Since the inauguration of the Ninth assembly, the Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP) caucus and by extension the minority caucus, in the House of Representatives, has been in disarray, over tussle for the minority leadership.
However, the chairman, House Committee on Treaties and Protocol, Ossai Nicholas Ossai, has said that members of the the major opposition party in the Green chamber, must put their differences behind and unite for the interest of the country.
Ossai, who represents Ndokwa/ Ukwani Federal Constituency of Delta State, on the platform of the PDP noted that Nigerians are looking up to the opposition to defend them from the present All Progressives Congress (APC)-led administration.
The lawmaker, who had sought to be minority leader of the Ninth House, also bared his mind on the quest by President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to secure a fresh $22.718 billion loan among other issues.
President Muhammadu Buhari is seeking approval to take more loans and your party, the PDP, has been saying consistently that since this government came on board, that it has incurred too much debt and it is given that the loan request is as good as passed by the National Assembly…
I don’t think the National Assembly is a rubber stamp to that extent, that you will say the loan is as good as passed. To some of us, I don’t see any reason for that loan; because we have already passed an instrument of law, that has given the Federal Government a lot of energies and muscles to rake in a lot of revenue to finance the budget, which is the finance Bill.
You know that I am one of those people, who critically said that certain items must not attract VAT, especially air transportation; because Nigeria has no good roads now. The people you call masses fly too, because of bandits on the roads.
You need to control the bandits on the roads and make the road accessible, before you can say you can VAT local air transportation.
The other issue that I also opposed strongly is the issue of paying VAT on electricity, because that is where everybody, including the least of persons use. If you want to VAT it, you are making sure you are imposing a lot of taxes on Nigerians. I feel those two items should have been removed, but today it is not removed.
That means you are going to rake in a lot of money. And raking in a lot of money shows that you have a lot of revenue, the war chest to address your issues.
You cannot finish all the problems of Nigeria in four years. The place you stop,another person can kick off from there. But take those measures that can bring succour to the people.
First of all, let the people have access roads. And let there be no bandit on the road. That means security issues must be addressed.
The other critical issue, you need to do is food production. Now, if you want to go into agriculture, you are going to invest a lot of money into agriculture and give Nigeria a single digit, less than five per cent interest rate; people getting money from Central Bank to do commercial farming, that is what we should do. Probably streamline about three or four items that Nigerians should go into production. Producing it to feed the nation and be able to export most of those products.
Today, in the Northern zone, we are talking about only two mills that process rice, then you have not started. Every state you know that produces a lot of rice should be able to have a mill. Now, when you have a mill very close to the farmers, you cut down the prices of rice.
Now, if Nassarawa has a mill, every surrounding state, including Abuja, will go to Nasarawa, instead of going to Niger, Minna, to mill their rice. Now, when you go closer to where the mill is, it cuts down the prices of rice.
Today, local rice is going for over N20,000; it doesn’t make sense, for a country when you say you have enough rice to feed your people, while the price is high.
So those are the key issues that these budget of 2020 must address. I think we have a lot of leeway, because there is enough tax regime, enough VAT in virtually all the key areas of our economy; definitely we can rake in money from there to be able to fund our infrastructure. I think that is the way to go instead of taking loans.
Let me also say the areas they are talking that they are going to borrow money for is not needed. It is not needed. If you are borrowing money to fund, probably, the educational system, then it makes sense; because you are producing manpower that has ideas to generate more revenues for our people.
The country is looking unto the PDP to provide an effective opposition to the APC-led administration, but within the opposition in the House of Representatives, it has been war without end.
The PDP(caucus in the House) is fractured. Maybe, because there was no transition of leadership. I believe that moving forward, some of us, who are ranking members are thinking many ways on how to bound groups together. For the sake of Nigeria, let us remove our selfish interest. The leadership of the opposition was contested by many of us.
My idea of opposition is to offer alternative policies. Like the policy the APC administration is coming up on the issue of taxing Nigerians, we could have opposed that, bringing measures through which the Federal Government can generate fund.
Those are activities the opposition should engage in. These kinds of issues of just going to Egypt and making pronouncements without other institutions of government will not see the light of the day, if you have a virile opposition.
Now, you have a fractured PDP and we are looking forward to addressing these issues. I am calling on my fellow PDP members to think alike and be able to bury the hatchet. It doesn’t mean you cannot make contributions, when you are not in positions of authority. People generate ideas and make the leadership of your party in the House to think right. I think that is the way to go . Everybody cannot be leader of opposition. There are still some other layers, where the opposition can work.
Like my idea and my thinking when I was gunning for minority leader, I was looking at a situation where you have a lot of caucuses. People, who are in academia can engage foreign NGOs on better ways we can run our education. People who have that kind of flair in education can do that.
There are many of us who have that kind of flair in agriculture. We will also engage foreign donors, on how we can partner with local ones in terms of commercialization of our agriculture. Those are ideas.
There are legislators, who have flair in agriculture. There are legislators, who have flair in human rights; such things, we make them into caucuses and they will be operating. And without even being in the House regularly for plenary, they are engaging with foreign people. Those are areas people can function effectively and gain a lot of respect and better the lot of the people; because the essence of governance is to be able to better the lot of the people.
Going forward, the opposition will build up. It is barely six months. We have evaluated and seen the extent the APC government can go. They don’t think outside the box. All they think is how to borrow money and borrow money and make sure that there are huge debts that they are keeping for the next generation. But we will not allow that to happen. We are going to engage the government of APC, policy by policy starting from next year by the special grace of God.
The problem in the minority caucus is not only within the House, the PDP governors are also involved too…( cuts in )
I am not aware the governors are involved. But I know that the governors have some limitation in terms of controlling members of the House. Members of the House are matured people, who represent their constituencies, who think about their constituencies and who know that with a fractured party, you cannot function well. But when a party is united, you can function and you gain globally. I think that is the way to go.
I have seen that members of the PDP are very matured people. People who have been in the House for two, three terms. We only have few new members. Majority of PDP lawmakers are experienced people, who have come here twice or thrice, even four times.
Our party accommodates a lot of experienced people. And I am sure they will see reason, going forward.
Who is driving this process?
Few weeks ago, I called a couple of meetings of members who are thinking alike, how such meeting can be called to bring everybody together. It must not be you to lead. Any person can lead the PDP. Any person that God has given the leadership, we should be able to support the person. That is what I feel. It is just a contribution you have to make to better your party or better Nigeria.
Are you talking about leading the PDP caucus or leading the opposition, because these are two clear issues?
Probably, if it comes to that, everybody must speak out. How do we strengthen PDP. Do we say that PDP should have another caucus leader, that governs PDP as PDP, why you have the minority leader, that governs virtually all the minority parties? Those are the things.
But even when you have caucus leader in PDP, that caucus leader must collaborate with the minority leader, at all time to making sure that the opposition is led very well.
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Every generation must define its own course. Was that not what (Barack) Obama told the Northern Ireland youths? Every generation must define its own course. It must not be dependent on the former generation. Their thinking at that time within their environment is completely different from what we see today. The bandits you are seeing on the roads now, were never there before.
So, every generation must design how the institution must run. That is how it is supposed to be. I believe that in going forward, in moving the opposition ahead, we could come up with very amicable solution, that since other parties have caucus leaders, yet there is a minority leader, can’t we have a PDP caucus leader that will always defer to the minority leader at all times since PDP produced the minority leader?
So, these instruments can be worked out. And moving forward, you will see the opposition bouncing back. Because, what we are seeing now, Nigeria is not being defended. The opposition must defend Nigeria. It is only borrowing that the APC government thinks about. They don’t even think about how to dash Nigerians money, but to borrow and over tax them. That is what we are seeing.
THE SUN, NIGERIA
