People defecting to APC on pages of newspapers — Senator Ndoma-Egba
The Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba, in this interview with MUDIAGA AFFE,
speaks on defections from the Peoples Democratic Party to the
opposition party, All Progressives Congress and the proposed national
dialogue, among other issues:
Are you worried by the level of defection from the Peoples Democratic Party?
So far, what we have seen is people
defecting from PDP to other parties. But there is also the likelihood
that people will defect from other parties to the PDP. So, let us not
take the current wave of movement as necessarily the direction that
defections will go. No. it’s not going to be so.
In this 2014, you will see movement in
either direction and it is going to happen. As regards the position of
the law, the law is very clear, the law forbids defection; it only makes
an exception where there is a faction in the party. I don’t want to
comment more on this because as we speak, the matter is already
subjudice; to decide whether or not there is a faction in the PDP, the
matter is already in court. So, I cannot say more than that, but the
position of the law states that you can only defect where there is
faction in a party. Whether there is a faction in the PDP or not, it is
left for the court to decide. As a lawyer and a law-abiding citizen, I
am not supposed to comment on a matter that is already before the court
of law. But I believe the court will give a clear interpretation of what
the true position is.
How prepared is PDP for the opposition?
I said earlier that we have seen only
one way of defection. We have not seen the other way. I have a personal
suspicion that we will see a number of waves in this 2014; it is until
we see the level of waves that we can determine how vibrant this
opposition is. Let me give a little explanation here; it is not those
things you report in the newspapers, the photographs and video clips
that will tell how strong a party has become. For a party to have any
clout, it must set up certain structures outside the pages of newspapers
and television, it must have structures in the wards, in the local
government areas, and it must have structures in the federal and
senatorial constituencies.
Until we begin to see those structures, I
am not bothered by the wave you are seeing, that is newspaper movement.
When we begin to see their movement and penetration, then, that is when
we will begin to say we have a vibrant opposition. What I have seen in
the newspapers and television is not yet translated into the structures
that I am talking about. When they begin to translate into wards, local
government councils, states, federal constituency structures, the PDP is
big enough to respond to those changes. PDP, whether we are in
government or out of government, is the only party in Nigeria that has
structures down to the wards all over this country. So, until we see
that level of penetration, you should be rest assured that the PDP is
versatile enough to respond to this kind of movement that we are seeing.
The APC has said they will embark on a 12- million membership drive, is it not a threat to the PDP?
As large as the PDP is, we are also
involved in membership drive. We are not only solid on ground but rock
solid. We will not be sleeping in any way on this issue of membership
drive. This APC’s so-called membership drive will never be a threat to
us. Those that left the PDP cited (former PDP Chairman, Bamanga) Tukur
as their problem. Now that he is gone, are there moves to get them back?
People have always left the PDP and they always come back. However, now
that Tukur has resigned, there will be reduction in tension. It is
likely that some of them may come back. In politics, you see movement in
every direction. As they are leaving the PDP, others will be coming in.
It is said that those of you still in PDP are stranded, how true is this?
Note that movement is not
unidirectional. We have movements in all directions. We have been having
a show of crisis in the PDP, which is about coming to an end. But, that
of the APC will soon start. Let them not rejoice that the PDP will die
because of crisis, they too will soon have theirs. The APC will be far
worse than that of the PDP because they are a party of very strange
bedfellows. So, I can imagine their crisis. The PDP still remains the
only party with national penetration. Whether there is a PDP government
in a state or local government area or ward, the PDP is there. The
crisis has not affected the penetration of the PDP. Fortunately for us
and unfortunately for other parties, that kind of penetration is not
there.
There have been insinuations that the proposed national conference is an indictment on the National Assembly.
The national conference, the way I see
it, is an executive intervention to make input or to generate input into
how Nigeria can best be governed. It is a creation of the executive;
its recommendations will be submitted to the executive. It is not a
parallel law-making body because to the best of my knowledge, it is not
established by law. The executive is just using its best options to see
how they can generate input into better governance, either by
constitutional amendments or new legislation. So, it is an executive
intervention. You should note it was not created to be parallel to the
National Assembly but at the end of the day, the outcome, accepted by
the powers that created the national conference, will refer the document
to the National Assembly for further action. So, we are not in
competition.
I don’t agree that it is an indictment;
it is the continuation of the need for continuous dialogue in our
country. We must continue to talk and we must use every opportunity to
continue to discuss Nigeria because nobody has a monopoly of wisdom when
it comes to the direction Nigeria should take.
There are calls from some
quarters for Nigeria to operate a unicameral legislative system in order
to reduce the cost of running the National Assembly. Are you in support
of such calls?
We have bicameral legislature where you
have a pluralistic society, where there is a divergence in tribes,
culture, religion and everything. If you research, the only society that
is near homogenous is Korea. But where society is diverse, multi-ethnic
and multi-cultural, where you have majorities and you have minorities,
the strategy of bicameral legislature would be apt in order to
accommodate the fears and anxiety of everybody. If you look at most
plural societies, they are operating bicameral legislatures, because
where you have two houses, elections to the lower house is usually based
on population while election to the upper house is usually based on the
equality of federating units; in our own case, equality of states. If
we had a unicameral legislature, a minority man like me from Aparabong
in Ikom LGA of Cross River would never be in the Senate, not talk of
being a senate leader because election to that unicameral legislature
would be on the basis of population. Upon that basis, you don’t stand
the chance; the bigger components of my constituency would always
swallow us up. So, bicameralism is meant to address the fears of the
weakest that are also entitled to state protection. And is there any
price too high to pay to protect the weak in any country? It is not an
issue of cost per se; it’s not the naira issue, not the cost benefit
situation. It has nothing to do with cost. Let us do an analysis and see
if truly the National Assembly was the problem of Nigeria. They have
just submitted the budget of Nigeria for 2014. I have not read it, but I
heard its N4.3trn and that amount does not include the SURE-P component
of the budget. So, let us just assume that SURE-P is N100bn. Now, in
the last five or six years, including the 2014 budget that has just
been submitted, the budget of the National Assembly was N150bn and it
has not changed over the years. The amount includes our capital
components and our recurrent components, It includes the salaries of
members of the National Assembly like me, it also includes the salaries
of civil servants we have in the National Assembly- that is talking
about all the bureaucracies therein, from the clerk to the cleaner. It
takes care of the National Assembly Service Commission too, this
includes the salary of the chairman of the commission, the secretary and
others. It Includes the salaries and allowances of workers in the
national institute of legislative studies, from the director-general to
several professors therein and others. It includes our subscription to
international parliamentary bodies.
Source: The Punch
