Senate Majority Leader in the current Eighth Senate, Ahmed Lawan, is the preferred candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for office of the Senate President in the incoming Ninth Assembly. In this interview with select journalists in Abuja, the ranking lawmaker, who was flanked by other senators-elect, speaks on his aspiration to become the nation’s Number Three citizen in the Ninth Senate. OWEDE AGBAJILEKE was there. Excerpts:
What informed your decision to contest for the office of Senate President?
After the general election the Presidential and National Assembly elections this year, by the grace of God, we emerged as winners having been returned as elected. We thank God the All Progressives Congress (APC) remains the majority party in the Senate and indeed in the House of Representatives today for 2019-2023 session. In fact, we have even achieved a better feat than 2015, having gotten 65 and hope to get even more. So, just like in 2015 when we sought to lead the Senate and the National Assembly, this time around, having consulted very widely with my colleagues, and talking to many of our colleagues from both APC and other political parties, we have come to the conclusion that we have something to offer in leadership to lead the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the National Assembly in the Ninth session of the Assembly by the grace of God.
We are not under any illusion that this requires a lot in terms of the significant work that we have to do to make Nigeria better through legislative intervention and working in concert with other arms of the National Assembly.
By the grace of God, we are going to make very positive difference in governance in Nigeria because we believe that Nigerians voted for positive change. They have renewed their commitment this year and that goes to tell us that they have faith in the President and us the legislators.
In 2015 we witnessed what happened when your party was unable to put its house in order, leading to the emergence of candidates not endorsed by the party. Is that scenario not going to play itself out this time around?
Let me start with the senators-elect you see here. Certainly, this is just a representative of what number we have. And we are not talking about numbers alone. It is not the time yet for that kind of conversation. What we are doing at the moment is to reach out to our colleagues senators-elect, talk with them, tell them our mission and why we are contending to take the leadership of the Senate and the National Assembly. We also need to tell them why we need to make the Legislature in Nigeria, particularly the National Assembly more productive, focused and the need for all of us to work together. APC senators in this respect are so critical because that is our focus. But we will also reach out to other senators-elect from other political parties. So, this is a representation. This is not the number of senators that are supporting this cause. This is just introducing ourselves to you.
But let me say that we are senators who believe in party supremacy. We believe in the leadership of our party. But the leadership we are seeking is leadership of the Senate and the National Assembly. So, it is very critical and crucial that we talk to our colleagues, convince them that we are the right people to lead the Senate and the National Assembly. We take nobody for granted. We believe that the crop of senators elected this time will be such a crop that we can achieve much more in terms of uniting ourselves and focusing on the real issues of development, of making Nigerians experience very rapid and sustainable changes and transformation.
We are not in any way thinking that we will start having some crisis. We are not even praying that that happens but our party, the All Progressives Congress, must have learnt its lessons. Therefore, I am sure the leadership of the party will do something differently. I am sure our leaders will try to manage this huge success of APC. And I have no doubt that the party will find us very supportive of the programmes of our party and our administration under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari.
If you become the Senate President, what should Nigerians expect from you in the Ninth Senate?
Let me say that I believe in what my party does. This party campaigned on three issues in 2015: security, anti-corruption and revamping the economy. So, we have remained consistent as a political party and as an administration. Our main task – if and when we make it – is to ensure that we support the President, the party to implement our campaign promises.
Let us start with the economy: we want an economy that will engender sustained, all inclusive growth. Our main constituency as a progressive party is the most ordinary people. That is not to say that those who are up there at the highest ladder of the economy are not with us. But majority of Nigerians who voted for APC are those very ordinary people in the villages and hamlets. It is therefore very critical and crucial for our administration to come up with sustained programmes that will make life better for this set of people. And also support those who build the economy; that is those in the private sector so that they are able to create and sustain jobs.
On employment, we have worked so hard in the last three-and-half years as a government to ensure that there is employment. But we want to work harder to see that more Nigerians, especially the youth, get good jobs that will grow this economy, create wealth. We have social investment programmes. I want to see some reforms in the social investment programme, to improve it and make it more profound in terms of effect and efficiency.
Agriculture has been one area that our administration has been working hard on. And today, we are happy to say that Nigeria doesn’t even import rice; something that we were spending so much of our foreign reserves to import. What that means is that the billions of dollars that we were spending to import rice, are now within this country. People know that in so many states from Kebbi, Ebonyi, so much rice today is produced, processed and sold within Nigeria. That is wealth creation in addition to job creation. Even though we have some challenges in that area; that is to say that we have to fight smuggling.
We have some areas of concern in terms of security. We need to support the Executive arm of government to continue to address the security concerns. But we have achieved so much, knowing full well that by 2015 when this administration came into office, so many parts of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa were under the control of Boko Haram insurgents. And they infiltrated up to Abuja here including the Force Headquarters. We have achieved so much in that area but we want to see a situation where the security architecture of this country is reformed.
In fact, some of you here will recall that I headed a Security Committee on the Review of the Security Architecture in Nigeria. And we presented our report which recommended reforms in our Armed Forces, Police. It is not only giving money to the security agencies, you need to have such a structure that when you put in money, it will be utilised in a very productive, prudent, efficient and effective manner.
On the anti-corruption fight, it is our mission to ensure that the President and this administration continue to fight against corruption. I can tell you that most of the ills that we are suffering today in this country; they are because people have stolen public funds. So when you are able to contain the excesses in that regard, you could have resources deployed properly. But I also believe that we should be proactive. Can we amend laws to make it difficult for people to embezzle in public office and even in the private sector? Why can’t we have special anti-corruption courts to support the fight against corruption in Nigeria? Because we need to fast track the legal processes to ensure that whoever is found guilty is prosecuted in a time that is reasonable.
Also, why can’t we reform the educational sector? This is 21st Century. So that those who graduate from our institutions are able to contribute meaningfully whether they are in government employment or in the private sector. On the whole, we should be looking at law reforms also. Those laws that are obsolete – there are many of them. Those that require total overhaul or we come up with others to complement what we already have.
What are your plans to carry all senators along to make sure that you achieve all the expectations you just mentioned?
That is the secret of success for any legislative chamber to deliver meaningfully. We need to have a bipartisan chamber. We definitely will disagree from time to time because of party perspectives or something. But generally, because we are senators of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, when we legislate, we do so for the entire country. And therefore, we need to remain united and focused. I was in the opposition for 16 years from 1999 to 2015. Even as an opposition, we knew where we would oppose and cooperate with the government. Take for example, the security of the country. Could there be any legislator who would oppose any legislation that would enhance the performance of our Armed Forces or Police to provide security? The answer is no. Whether you are APC or PDP or YPP, we have the same people to serve. So, we will work to ensure that we achieve and attain that desired unity within the chamber. There will be equity and fairness in our affairs. I am sure that once we are able to unite around national interest, we will contribute meaningfully to governance.
Have you reached out to other senators from your zone who are also vying for the same position?
We will do what I have just said. We need the cooperation and support of everybody. I also believe that if we want to work with the Executive in such a manner that we can deliver good governance, first we need to achieve that unity amongst ourselves.
Secondly, that we have a relationship with the Executive arm of government that is characterised by consultations, coordination, partnership amongst the two arms of government. I always say that the 1999 Constitution provides for separation of powers. It does not amount to independence of arms of government. It is specialisations or functions of the arms of government. The Executive cannot function without the Legislature. The Legislature too needs to work with the Executive in a cordial manner. But that does not take away that special function of oversight. By the way, who said we will never disagree with the Executive? By design, we are meant to disagree, hold different perspective from time to time on issues. But when we disagree, we should sit down and look at the issues and take a decision that is in national interest.
