AM AWARE APC HAS SIMILAR PLANS IT EXECUTED IN ONDO AHEAD OF EKITI GOVERNORSHIP ELECTION…….Hon Kayode Amusan

He his undoubtedly one of the most successful Politician in Ogun State, not because he has represented the State at Federal House of Representative or contested for both Governorship and Senate but being an astute businessman has indeed made him understand all the dynamism of playing Politics at the highest level. For Hon Kayode Jelil Amusan, the Gbagura, Abeokuta-born father of six, his bond with his people remain intact on daily basis despite not being in elective position. Speaking to us about Nigeria economic situation, Hon Amusan expresses disappointment about present APC government both at the National and State with optimism that the masses will bring back PDP in to power come 2019

 

Q There has been call for the National Assembly to make its funding public but nothing has been done yet, as a former member what is your take?

 ANS Like you said am no more a member, there is nothing wrong in publishing National Assembly expenses because its been regulated by Revenue Mobilization  and Fiscal Commission ,but I believe it could be requested for by anybody especially with the Freedom of Information law already in existence

 

 Q The Senate President before now gave a timeline to make it public but that time has passed?

 

 ANS Must it be the Senate President that will make it public ? It’s the duty of the national Assembly management they are the one directly in charge of the National Assembly expenditure ,Though they might take instruction from the Senate President being the Chairman of National Assembly but they are still in charge of all National Assembly expenditure. So I think people should direct their request to management of the National Assembly.

 

 Q But what is really is shrouded in secrecy about the funding?

 

 ANS  Am no longer in National Assembly when I was there such question were not raised, but like I said there is nothing wrong in requesting for the expenses but people should channel their request to the appropriate quarters.

 

 Q  There is general believe that the money being expended on National Assembly is too huge and is one of the problem we have in Nigeria?

 

 

ANS  I don’t really think so, you are looking at the numbers of members of both chambers which people believes makes it high. Go and look at cost of managing a Minister vis-a-vis cost of managing all 360 members of House of Reps as well as 109 Senators, make a comparison, you will be shocked that its cheaper maintaining a Parliamentarian than a Minister. When we were there, they will give you one official car and when you are leaving its either you return it or you pay for it through monetizing policy.Tell me how many cars moves with a Minister at a go, they moves in Convoy, with many Pilot vehicles which includes so many security details You can now imagine if all the members of National Assembly also have access to the privilege of what a minister who was appointed enjoys.

 Q  Are you by any means equating the Members with the Ministers?

 

 ANS  Let me tell you, getting to be an elective member is a very cumbersome process than just appointing someone as a Minister. To become a Senator or Reps member do you know the kind of fire you would have faced? Number of people you would have go and consult both day and night, the amount of money that will be expended  via purchase of nomination form and other electioneering cost.

 

 Q  But that is the ways of Nigerians playing politics its not like that elsewhere…..

 

 ANS  Yes It’s not like that in other countries because of their lengthen period they have been practising democracy, however am sure we will get there sometime. Like I used to say, our democracy is still in the embryo, we have to continue to manage it till we get it right via building a strong institution that will prevent high cost of electioneering because the worst democratic government is better than the military dictatorship So you can’t compare what an elected member face with that of a minister, you can even go and check many of the ex-members, two years after leaving office they are broke, now make a comparison with any executive members that leave office, have you seen any minister get broke after leaving office easily ? Of cause not I wonder why Nigerians are always focusing on the Parliamentarians, am not making case for them but we must be objective. There were period we continue talking about Constituency Projects, the believe of people is that they give the money directly to members, but that’s not correct, constituency Projects are on paper, they will ask you to pick the one you want for your area not that they give you money. Though am aware some people go behind to nominate their contractors, put in their company to execute the project, I’ve never done that when I was there but remember one contractor called me and wanted to give me kick-back on one of my constituency water projects all i said to him is to give me additional two hand-pump water projects instead of giving me bribe.

 

 Q  In all fairness, do you think it’s time they make expenditure of National Assembly open?

 

 ANS  Not just National Assembly we must include other arms of government including the Presidency, states and local governments every sector should be made to be accountable. I’ve not seen serious criticism about the arm-twisting of the Local government by the Governors, some State does not have elected local government Chairmen as we speak where goes all the monthly allocation of such local governments most Governors collect the local government allocation every month under the pretense of state and local government joint development law and sits on it. Many of them only appointed Sole Administrators, some states don’t even have commissioners.

 

 Q  What is the next thing for You after contesting for Senate as well as Governorship in Ogun State?

 

 ANS  For now nothing, am only focusing on my because now because i realized Nigerians does not want to hear the truth.

 

 Q What do you mean by that?

 

 ANS   If you tell them the honest truth and plans of what you intend to do on assumption of office they will not believe you until someone else come and tell them lies . That is what they will believe, there are some certain hidden process when it comes to contesting for Governor here that i cannot stand, but i will keep that to myself for now

 

 Q  There has been lots of crisis within your Party both at the National and State, what’s the true situation?

 

 ANS   There is no Party in Nigeria devoid of crisis even the ruling party has its own challenges but the crises in PDP is externally fueled by external factors ,am a student of politics science which gives me insight to what’s playing out however i will not blame those externally fueling the crises it’s part of politics if am in their shoes i will probably do the same.

 

 

Q  Do you have any proof to that?

 ANS  What proof do you want again, it’s a common sense issue and able to read between the lines eg look at what happened in Ondo Election, using some members of PDP to frustrate the real candidate of our party, they didn’t allow him to campaign until the last minute. And of cause the people they used later said they deliberately did it, meaning that they were used against the Party.  Many of these people used have EFCC cases or extradition issues that’s why it was easy to maneuver and use them against their party, i can also confirm to you that they are planning same for Ekiti Election coming up in 2018 they are being sent an errand by this so called powerful external factor and backed up with money, why won’t they do it? If they do not do it they might face EFCC charges or get extradited

 

 Q  But the factional Chairman of PDP Modu-Sheriff got the support of Fayose and Gov Wike which many believes ignited the crisis within the Party?

 

 ANS  What is wrong in bringing somebody to complete the tenure of the former Chairman from the same zone? The major problem is completed the tenure and still wanted to continue in office

 

 Q  I think why he was angry is because he was not allowed to take charge of the Convention being the Chairman?

 

 ANS If he has completed his tenure what else does he want, the Party decided set up a Committee to stair the activities of the Party and that is supreme. There are people who want perpetual injunction to keep the Party in crisis that’s why they are fuelling it

 

 Q  How do you think the issues can be resolved even now that Governor Fayose has been made Chairman of PDP Governors’ Forum he has vowed to resolve the issues but some PDP members still believes the Governor does not know how to play the Politics?

 

 ANS   We can not release the strategies here but very soon all will be well. There is nobody that the Party put forward to assist in resolving the crisis that will have full support of everybody, even if you bring angel, people will still antagonize & oppose the person.

 

 Q  What is your popularity in Ogun State at the Moment?

 

 ANS  Its better i allow you to find out

 

 Q  I ask because after leaving the House of Representative you have contested two other elections and lost?

 

 ANS  Does that mean my popularity is dwindling? Our President today,how many time did he contest before he now won, haven’t I won before. If you say am not popular I contested the first and second time I won, because I contested third and fourth time I lost does that mean am not popular anymore,please go and do your findings.

 

 Q  Considering the  crisis within your party don’t you see it has a drawback if you decided to contest in 2019?

 

 ANS   Did I even tell you I want to contest any election, go and ask of me across the State, they know am an achiever if am ready to contest election there is no looking back even if am going to lose election people will know that I actually put in my best in the contest and they will hail me that I did well.

 

 Q  What are the plans on the table to harmonize all warring factions in the State PDP?

 

 ANS  Very soon all will be fine, we are working towards that

 

 Q  Do you see the performance of present Governor as a threat to your Party considering that some people believes he has done well especially in infrastructural development

 

 ANS I don’t know from where you are getting your own information , but ask others and you will hear what they will say about the Governor.  But I won’t speak for the public,at the appropriate time we will all see the result. If i were Governor today I will do similar thing in infrastructural development but not at the detriment of other sectors. Apart from infrastructure tell me other things in the State you have seen in any other areas receiving attention. Ogun State has enormous land where you can site another city, there is nothing wrong turning Ogun State into another Dubai if am giving that opportunity. As at the time I was contesting I have gone as far as discussing with some investors in Dubai in area of housing development while the needed equity is our God given land .Ogun State has a lot of potential because of its boundary with five other states including Republic of Benin which makes it very viable. If I were in charge considering what i have in mind everybody in Nigeria will want to come and live in Ogun State because the kind of structure and network I will put in place will be an heaven on earth like.

 

 Q Do you think it’s time they give the slot to Ogun West, i mean Governorship?

 

 ANS  Its my wish but that depends on ogun state people but it’s not something that is served on a platter of gold, all i know is that they need to put their house in order and make a lot of efforts.

 

 Q  How do you think we ended up in this economic situation in the country?

 

 ANS  Since this government came on board what they keep saying is that, the last administration squandered all the resources of the country, later they will say it is 24 or 27billion they found in the Reserves. They keep giving us contradictory statement about Nigeria financial state. The CBN Governor at a point told us we have 24.7billion dollars in Reserves, the following day the President said he almost ran away because he met empty treasury. Though recently we had the foreign reserves has grown to about 30billion dollars but the amount they met is not even the issue. If I have a company and I noticed the company is not doing very well and I decided to change the MD, what I expect from him is to turn around the fortune of the company not complain about the past because I already know, that was why I made the changes in the first place. As at the time this government came into power, I will not say there was no corruption, I agree, even the present government of APC is corrupt. But you must separate corruption from development, Chief Obasanjo is a living example to that. Tell me what Obasanjo met in the coffers when he came in 1999, less than 4billion naira and with over 60billion IMF loan. He was able to clear the debt either by debt relief or payment and left about 45billion in the coffers of the government. What he did then was simple, he knew Nigeria has economic problem and our image in the international community was bad. As soon as he was sworn in, he left the country for World Bank to request for Nigerians that are working there, that understand how to reposition the economy. He employed them, the likes of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Prof Charles Soludo, I also know he went to United Nations to bring Ambassador Adeniji to come and be our Foreign Affairs Minister. With Adeniji’s influence in international community, our image was revived, it was from there we got the debt relief, the debt relief even cut across other West Africans Nations. It was at that period he sent a bill to establish EFCC and ICPC to fight corruption. However, he didn’t allow the anti corruption drive to hinder economic development, the two policies were working without hindering one another. Go and check the record of Obasanjo anti corruption drive and compare to what we have today. Though what we were made to believe is that there is no corrupt person in APC however the moment any corrupt politician from another party cross to APC it’s like entering a safe heaven ,we have seen series of example like that. The case of the SGF is still fresh, awarding a contract to himself by proxy, we all hear what the Presidency says about it. You can imagine if he was in another Party. The case of former Governor of Abia is similar, also Senator Joshua Dariye, its just a case of selective justices or fighting perceived enemies to the best of my knowledge.

 

 Q  What is your take about the government approach to the economy?

 

 ANS  They took the wrong step when they came in, they brought in bad policies via try and error that has been the bane of the economic situation we are. It was wrong for the government to stop payment into domiciliary account or withdrawing from it, that singular act causes a lot of panic in the system. A lot of investors took their money and left the country. Secondly, inability to be able to put up cabinet within 6month is another major problems,am of the opinion that even before pmb won the election, he should have  an idea of those that will work with him.Equally he stopped the amnesty program because of corruption, shutdown the Maritime University, payment for Ex-militant given scholarship were stopped. This were programs of his predecessor to curb militancy in the area, all these steps affected the economy. My opinion is that the President should be able to separate corruption from the amnesty program via bio-metrics to determine the authentic number of people that are entitled for the programs and let it go ahead, and then bring the corrupt officials to book by so doing, we won’t have problem as much as we are having in the Niger-Delta. Our crude Oil fell from 2.2million production to less than 800,000 barrel sometimes with a short fall of about 1.4M barrels meaning we are losing close to 100m dollar daily

 

 Q  The former Finance Minister, Okonjo-Iweala, during President Jonathan era did warned that Nigeria should brace up for difficult times on several occasions, don’t you think it’s part of her prediction that we are seeing today?

 

 ANS May be am not privy to this information, am not aware but I know that if we have good economic managers I don’t see reason why we should be in this recession.