•He’s already steering ship of state in right direction
•Senate not rubber stamping but engaging in responsible governance

By Henry Umoru, Assistant Politics Editor

Senator Neda Imasuen, a lawyer, was Senior Legislative Aide to Senator Matthew Uroghide who represented Edo South in the 8th and 9th Senate. Senator Imasuen is now representing Edo South in the present 10th Senate under the platform of the Labour Party, LP.

He is Chairman, Senate Committee on Ethics, Code of Conduct and Public Petitions. In this interview, he speaks on the 10th Senate and President Bola Tinubu’s two years in office among other national issues. Excerpts:

How will you assess President Bola Tinubu’s two years in office?

I am very happy that we have somebody like the President, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who is steering the ship of affairs today. I say so because of his courage. It takes courage to be able to do what he has done and what he continues to do. He has brought about certain policies that I believe, as a matter of time, will begin to yield dividends. He’s not afraid to take on those issues that many of his predecessors stayed away from, just because they are interested in elections. And for that, I salute him, and that is why I admire him because of that courage that he has to push the ship forward.

So, I will again enjoin Nigerians to be patient, to see how these policies are going to help. No one said it was going to be easy, because it took years of decadence, and it’s going to take years as well to eradicate the decadence that has been the story of Nigeria. With President Bola Tinubu, I believe that this country is already in the right direction, the sail is on, and it’s going to berth successfully.

As the President enters his third year in office what do you think should be his focal points?

He is the head of the executive arm of government, so he sets the agenda, but from my own point of view, there are certain things that he needs to do. One of them is to continue ways of addressing this insecurity problem. It’s never going to end just by a swoop of the security summit, and therefore, it should be in the front burner of his kitchen tools. I am also looking at the issue of population. I believe that we should review our population.

It’s long overdue. We cannot plan as a nation when we don’t have, if not accurate, but something close to accuracy in our population numbers. As of today, we can’t say exactly the population of Nigerians. With population, we can begin to plan especially social programmes which are based on the data of the population spread that will tell us where to concentrate, what to do and what not to do. So, population is very important. Also, agriculture which is tied to insecurity, is something that we must invest in. Nigerians should begin to look forward to finished products, and not just continuous exploration and exportation of raw materials.

That is part of what is creating unemployment in Nigeria. You can imagine if we have rubber, and we are able to produce plastic, we are able to produce tyres and all those rubber components from them, many industries will be set up, and then you will begin to see unemployment reducing. We have so much and so many raw materials. If the government pumps more money into agriculture, I believe that unemployment will also be reduced, and it will help every Nigerian to be able to put food on their table at a reasonable rate.

On health, I believe that we have not done as much as we should have done. I believe that area has been so neglected, and not much attention is paid to it. I believe each local government should have a cottage hospital, and each local government headquarter should have a specialist hospital.

Many people see the present 10th Senate as a Rubber Stamp one, as somebody in the opposition, do you agree with them?

The reason I disagree with them is because I vote along the line of what I believe is good legislation. Legislation doesn’t come from PDP, APC, Labour, or any other party. It comes as good or bad legislation. And when the legislation is bad, it’s bad, you see it, and then you vote against it. And if the legislation is good, it doesn’t matter the author of that legislation, you support it. When a good bill comes, it doesn’t matter who the author is, it gets my full support, if that is what is considered rubber stamping, then I will be guilty of it.

But I don’t believe in the use of that word. When this administration came on board, the economic situation was so bad, and so a lot of policies needed to be put in place to help steer this country in the right direction. A lot of bills came to us, and looking at the intent of those bills and what they tended to solve, it didn’t take anything to support it. I dare any Nigerian to tell me which bill came that they thought or they believed wasn’t good, that we passed. Every bill that we passed, we are very proud of them, and we believe that it’s helping and continues to help the Nigerian people. If some Nigerians see it as rubber stamping, then it’s unfortunate.

How will you assess the 10th Senate?

The 10th Senate has done so well. I know it’s difficult for a lot of people to understand that. But when you are here yourself, you begin to see the intricacies that are here in the 10th Senate, or in the Parliament. The Parliament is not easy at all but I will restrict myself to the Senate where I belong. We are 109 members of the Senate, made up of different characters, different backgrounds, different educational experiences, business experiences and everybody brings all these to the table to bring about what we call the Senate.

The Senate is doing the best that it can do to help ameliorate the sufferings that Nigerians are going through, which is not the fault of the population. But this is where we are, and we have to face the situation. Previous governments have not done certain things, and it has led to where we are today. Certain policies ought to have been done that were not done which has created this situation that this present administration finds itself.

In specific terms, what has President Tinubu done that others before him did not do?

The student loan is one. Before now, many students gained admission to the universities but could not afford the fees and they dropped out. Many of those who dropped out went into businesses that are unhealthy for the country like criminality.

So, the president came up with the policy that student loans should be considered, which he brought to the Senate, and expeditiously that bill was passed. So today, there are testimonies of those who would not have been able to go to the universities that are there now, being financed by this loan scheme. There is also the finance bill.

It’s an encompassing bill that has not been done for a very long time, this President took it on, and by the grace of God, we have passed the bill. If you also look at the VAT issue that we went through, that was very serious. Many Presidents avoided it, as a matter of fact, because it was a matter of interest. The interest of this President was that of the country, and not self. If it was a matter of self, I’m sure that he wouldn’t have touched it at all.

When Senator Bukola Saraki was the Senate President a National Security Summit was held chaired by Senator Ahmed Lawan who submitted his report. Ahmed Lawan succeeded Saraki as Senate President and he again convened another security summit. Now, the 10th Senate is coming up with another security summit. Do you think summits will solve the problem?

The challenge is, what did the executive do with the reports which were the outcome of those summits. I think that is where the lacuna is and that is where the difference between this President and his predecessors lies. I believe that with this President, who is very thorough in what he does, he knows that for the country to move forward, to bring down the price of goods, especially foodstuff, he has to tackle insecurity because farmers can no longer go to the farms.

And so, when we have this security summit, and the report is given to this President, I believe that he will act on it. Hitherto, the reports of those summits were given to the executive but no one acted on them and ended up on the shelf. But this is going to be a different one, and I believe that the outcome will be a lot different.