By Bashir Adefaka

Honourable Bosun Oladele, member,  House of Representatives, representing Irepo/Orelope/Olorunsogo Federal Constituency, Oyo State, says President Muhammadu Buhari is not slowing down on his anti-corruption campaign.  Oladele spoke in his National Assembly Complex office in Abuja.

One would want to say that from the way PDP is heard louder than APC on the floor of the Red Chamber, the opposition is in charge.  Is that not correct?

The voice of PDP cannot be louder.  APC is in clear majority in the House of Representatives.  Even  if it seemed to be in the past, the reality on ground now is that PDP is in the minority and APC is in the majority.  That has even been confirmed by what happened penultimate Thursday (November 19, 2015) with respect to passage of the supplementary appropriation bill brought by the executive on which there were debates for and against.  Majorly, people, who argued against were in the opposition, I mean PDP.  But good reason prevailed, APC had the day or Nigeria, I would say, had the day eventually because it was a resounding “AYE” as against anybody that might have wanted to say “NAY.” There was no “NAY” eventually.

Some of the views are that in most cases people favoured to contribute are PDP.  Is that supposed to be one of the reasons for the unending agitations in the House?

I think anybody looking at the situation when we were starting may perceive or may just believe that the opposition are having more opportunity to contribute to debates, to move motions and so on and so forth.  But I would also say that, realistically, we have balanced contributions from each side currently.  And I have heard the leadership of the House rationalising that it is better to call people that would be able to articulate issues.  Again, where you have one trying to be objective, there will be subjectivity.  It boils down to whom you know by first name or by surname and so on and so forth.  But I think the leadership of the House, especially the presiding officers are trying to find a common ground to be able to carry everybody along.  This is the perception in the last one or two weeks.

Before your inauguration as federal lawmaker you said there were enough laws to prosecute the APC-led Muhammadu Buhari’s administration’s anti-corruption war.  Just now the President said some judges and lawyers are frustrating the anti-corruption war and, as you can see, that is clear from how culprits are running to courts to seek injunctions to evade justice.  How would you reconcile that?

We have laws that have provided for virtually everything that one would think of.  But human beings would always sabotage process and procedure and that is why it appears the anti-corruption process is slowing down.  It is not the President that is slowing down but the dramatis personae do.

And who are the dramatis personae?

Bosun-Oladele

They are the people that have been charged to court for one reason or the other.  Everybody wants to see if they can elongate the hand of the clock.

But is the judiciary not supposed to key into the anti-corruption process as an integral part of the Change regime thereby frustrating such justice evasion?

Yes.  If you look at things that have been happening, lawyers and retired judges have been talking and lately, it is even said that Supreme Court would have erred by staying proceedings at a lower court in respect of the Senate President Bukola Saraki’s matter.  People, who argued that the Supreme Court gave that decision in error as against the provision of Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) seem to be right because, that Act says every appeal will be decided together when the final judgement is being given in respect of the case.  Not that because somebody has appealed, he goes there, asks for stay of execution so that the case against him will not be heard at all.

I believe the Supreme Court is well constituted and it is a physician that will heal itself at the end of the day.  So, that is my take on that.  They know what to do and they would do it precisely.

Your party led government has just composed its Federal Executive Council and comments have flown around about that.  What is your side to that?

Most of the times, people like to talk for the purpose of listening to themselves.  But if you look at it carefully, President Muhammadu Buhari has proved everybody wrong.  A lot of people said, “We have the ministerial list but there is nothing spectacular about them.  There is nothing captivating, nothing fantastic about the list.  It is the same old people.”  But look at the way and manner the ministries have been assigned, you would agree with me, that is the master stroke for opposition.  It caught them unaware that it took them about three days to comment.  That is why I said it was the master stroke.  Who would be on that seat that you can point to that is not fit to handle the ministry he or she has been given?  It was a carefully selected list and the portfolios have been carefully assigned.

What do you make of the saying that the eighth assembly is going to be spanner in the wheel of the new regime of change?

What I make of it is that this National Assembly is not going to be the spanner in the wheel of progress, although some people wish it to be exactly that but, I can assure you that rather than being so, we will find a common ground and will be able to move ahead.

Of course the agitations could be understandable.  If you look at the composition of the committees, people say the opposition is given vital committees, and what we have are vital committees not juicy committees because, we are not going there to start plucking money.  But these are committees that could drive change, that could drive governance.  So if you look at all of that and you want to ask if you give opposition this kind of committee, would they be able to even envision what the President has envisioned?  Will they be able to key into the programme of the President knowing that they are in opposition?  Assuming they even key into it and they want to work, can any of them go on air when they want to talk about committee issue relating to his committees?  Will he be able to say, “Look, President Buhari is fantastic.  This is what he has done for our people in this ministry, in this parastatal, in this agency, at this committee level, these are the planned programmes of action to assist the President to achieve this and that goals within so, so and so time?”  If you are able to say that, that means you are adding value to what the President is doing.  And that means you want the President to succeed.

But the question mark would be, would they want the President to succeed as much as that?  Will they be able to talk good things about the President when he actually does good things?  So, that apprehension is not misplaced.  But I believe it behoves the leadership of National Assembly to try and correct the initial mistakes.

What does it mean to you hearing the PDP saying they are handing over the political stage to the youths as a joker for 2019?

They should search their souls.  You want to hand over to youths, which youths?  Is it the youths that you neglected?  Is it the youths that you did not mentor rightly?  So, I am looking at them and we will see the result.

What is the connectivity between you, now as an Abuja-based Federal lawmaker and your Federal Constituency back home in Oyo State?

I do go home to see them and most of the things I am doing around here centre on them.  Definitely it is their passion that is driving me.  It is their programme that I am trying to articulate and, definitely, I have always said that whatever I will do, rather than looking to grab what I can grab, I will better see to what my people could benefit from and be able to ensure that they benefit.  I am not here in the National Assembly to seek personal benefit.  I used to be an employer of labour before coming to National Assembly.  So, rather than aggregating everything about myself, it is going to be people centred.  Definitely this is what we are doing and we have started doing it.