell you that those things were done with genuine intentions but they were perceived wrongly. This was because we were unable to inform appropriately. The backlash from that has informed my decision to sponsor a bill for feedback. If the governed are not informed adequately, then the essence of the constitution is defeated. When the people are informed, most of these negative perceptions would be suppressed.

What is the rationale for the passage of the Sovereign Wealth Fund Bill which is seemingly in variance with the constitution?

I can tell you that no constitution anywhere in the world is absolute. The flexibility in it is what makes amendment possible. If you consider the fact that ours is a growing democracy with attendant issues of institutional weaknesses, there is the need to strengthen our institutions. On the issue of the Sovereign Wealth Fund Bill, if you want to look at the comparative advantage in the devil in the Sovereign Wealth Fund and the devil in the Excess Crude Account, the sovereign wealth fund is better.

If you say the Sovereign wealth Fund is an illegal legislation, the advantage of that legislation over the illegality which had been subsisting in the Excess Crude Account, you will agree that the Sovereign Wealth Fund Bill has the advantage of building capacity, increasing opportunity and being able to raise the ante of governance in the country.

What we are talking about is the propriety of the National Assembly making laws that are at variance with the constitution?

When you are talking about legislation, you have to look at acceptability and content. It is not the Sovereign Wealth Fund Bill that is the problem; it may be some provisions of the bill. You cannot take the bill holistically and say it is a devilish legislation because the intention must be captured. And beyond the intentions, what does it seek to achieve? We should not be talking about the bill as an envelope and the content of the envelope is bad. We should be able to expunge the bad provisions and let the good ones stand.

Should the proposal for a single term for the President and Governors be a priority of the President?

The six year single term proposal is fantastic as far as I am concerned. Majority of the people are in agreement with it. But the fear is that who are the potential beneficiaries? Some people are afraid that the president or some governors will want to run and all that. These fears are misplaced as far as I am concerned. But my only concern is the timing. We need to create opportunities now. We need to really settle down and do a lot of governance issues. By the time we are able to get through that, and then we can now go to the next point.

But we have to look at it on the merit of it; single term is fantastic for the executive arm of government because if you look at the trend, nothing really takes place in the first term. The fight of succession and in the first term in some cases, at the tail end everybody will be battling to make sure he goes for second term and all that. But if you have a single term tenure, have the initiative as you enter, you know that its 6years or 5years or 20years.

So whatever you want to do, whether you want to be corrupt, you want to eat money, you want to steal or you want to work, you have to know that this is the number of years you have to do and all that. It will reduce tension, it will minimize corruption and it will help to develop capacity. There are a lot of intriguing and sad elements in the issue of second term. The single term will also help to promote internal democracy of the political parties, this is the key element.

Can’t these issues you cite be solved without amending the constitution?

You don’t have to compare our constitution with America’s constitution that has to take 20 or 50years for it to be amended. This is about the the second time we are transiting from civilian to civilian. Obasanjo regime transited to Yar’Adua regime that is the first time we’ve had transition from civilian to civilian. Next time will be in 2015. So, strictly speaking, the constitution is young and our democracy is young. There is no need wanting our constitution to be as static or making it look as rigid as some of those in advanced democracies because we have lots of challenges

Do you support the amendment for the creation of more states?

I don’t support the issue for the creation of more states because even some of these states that were created have not justified why they were created in the first place. Somebody just wants to create empires. We should move from monarchical democracy to constitutional democracy that is centred on governance and driven by capacity and strong leadership recruitment process which will develop institutions.

Some people just want the states to be created so that when they retire either as permanent secretaries or legislators or whatever, as deputy governors or a political leader in a particular place, they will now be able to shift their feet back to another place where they will now be more relevant or maybe they become the only cock to crow, so I don’t think we need more states in my own opinion.

There has been increase in bombings in the country which has culminated in the bombing of the United Nations Nigeria office in Abuja. What is your reaction to these incidences?

The recent incidence is one of the plethora of evidences showing the poor leadership recruitment culture in the country which has contributed greatly to the weakening of institutions in the country. And because these institutions are weak, we do not have a national security data base that would have helped in checking some of these challenges. The security consciousness of Nigerians is so low because of the lack of trust between the governed and their leaders.

As leaders, we should consciously raise the level of our leadership profile in order to engender the confidence of the people we are leading. The other political parties should be able to contribute to checking this trend by generating ideas that would assist the government. This is an unusual time in our nation’s history and we must speak with one voice in condemning this despicable act.