By Henry Umoru

Senator Francis Alimikhena, APC, Edo North, is the Deputy Whip of the Senate.

In this interview, Alimikhena, who is the only APC senator from the South-South, speaks on issues relating to the Senate, the travails of Senate President Bukola Saraki at the CCT, Edo State All Progressives Congress, APC, governorship primary, among others.

The 8th Senate will be one year soon. How has it been as a  senator?

Well, it has been very challenging and fine. Challenging in the sense that you have to come to the Senate, you have to propose a motion, propose a bill, debate.

As a principal officer in the Senate and a chieftain of All Progressives Congress, APC, what is your take that the number one citizen in the  Senate and the number three in the country is going through a very serious challenging situation with the CCT?

Since the matter is in  court, there is nothing I can say about it now until the final finding and conclusion at the court.

Some PDP  senators have said  they will produce the next Senate President if Saraki is removed. Is there vacancy and what is your take on the position of your colleagues in PDP?

I don’t want to comment on that now because the office isn’t vacant. In fact, there is no vacancy. So, anybody talking about it is just day-dreaming.

Is the 8th Senate really working in line with its set agenda?

Definitely, what we said is what we are pursuing, not minding  that the number one senator is in the court.  Out of the  four years we have  to spend, we have just spent one year and you wait for more action in the second year.

What really led to the 2016 Budget quagmire in the Senate and how do we guard against such crisis especially ahead of the preparation of  the 2017 Budget?

Budget padding, budget not signed, budget delayed  –  all these are part of democracy. If it was new, we won’t have seen that word ‘budget padding’, it is part of democracy. And that  is why you have the principle of  separation of power. The  APC government came on board to  right the wrong things and if you say this is a government of change, you must have change that may not even suit some people in their way of doing things before.

The President is one year in office last week. What is your  assessment  of the ‘Change’ dispensation?

The President is doing the best he can do to  follow the ‘Change’ promise that he made.  Bear in mind that change is difficult and for you to experience full change, there must be pain  ‘no pain, no gain’ and, as far as the President is concerned, he has been doing a lot of things to make the country better and it will be better, just give him some time.

What is your take on the new fuel price? Do you ask Nigerians to also bear the pain that things will be alright?

Francis-Alimikhena

I told you now ‘no pain  no gain’, you need to work before you start to reap. The new fuel price  is just that people say things like ‘why did you introduce it, why didn’t you follow the old regime?’  The truth is bitter and it must be told. We need someone like Buhari to do what people haven’t been able to do and because we haven’t been able to do what we were supposed to do, that is why we are where we are.  Now, we need to do this to gain  dividends of democracy. The PDP government wrecked this country. How I wish they are the ones right now in government. I wonder what Nigeria would have been. It is better for us to suffer this little pain and  laugh later than for us to laugh a bit and the suffering continues. Nigeria is going to experience some hardship as a result of this fuel price increase,    but, on the long run, we will benefit from it.  If you look at all the countries that have oil like Nigeria, the pump price of fuel is not cheap. And if you do a survey of the  pump price of fuel in Nigeria, it is only in Abuja, Lagos and maybe some few states that you get petrol at the official price. In the South-East, South-South and far North, they have been buying petrol at a price far higher than the official price.

The heat is on now politically in Edo State and the PDP and the South-South governors have    boasted severally that come the next election, the party will defeat the APC. What is your take on this position?

I look at those people talking about this as day-dreaming. The South-South governors of PDP are not from Edo; they should look at their states first before they think of other states. APC is firmly on ground in Edo and whoever wins the primary will definitely win the election.

Is your party, APC, working towards having a free and fair primary?

Definitely, it is going to be free and fair.

Still on the APC family in Edo, there are still issues being raised, and there are indications that all is not well with the family. One of the aspirants, some days ago, said the governor should apologise and only recently the deputy governor, Pius Odubu, was in Etsako-West,    precisely Auchi, and there were reported cases of attack. The national leadership of the party as part of moves to resolve the crisis, put up a committee headed by Olagunsoye Oyinlola. With all these scenarios playing out, will you still say that all is well?

I can say all is well. For the deputy governor to be attacked is as a result of over zealousness of all those extreme supporters and the party itself in Edo state has even cautioned some of those overzealous supporters not to put the party on fire and we have the mechanism for dealing with such people. Then the panel came and they have gone round and they have seen and people have testified, those that have high temper and those who don’t know how to conduct primaries we have told them to cool down and conduct the primaries in a decent way that is in a decent society which they are doing.

So the tension is more of propaganda than what it is in reality. Now coming to Edo north, the only place where you have that episode is in Etsako west and as I can say, it is over zealous supporters and the party has gone into it and making sure that such things don’t happen again. As we know APC is a strong party in Edo and everyone wants to partake, everyone wants to make sure that the candidate that they are supporting wins,    but we don’t want those kinds of rascals. Everything is settled, everyone is going about their normal business campaigning the way they want to campaign, nobody is forcing anybody to say ‘you must vote for this person or you mustn’t vote for this person’. The primaries are going to be free and fair.

You said PDP isn’t on ground in Edo. Can you substantiate against the backdrop that the PDP has two senators, members of the House of Representatives, even Governor Adams Oshiomhole’s representative in the state House of Assembly is in PDP, among others.

That is true; those results we got I still maintain my stand that PDP isn’t on ground in Edo because during the    first election, people    voted for the National Assembly that you are talking about because they were expecting that Jonathan will win the election and because of it, they brought a lot of money to buy candidates but by the time Jonathan didn’t win, what happened in the House of Assembly poll? That is where you have the grassroots voters, what is the number of PDP to APC in the house of assembly as at today that the man that represents Oshiomhole in the House of Assembly is PDP is a court decision.

The man that he defeated in court won overwhelmingly and he defeated that man and it was a technical decision that was done in court that the APC didn’t give the court 21 working days that it was supposed to give to the court; that is what happened, not that the person representing Oshiomhole in the House of Assembly defeated the candidate there  it was a technical judgement.

What is your take on what happened in the Edo State House of Assembly that led to the removal of the Speaker and the present Speaker is from the same senatorial  district with the deputy governor.?

What happened in the House of Assembly    is wrangling, it didn’t  affect the generality of APC supporters in the state.  However, the government and the party are on it because we elected the members of the House of Assembly, we can’t dictate to them what they want to do, but they can only be guided and in this case that all the members if you now follow the principle of distribution yes it is true that it would have been the turn of Edo Central to produce the speaker, but the party is on it.

Choosing the Speaker is purely the decision of the members of House of Assembly and not the decision of the generality of the APC supporters outside the House. So the leadership of the party is meeting with the leadership of the House of Assembly to iron out the principle of rotation of positions and that change has nothing to do with the people outside, they know why they changed him and I even found out from them in the House what happened and they told me the man wasn’t leading them well.

How has it been with you and the people that you are representing?

It has been cordial with them actually. I have been reaching out to them one on one, talking to them and telling them the decisions of the National Assembly and how they affect them, that they should bear in mind that in any society where you have six local governments to cater for, you can’t expect 100 percent every time. I will be going to tour the six local governments to see them and distribute my constituency permanent scheme to them. Those of them that want to collect letters    to places of employment, I give them and those that I can speak to I do that.

There are cases of attack, kidnapping by Fulani herdsmen in Edo North. What do you have to say on this and the way forward?

The    herdsmen trouble in Nigeria and in my constituency is a problem and it is also what is happening all over the country. We don’t know what may have caused them to start behaving like this. Some of these Fulani people have been staying with us for decades and there was no trouble, so why all of a sudden at this time they surfaced?

It is something that a right thinking person should look at and analyse. I believe most of these killers are part of the Boko Haram    who are fighting using the herdsmen as cover up.

However, raising a motion in the National Assembly, in the Senate, will not solve the problem because there are a lot of motions that have been raised about these herdsmen. Even the last time they went to Enugu to kill some people, we raised the motion here. What is happening in my area is sorrowful.  I want to speak to the area commander so that the police can monitor the situation curb the Fulani menace, but I know the Federal Government and everyone is on it, but it is better to curb it before it turns to a monster.