Hon Sergius Ose Ogun, a lawyer and an expert in oil and gas matters, represents Esan North East/ South East Federal Constituency, Edo State and is the Deputy Chairman, House Committee on Federal Capital Territory in the House of Representatives. In this chat, he speaks on the Federal Government’s Treasury Single Account, TSA, the N5,000 monthly stipend for the unemployed,the Oshimhole/Igbinedion face-off, kidnapping in his constituency, among other issues.
Can you throw more light on your recent motion on the floor of the House bordering on kidnapping in your constituency in Edo State?
The issue of kidnapping is a serious matter in my constituency and in the South-East and the South-South region. But I am particularly concerned about my local government. I cannot go to my village without police escort; it is that bad. I have a farm sitting on 200 hectares of land in my village. My younger brother doesn’t live in my village; he lives in another village in my constituency but he cannot go there to supervise the people working in that farm for fear of being kidnapped and this is not sustainable.
About this time last year, I was in Barcelona when my campaign coordinator was kidnapped. I got a call that friends rallied round and put money together for him to be released. He was helping a ward chairman whose car broke down and he got a mechanic and they were going to recover the vehicle when gun men abducted him and took him into the bush. In the three days they held him, they shot him before the money was paid. This happens every other day in the area.
Before the election, myself, the current senator and the then serving Senator Odion Ogbesia put money down to put on ground a local vigilante.
Let me add that I was to attend a wedding ceremony in my village and some miscreants blocked the road. We had to call the police and the army and all that for me to get the village. So it is something that we cannot just wish away. We should be bold as a nation to say this is not right and then do the right thing.
Talking about this kidnapping, who are the people responsible? Do you think they may be herdsmen or cattle rustlers?
That is why I took the pain to explain my experience. Like I said, last year, about this same time, my campaign coordinator was kidnapped, so this was a first hand experience. And he said to me that the people that kidnapped him were cattle rustlers, Fulani, from their accent and all that. Those who went to pay the ransom confirmed the same thing.
There was also an occasion when we were in the house of the king, putting money together to prevent this thing, a woman came in with a baby, and said some gunmen stopped them on the road, kidnapped her husband, and with the accent and all that; so that is the only conclusion. That is the report we have, they were herdsmen. Well, they said we should be careful not to use the word Fulani but they were herdsmen. And what we are saying is that they should be kept in a particular place to avoid a situation where they destroy the image of this country.
A former governor of your state, Lucky Igbinedion, and the incumbent are at each other’s throats, over alleged stolen money from government coffers. As a stake holder, do you think this will affect the forth coming gubernatorial election in the state?
It is rather unfortunate that it has taken Adams Oshiomhole seven years to come out to tell the people of Edo that the former governor stole money. It is only in a country like Nigeria that this thing will happen.
We know how he came to power and those who helped him to get there. If they fell out, well, it is unfortunate. But I think whatever is happening is for the good of the people of Edo. Because now, he alleged that the former governor is a thief and the former governor said he is a bigger thief. So we need more revelation to know where Edo’s money is. So I will urge the relevant agencies to ask questions and recover our money to help develop our state.
There have been this controversies surrounding the judgments of election petition tribunals across the country. What is your assessment of the judiciary vis-a-vis the verdicts of the election petition tribunals?
Most of these cases have just left the tribunals and now going to the Court of Appeal. I believe that most of those judgments would be corrected at the Court of Appeal.
I would like to say that being a lawyer; I am not in a hurry to criticize the judiciary. If we go back to even Edo, how did the governor get to power? It was through the judiciary. But people like him went and bastardized the place and the same thing happened in Rivers. For a man that did not sit for election and because the Supreme Court wanted to make a point, that ruling came. But what did Amaechi do? For years, the courts could not sit in Rivers.
My advice is that we should be patient and allow the litigants to exhaust all their avenues from the Court of Appeal to the Supreme Court. And I would not be in a hurry to criticize the judiciary because we have seen landmark judgments in this country.
One of the issues in the polity now is the planned probe of the TSA.
The TSA was a laudable attempt to curb leakages. And as enshrined in the 1999 Constitution as amended under Section 162, all funds must go to the Federation Account. Like the communication and information minister, Lai Muhammed, said, this was actually put in place by the previous administration.
What is your take on the proposed N5,000.00 monthly stipend for unemployed Nigerians?
When I multiplied 25 million unemployed young people by N5,000, the question I asked is, where are we going to get money to fund that? Are we trying to imitate Europe or even the western world? In America, you have food stamp and in Europe you have gyro for those who are unemployed. And they also have a system in Europe to check fraudsters. And the people that destroyed the system in Europe are Nigerians, people from the Third World.
They will have a job and still go on gyro collecting money every month. I don’t know how we are going to manage it. I think if we have the money, we should invest massively in agriculture. I am a farmer. The confectionary industry that makes sweets and biscuits, it is on record that it imports glucose syrup in excess of over $2 billion annually. And what is glucose syrup? It is basically cassava and then with enzymes which you get from paddy rice grown in your village. That aspect of agriculture can employ many people.
We have dams. The other day, we were shown the Aqusodo dam in Ghana, you map it; fish industry and all that. So there are so many things we can do to generate employment for these young people, rather than promising them N5,000.
What about Sure-P?
Like every administration, you remember when Obasanjo came in, we had PTDF and then he scrapped it. But whatever money that was coming into Sure-P, we need to know what the money was used for, because we were told the funds were to be used for so many things from road construction to school rehabilitation and all that.
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