Hon. Yusuf Shehu, a Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) lawmaker, representing Daura Constituency in Katsina State House of Assembly is the Minority Chief Whip and House chairman on inter-Parliamentary Affairs. In this interview with Isah Idris, he reflects on the state of the nation, Katsina State as it celebrates 25 years of its creation, alleging that Nigerian governors have pocketed local government councils. Excerpts
Nigerians celebrated the country’s 52nd independence this year. But going down memory lane, many Nigerians believe the leadership of the colonial masters was better than the leadership of the Nigerian political class. What is your assessment of the country at 52nd independence.
From what I have observed and experienced from 1960 to date, the colonial masters and earliest leaders of Nigeria succeeded because there was high level of discipline in their time and there was checks and balances and transparency in governance; there was not much corruption as we are experiencing in this nation today.
Obviously, the present crops of leaders are not the serious type and most Nigerians are not disciplined, corruption is everywhere and that is what is retarding the progress of this nation. We don’t have good and credible leaders.
In Nigeria, most of our governors and even leaders at the top are being appointed and installed, they are not democratically elected. Most of the elections in Nigeria are rigged except in few states where you can see something closer to free and fair election because oppositions are strong and firm.
From all indications, this problem is not from only National Independent Electoral Commission (INEC), the security agents are part of the problem and Nigerians are part of the problem. We have to be transparent in all our activities, especially our leaders and that is why we must involve Almighty Allah to intervene in the present predicament of Nigerians as we face global challenges.
It seems the Executive has taken over everything from Judiciary and Legislature. As a lawmaker, are you convinced that the legislature is still capable of bailing out this country?
Obviously, most of the lawmakers both in the national and states’ assemblies are not duly elected. Majority of them are stooges who hate free and fair elections. Except few, most of them are not even qualified to be there so that, it is mixture of the grains and the chaff. That is why the executive has pocketed the national and states’ assemblies. But there are some changes in the current National Assembly, particularly the Federal House of Representatives.
Infant, people are presently optimistic in the House of Representatives and some states too are beginning to come of age so that not every executive’s wishes are allowed, because these things are in the constitution. I am therefore calling on the legislature to rise to the challenges to ensure that all budgets are fully implemented to the later un- like what we used to experience in the past. Most of the governors use money as bates to pocket the legislature. You can imagine a state with 100 percent single party membership such as Sokoto and few other states, there couldn’t be checks and balances.
Local governments today are finding it difficult to embark on repairs, much less paying salaries. In fact, there is a near collapse of the local government system at the moment. What is responsible for this ugly situation and how can we reverse the trend?
The national and state assemblies and Nigerians at large must rise up to see that we regain freedom and autonomy of local governments from the 36 state governors in the country. State governors have over time pocketed the local government councils through the instrumentality of ‘joint account’ for the state and local governments.
Emphatically, this joint account must be phased out.
So, when the local governments get their independence, it is then, they can do development projects. The governors should hands off from the council allocation, since the states have their own allocations, local governments should have their own allocations sent directly to them without interference from state governors.
In 2011, there was an attempted merger between CPC and ACN political parties to take over government at the center and states but it collapsed. What is the possibility that it may succeed now?
It failed because there was no time to discuss all the modalities for merger before the elections. Therefore the possibility for the merger to succeed this time is the fact that there is enough time for the two parties to negotiate why, when and how of the proposal. This is because the aim is to take over the center, especially the seat of president of the country and state governors.
This project is a necessity because Nigerians are tired of PDP rule of gangsters. The problem that is being faced by ACN and CPC supporters are the same. So, as the two parties have started earlier with stronger teams negotiating for the merger, we are optimistic that it will be successful to enable Nigerians get relief from avoidable hardship being visited on the citizens by the PDP.
There is all possibility for major opposition parties coming together since the overriding objective is to bail the country out of wood.
Recently, the Katsina state branch of Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), during a conference in Katsina state capital, raised an alarm on the poor state of health care system in the state. What is health committee doing to contain this situation?
The government clinics and hospitals in Katsina state actually lack professional doctors and medical staffs.
The government should employ qualified personnel to manage the state hospitals to guide against avoidable increase in death rate being recorded in public hospitals in the state.
