- Says He’s Never Sat Down With Anybody To Express Guber Ambition
Honourable Saheed Akinade Fijabi was guest of our group, Southwest Group of Online Publishers (SWEGOP) during our periodic programme tagged ‘SWEGOP’s Breakfast Media Chat’ recently. He was ‘grilled’ to discuss several issues including his rumoured governorship ambition for Oyo State. Excerpts:
In the time of Honourable Patricia Etteh as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, there was this major clash that rocked the House and in a scuffle, a member lost his life. When Honourable Saburi Dimeji Bankole was Speaker, there was also another clash when Hon Dino Melaye, as he then was, was pictured with his clothes torn. And in 2015, something similar happened, it was the turn of Honourable Saheed Akinade-Fijabi, and the pictures of him with torn clothes have refused to go away. What measure has the House put in place to prevent a recurrence of situations like these when ‘honourable’ men are portrayed otherswise…
When you talk about legislative work, it comes with a lot of controversies. You know we have people who are coming from different backgrounds, different cultures, different beliefs, different ideologies and it is not only in Nigerian parliament you see such things happening. It happens in other parts of the world but it is not a good thing actually. We have children watching us, and, to them, we have to be role models, and to them, we sincerely have to play role models anyway.
The measure we have put at this 8th Assembly is that we have a committee called House Committee on Ethics and it came about the codes of conduct for members of the House. And basically, why the other one happened to Honourable Fijabi was because he was trying to defend the mace. The mace is the authority of the House, so if there is no mace, that means there is no authority in the House. But a lot of people termed it to be something else. Basically what I was trying to do that day was to prevent some people from hijacking the mace. When two people sit down somewhere, they have the mace, they have the authority and then you will hear of 4 people trying to impeach 17 others. And if you could see clearly, that very day, you would see that my cloth was torn from the back. That shows you that I was not fighting. And my two eyes were in the front, I don’t have eyes at the back. So, if I was fighting, my cloth wouldn’t have been torn from the back.
Anyway, that one has gone, for those ugly incidents not to be happening again, we put it in the code of conduct that even as a member of the House, you don’t have any right or privilege to move close to the mace. If such happens, you will be suspended for six months.
The only person that has the authority to move close to mace is the Sergeant-at-Arms, who carries the mace off and on the floor of the chamber. That is it, but it is just the beauty of democracy, it happens. If people ask me would I still go that way a hundred times over, I will say yes because I was actually defending the Nigerian democracy.
A lot of people would say you succeeded in “defending democracy” but it still fetched you some juicy chairmanship position.
I don’t understand what people call juicy. It has to come down to you as a person if you want to make your committee juicy or you make it dry or less attractive. It depends on your capacity or capability to handle whatever you were given. Let me give you an example, the Committee on Diaspora, the committee was created during the 7th Assembly and Hon Abike Dabiri-Erewa turned it into an attractive committee and everybody believed then that it was juicy. But it was because she had the capacity and the capability to drive the committee forward that made people feel it was juicy. There is nothing juicy.
People believe it is because my cloth was torn, no. I have paid my dues, I am a ranking member of the House, if you have been there twice, you are a ranking member and I understand what happens within the House. Maybe some people believe I have the capability to chair the committee, which obviously you can see I am trying to do to the best of my ability.
Some see it as a payback for being loyal to some people…
Let me tell you something about loyalty. The National Assembly is a House of people. No matter how the game plays out, you have to be loyal to some people. I am not loyal to anybody, I am loyal to the National Assembly. Whoever is the leader of the National Assembly, I have to be loyal to him because the moment you become a member of the House, whether you are APC, PDP, APGA or whatever, you drop it. What concerns us more is the interest of Nigeria. How can we drive this democracy and safeguard it.
There is this belief that you actually went against the wishes of your party by supporting Honourable Dogara to emerge ahead of Honourable Femi Gbajabiamila. What is your stand?
Thank God Dograra and Gbajabiamila are members of APC. Gbaja is my leader and he continues to be my leader. This is a game of politics. You win some, you lose some. That doesn’t actually mean that we went against what the party said. So far, we are still in the same party. As we are now, among this group of online journalists, a lot could be happening and if I am not among you, I may not be able to say the fact. Most of the things said then were rumours. They were not facts.
But it is not for me now to come and say I am for or I am not. The leadership has emerged, all we need to do is to support the leadership. The most important thing is that people voted for us to be in the House of Representatives, we should look out for how they can see the dividends of democracy and to safeguard the cherished democracy on its own.
Now we should be moving on how can we drive Nigeria. Like I said, thank God Dograra is a member of APC, Lasun is a member of APC, I am a member of APC too, and the people that emerged on the floor of the House are equally members of APC too. Fortunately, there was no zoning then. It was a level playing ground and as a ranking member, you have the privilege of contesting as the Speaker or Deputy Speaker and anybody can come out. If I had the chance of being the Speaker or the Deputy Speaker, I am sure a lot more would have been facilitated to this state and that is it.
What happened then was basically a game of politics and since then, we have moved on and we are one. We sit together, wine and dine together. All we are looking for now is how we can make what we promised our people happen.
You are the chairman of the House Committee on Communications, what have you brought to the South West and to your constituency?
If I have had the opportunity of being the Speaker or Deputy Speaker, I would have done more. If you go to Osun now, you will see the projects Lasun has been able to facilitate to his constituency. That is the reason why we keep telling our leaders in the party that as legislators, it is better to give us the chance to repeat the class as many times as possible. It is very important. What I was able to do in my first term, you can’t compare it to what I have been able to do in the last two years.
I know in the last two years, I have been able to facilitate projects very close to like a billion Naira to Oyo State.
If you go to the Ring Road Hospital and Adeoyo Hospital, there are some maternity wards renovated by MTN, that was through facilitation, just down the road here in the College of Hygiene, Eleyele, there is one school, there is a project worth about N300 million. And if you go to UCH, which is not even in my constituency, just to show you that what I think about is how to develop Oyo State and not just my constituency alone. Just go to UCH and see, it is there.
The problem about politicians, especially the past politicians, which we should correct is that they have turned our rights into privileges. The moment they try and dig a borehole in an area, they will go to Gbagi Market, buy Ankara and people will be dancing round and be commissioning. When I was growing up in Orogun, if you opened our taps then, water was running. We should be moving forward not backwards. I didn’t even understand what borehole meant then. It is your right to walk on good roads, to attend good schools, to have access to good health care; it is your right not privilege. Politicians, I am also part of them anyway, we have turned these into privileges.
I was somewhere yesterday, they were saying “won ma npariwo ninu oselu ni” (you have to make noise in politics). I said leave it. What I believe is that any project done, so far it is useful and people are benefitting from it, let us move on to another one. We have a lot of people who would do a project of N10 and use N100 to make noise about it. Why don’t you use the resources you are spending to embark on another one. And no matter the amount of noise you make, it doesn’t even mean people will vote for you in the next election.
In my constituency, we have done over 40 boreholes but it is still not right in this century to be digging borehole everywhere, it is not right. I told you, back in the 70s, water was running in Orogun. So what has happened? That is the reason people think I am not making noise about what I am doing.
The budget of 2016 generated so much controversy…what significant improvement should people expect from your committee in this year’s budget?
What an average Nigerian wants from the communication industry is to be able to make a call, no drop call. Send a message; you don’t want any unsolicited text messages, no stupid caller ring tones, effective data use. Since the inception of this committee, we have been working on that. As journalists, you know that we have engaged all these telcos, and we have told them what we expect of them, in conjunction with NCC which is their watchdog. But what is important is that we should also understand that this is a nation in which nothing is equal. As we are sitting here, if we are using electricity from the grid, it can go off anytime. They too face it and their equipments are being vandalized. Most of their base stations are being vandalized. Though they should be able to safeguard their infrastructure.
We need to understand that as Chairman of this committee, I am suffering the same fate as you and I want you to know that the way you walk on the road, buy your credit from the road, is the same way I do. Most of the people don’t know what NCC was before but with the help of this committee and now there is what we call customers’ rights, which was launched recently. We have told NCC to let people know their rights when it comes to telephone services. But the most important thing is the energy sector because it cuts across almost all the other sectors. If we get it right, our businesses will definitely be right.
But I want to assure you that my committee is working to ensure that things are in place. There have been some amendments to the NCC Act again especially concerning unsolicited messages, calls, it has passed the second reading.
And the 2016 budget, the reason why you will not see such now is probably that we have the right mind. The Chairman of the Appropriation Committee then, Jibrin, he probably didn’t understand what he was doing or he was just actually playing to the gallery. Yorubas say nkan to ba se eeyan leekini o gbodo se eeyan leekeji (one shouldn’t make the same mistake twice). We really need to be very careful.
Don’t forget that all we can do is to pass the budget. The implementation now lies with the executive arm of government.
The padding aspect of it, how sure are we that such won’t happen again?
It is knowledge, you need to seek for information and not just jump into conclusion. There is nothing like padding. What the executive does is to bring estimates and it is even in the constitution of the land, it is my duty as a member of the House of Representatives to look into it and we would be the one to appropriate the appropriate money for each ministry, department and agency. So when you say padding, I don’t understand it. It is my duty to look into the estimate the executive arm of government is bringing, appropriate it and send it for implementation.
Can you shed some light on the friction that happened between you and the Minister for Communications?
I don’t think there is any issue between me and the Honourable Minister for Communications. He is a father, he is from Oyo, he is a member of our party but it is going to be a shame when you and I come from the same state and you don’t understand what is expected of you and you are not even ready to listen or learn from others. That is a shame but there is no friction.
Are you trying to say the Honourable Minister should learn from others who are better experienced? Or is it because he wants to be Governor and you are also eyeing the same position?
I have never sat with anybody to say I want to become Governor. At least, not at this point of my political career. If they ask me to become Governor, I think I am fit to become Governor but I haven’t sat with anybody to discuss that. He, as Minister for Communications has said that he wants to be Governor.
As you are sitting down here, if CNN tells you to come and become Editor-in-Chief, what would you say? You are even more than qualified so if they call me tomorrow, I have everything that can make me to be a governor of the state but I have not said I want to be. This one I am doing, I am just praying to God to let me finish in good health and come out shinning. It is very important to me.
I don’t understand our democracy. We are in 2017. So now, everybody will stop working and concentrate on politics. Even on his own side, there is a lot of distraction because he wants to be Governor. The things he is supposed to do in the ministry, he leaves them and puts his concentration on being the governor of this state. And if you want to be the governor, when you live in a glass house, you don’t throw stones.
Your position now is that the Honourable Minister is distracted?
Obviously he is distracted. We are not even up to two years in this dispensation and somebody is saying he wants to be governor. If you are capable of what you are doing, you might still campaign but if you don’t know it, you don’t know it. That is a fact and if you want to learn, you can learn from others. We have four committees in the National Assembly that he is responsible to. We have the House Committees on Telecommunications, the House Committee on ICT, headed by Honourable Onao and we have those two Committees in the Senate, one headed by Senator Nnaji and the other by Senator Abdulfatai Buhari. Fortunately, the three of us are from Oyo State…I mean, two Chairmen in both houses and one minister; I think by now Oyo should be the home of communication.
I understand what Senator Buhari has done, I understand what Honourable Fijabi has done. People believe more in the executive arm of government because it is the one that drives the policies. He has the right in the budget to facilitate projects to his town. But all he comes up with now is, so so, because Fijabi wants to be Governor, so so, Buhari wants to be Governor. I now said if Fijabi wants to be Governor and Buhari wants to be Governor, does Nnaji too want to be Governor in Oyo State? Will Onao from Nasarawa also be Governor in Oyo State?
There was a time they did a page in Leadership Newspaper that I am fighting a proxy war on behalf of Governor Ajimobi, obviously I can, yes; because he is my leader. And I am not going to allow anybody to rubbish someone I call my leader because I have pledged my loyalty to him. The Honourable Minister came out recently to say Ajimobi is a dictator. But let me say this, if as a Minister, you went for confirmation on the floor of the Senate, and they asked you about Boko Haram and you said you don’t want to die. What about these recruits? These corporals, the sergeants, the colonels that died for the nation? Where is the patriotism in someone we call our minister? He said he is a stakeholder in the state and Ajimobi is not calling him. I don’t expect Ajimobi to call him. On this same floor, he said he does not believe in the primary that produced Ajimobi, so obviously, he does not believe in Ajimobi.
And after that, Ajimobi, being the leader, had the power to stop him from being a Minister but he did not. If just two Senators from our state said no, that would have been the end. But he did not, After that he organized a reception for him at Kakanfo Inn. What I am saying is that if three of us sit down and say this is what we want for Oyo State in terms of communication, we will get it, with his cooperation.
If as honourable Minister of Nigeria, the most populated black nation in the world, I was on a programme, he was in Umrah, praying for himself, Oyo, and the country as a whole, he called in and tried to defend himself. To me a leader should be like a garbage dump. For him to now call and say people on that radio are minors, they are riff raffs, on a live programme, what type of Minister is that?
Well, let us leave that. All I am saying is if the Honourable Minister is ready to work with us to drive the development in the state, we are more than ready.
Specifically, what message do you have for him?
He is in his 60s, so the age difference between us would be like 20 years; he is old enough to be my dad and as a well brought up Yoruba man, I owe him that respect and I have always given it to him. But when it comes to the job, I am not the one to advise him. As a Minister, he has a lot of SAs, PAs, let them sit down together and see what is wrong. And I keep saying it that Oyo State is lucky in terms of ICT and telecommunications now, let us make use of it.
This is just two years and people like them won’t even allow us to concentrate because all they talk about is election. It is distraction.
If he calls you and says let’s forget the past. Will you support him to be Governor?
It depends on the quality and the other people coming out. I can’t just make up my mind like that.
The recent appointment of caretaker Chairmen almost polarized or divided the party among SENACO and Lamist factions. As a federal lawmaker, between the Lamist Group and SENACO, where do you belong and do you support the running of Local Governments with caretaker chairmen?
I am a member of APC. I don’t know if there is SENACO, I don’t know if there is Lamist. The most important thing for the Governor to be determined. I know he has listening ears and he is a great leader, I don’t see any reason why he should be shying away from Local Government elections; if not for the court cases.
He was about doing it, even if you say it was not genuine, but we know the fact that there is a case in court and he is not going to run foul against the law of the land. And he cannot leave the local governments lying fallow; definitely he has to appoint some people so that is fine. This is politics, what you do is to look for your loyalists. We have two federating units; the federal and the state. The local government is an appendage of the state. Even SENACO, who are Ajimobi’s people at least that is what you insinuate, within them, there will still be controversies that ‘I’m the one that should have been appointed, oga is not using me’. That is life. What I preach is if genuinely we think about the development of the local government or we think about the state, the moment appointments have been made, let’s come together and move on.
As a major stakeholder, whose constituency covers two local government areas, what steps have you taken to mediate in the crisis rocking your party? Secondly, recently, you expressed regret over the role you played in the emergence of Hon Dogara as the Speaker of the House of Reps. Are you trying to whip up sympathy or what informed that statement?
What I said was that my role as regards the emergence of Dogara was not being disloyal to the party or to Governor Ajimobi. My loyalty 100% is to the party and to the leader of the party in the state which is the Governor.
I am not whipping up sympathy from any angle. If I was not party to Dogara’s emergence, one way or the other, he would still have emerged and don’t forget the other people who went to the other side had their reasons for doing it. I also have my reasons for doing what I did.
Why I said it is because I want people to know that it is not about selfish interest. I could have been the Chairman of Committee on Communications from both side and what I think is that it is all about my constituents. In my statement, there is no sign of regret. I could have done it one million times all over again just for me to be able to bring the dividends of democracy back home.
Within the last two years people have battered me left right and centre because of my take on some issues. But if you are not supporting my view, that doesn’t mean you should fight me.
To me, there is nothing like SENACO or Lamist in APC and everybody that comes to me, so far you are a Nigerian, whatever I can do; I will do it because it goes beyond party line.
Lawmaking is the main role of a legislator. Can u give us some of the bills you have sponsored and motions you have moved in the House. There is also the ‘Not too young to run’ campaign, what role are you playing to ensure that that particular law is passed to help the younger ones who might have political ambitions now or in the future. You also spoke of the amendment of the NCC Act. Can you please shed more light on this?
I may not be able to mention all my bills and motions but what I want us to understand is that it is not all about your participation on the floor of the House, it is not all about how many times your face is shown on television. But it matters also because most people will grade you based on that, they will say ah, we didn’t see you on TV.
Legislative job is a learning process. The first time you are there, you could be carried away, two, you might still be learning. When there are some germane issues on the floor of the House, the Speaker who is moderating the House calls upon those he believes are seasoned so they can make tangible contributions on the floor. So people can understand what we are talking about.
The second one is the committee level which is like a micro House. Some people may not be performing on the floor of the House but they perform more in the committees and you will not know. So there is a lot to learn in legislation.
Coming to my bills, in the present dispensation, I have had close to 20 motions, like 10 bills, I have a bill on sickle cell anaemia. And my motions are most times touching the lives of people, like the one on cervical cancer, which is the second deadliest cancer affecting women. I have a motion on Innoson Automobile, I have a number of them, I cannot remember all. And my bills, I have the amendment of the Stamp Duty Act, the Official Secret Act amendment, a lot.
But if you see a member who is not doing that, that does not mean he is not active. He could be active within the committee, he could be active in the oversight functions. And sometimes, you may not be glued to the TV for 24 hours. The day they showed me on TV, you might not watch TV that day. And you get so much bashing on social media, some will say ‘how many bills has he even done?’ There is FOI Bill, just write to the House, they will give you all my bills, all my motions. They are recorded, verbatim. We even have what we call votes and proceedings, what happened the previous day will definitely be in the papers the following day. So what I am saying in essence is don’t judge most people with their performance. And sometimes, the Speaker has his own power and he might decide not to call you to debate and you might have the substance. It is quite different from what we see outside. We have 360 members, at any point in time, there are 200 members and we have limited time on that very day to sit. So everybody cannot talk on a day.
And the Not Too Young To Run campaign, the bill has passed second reading in the House of Reps. Honestly I will support it, being a young person. Don’t forget we have 360 members from different backgrounds, religions, ideologies, I only have one vote, though I can lobby other people; and that is if they believe in the bill.
On the NCC Act, the major amendment that is going on is the issue of unsolicited text messages because it is not stated in the law. One of the things we have done, recently MTN was fined. That is one of the works we are doing to ensure that in the telecoms sector, rules are adhered to.
What are you and your colleagues doing towards the encouragement of lobbyists and the need to form lobby groups?
In America, it is allowed in their parliament but it is not allowed in the UK. Maybe because of the level of our democracy, people don’t understand that there is a lot you can do within the House through lobbying. Let me digress a bit, let’s look at the issue of padding, if as a Chairman, I am able to lobby other Chairmen from other committees that help me put so and so in the budget for my constituency, that is lobbying. It is for the benefit of the constituency.
I keep telling private organizations to come up with private bills that can affect Nigeria positively. And there are so many things you can do through your Representative. If you believe you were sacked wrongly, you can send a petition. I implore people to see how they can make use of the Honourable Members representing their constituencies.
Are you ready to work together with others in the ICT sector with Barrister Shittu at least to facilitate something good to Oyo State before the end of the tenure of this administration? Secondly, it has been difficult for lawmakers to disclose what they earn. Would you be willing to share what your pay packet looks like?
I want us to know something, when you are in government, there is no reason to be antagonistic when we believe if we come together, we can move mountains. But if I extend a hand of fellowship to you and you refuse it, the first, second and third time, what do you do? You move back.
I can work with anybody so far it is based on the development of Oyo and Nigeria. You asked if I am ready to work with Barrister Shittu, I don’t have to be ready to work with Barrister Shittu. It is my duty to work with anybody who believes in the progress of the state. The most fortunate thing is that Barrister Shittu, who is as old as my father, I call him my father, I respect him a lot but when it comes to work, I am the Chairman of the House Committee on Telecommunications, my duty is to oversight his ministry.
Some people say I am fighting a proxy war, this is another scenario, I am not doing my job and if I am found wanting, what will people say? They will say it is because he is from Oyo but all I am doing, I am being upright and doing what is expected of me as a legislator. I have not done anything wrong. I have not told anyone I want to be governor, he has said so, which I believe is a distraction at this time because even the present governor is trying to fix a lot of things. You are distracting him by calling him a lot of names.
The most important thing is for me to be able to work with anybody that believes in the progress of the nation.
If you remember, recently, there were altercations between Hon Dogara and the Governor of Kaduna State and the Speaker came out with his pay slip which is about N 360, 000 which obviously I am earning above him because being the Speaker he has a lot of deductions but I earn over N500,000. That is my salary.
Is it not better for President Buhari to be impeached or asked to resign? It is as if Mr. President is just resting…
Baba is not resting o. When you have a man of that age, and being the President of this nation, where nothing is equal and remember he is on medical vacation, he needs some time to rest. But we just need to give him time. There is nothing to impeach him about. And his anti-corruption drive is something we need to support. You can see revelations coming from different angles.
Buhari has not contravened any law and he has not committed any impeachable offence for now, but if anything like that happens, we will move it. But Baba is working. All we can do is to support him and pray for him.
Senator Saraki spoke about the looted funds discovered by the EFCC. Is there a way the House can come up with a motion that will reveal the owners of such loot?
We don’t know the owners. The one attached to Yakubu, we know. The recent one from Ikoyi, Lagos, I think the EFCC is doing its investigation and when they are through they will definitely tell us who owns the money. What is important is not knowing the persons behind the money. The most important thing is that the anti-corruption campaign is working, let’s support it.
All these looted funds, are there measures in place to make sure that they are not re-looted?
It happens in stages, first you recovered it, you have to take it to a safe place, maybe CBN or wherever. And remember there are lots of cases in court; this is a democracy and that is the beauty of democracy. You cannot get things done quickly, if it were to be a military government, the leader would just say do this with the money. The recent one is in court and they have given the owner of the money a month and after that one, you can be sure anybody can come up with any injunction. In democracy people believe things are slow but if they are not, that means you want to remove the transparency from it. We have a lot of stages, things go from the judiciary to the legislature and to the executive. You can be moving from the courts till you get to the Supreme Court.
And all the money is in the coffers of the Federal Government but if you are saying they should inject it, they will but we must finish with the judicial aspect of it.
What role did you play in the appointment of the caretaker chairmen in your constituency?
If it is based on my loyalty to the Governor, I had nothing to do with it. He is the Governor of the state. The Local Government chairmen should form part of his team, lieutenants in driving the state. But my own is that the moment anyone is appointed or elected, mine is to support the person.
Did you nominate anyone? Or were you consulted before the appointments?
It is not my take to nominate. Obviously, he consulted all stakeholders including me. He consulted everybody he needed to consult and our opinion is just do it this way, don’t do it that way. And as someone that has been in government, a former Senator, a second term governor, so what do you expect of him? He will definitely make the right decision though the decision will not go down well with everybody.
What we can do after that is sit down, know that this is our state, make some reflections and get to work.
How do you spend your typical day?
In Abuja, I wake up in the morning, go to work at the National Assembly, after leaving the chamber, committee meetings, you can have other extra meetings, then I retire back home and enjoy the day with my family.
Tell us about your new look; the beards. And as the Chairman of the House of Reps Committee on Communications, what can you do enhance professionalism among online media practitioners?
I am not the one that should tell you what I want to do. It is you that should tell me what you want me to do and I will tell you if I can or if I cannot. Maybe if you ask for five and I say I can only do three because if you say I should look at you and say what I want to do, I might be shortchanging you.
But you too, as online practitioners have to be fair in your reportage. We shouldn’t just attack anybody anyhow, let’s seek for information, let’s make some researches and come out with a conclusion. That doesn’t mean you won’t criticize anybody. It is good when you criticize after you have made a lot of research. Like if somebody comes now and says how many motions has Fijabi done? That person is not talking from an angle of information. He just wants to attack me because just like I said, I have done between 15 and 20 bills and motions and I know I am a ranking member of the House of Reps.
Let me also say that there are achievers and there are noisemakers among politicians. There are those who set goals and achieve them and there are those who would do N10 project and N1,000 noisemaking, which won’t help the nation.
There was this guy in Lagos, he was even taken to court and remanded for a couple of weeks. He wrote about me that I am the randiest Honourable member in Abuja, the following week, he wrote another thing about me that I impregnated my account officer in Zenith Bank and he did not do his research because I have never in my life banked with Zenith Bank. How then can I have account officer in Zenith Bank? That is part of the things I am saying.
About my new look, I was away and I forgot to shave for about a week and when I looked into the mirror, I said this thing fits me. And since then, I have carried on like this.
