A member of the National Assembly, Senator Francis Fadahunsi, in this interview with Sunday Aborisade, said Senators across party divide will move against Senate President, Dr Ahmad Lawan, if he opposes their planned move to initiate impeachment proceedings against President Muhammadu Buhari next month. He also spoke about the abysmal performance of the APC-led government at the centre since 2015, among other issues.
At what point did the collaboration between the All Progressives Congress Senators and their counterpart in the red chamber collapse?
It is true that we met at the inception of the Ninth Senate and agreed to cooperate with the executive arm of government notwithstanding the political party we belong to. We decided to do that so that Nigeria could move forward. At the end of the day however, we found out that it was a mistake we do so. That is why there was no vibrant opposition in the Ninth Senate. President Muhammadu Buhari had complained that lack of cooperation between the executive arm of government and the Eighth National Assembly under the leadership of Senator Bukola Saraki as Senate President and Yakubu Dogara as Speaker of the House of Representatives led to his poor performances in his first tenure. He said the stiff opposition to his administration stalled the execution of most projects lined up by his government. We felt for Nigerians and we saw the need to give him our cooperation. We have now realised now that we made a mistake and that the opposition must begin to play it’s role.
Nigerians are now blaming the National Assembly for all the mistakes of the Buhari-led executive.
As senators from the opposition political parties, were you being compensated for supporting the rulling APC government?
It is highly unfortunate because the leadership of the Senate is adopting a winner-takes-all system. They don’t care about the interest and welfare of other Senators apart from their loyalists. That is why the rate at which the turnover affect the party primaries was massive. Only about 20 per cent of the Senators had their party tickets to return.
What have you now agreed to do specifically?
The opposition Senators have now agreed to stop discussing national interest issues behind closed doors. We will now speak to the cameras to let Nigerians know what’s happening. Everybody must know everything about their country. That was the reason we staged a walk out during our last plenary before we went on vacation. We have been talking and giving suggestions but the head of the Senate President is hooked to the Villa. He doesn’t want us to discuss or examine whatever communication he brings from the Villa simply because he had the gavel. Now, instead of continuing the cooperation and allow death to kill everyone, it is high time we pull out of the unholy alliance. We want the whole Nigeria to know that we have not been supporting the rot in the land at the moment.
Specifically, what are those things that you regret that the cooperation had caused the nation?
The first thing is the huge debt the country is incurring. Unfortunately there is no corresponding projects on ground to justify the huge debts apart from some parts of the northern Nigeria. The projects being handled in the South started since the Olusegun Obasanjo administration and they had still not been completed. This was not the original plan and we feel pains for the incoming generation that would be in trouble. There is rising unemployment, the academic activities at the various public universities had also stopped for months. This is apart from the fact that lack of poor funding was the reason universities are producing half baked graduates. This had further worsened the unemployment situation in the country.
Nigerians believe that the National Assembly is a recruitment centre because major agencies come to you to fill their employment slots with your candidates….
Well, all I know is that there is no way you can benefit from the slot allocation from the federal agencies except you are a member of the APC or one of the body of principal officers. It is a matter of winner-takes-all. The situation was not like that when Saraki was president of the Senate. He made sure that sure slots go round. Unfortunately, the man leading us now, was formerly the head of the opposition in the National Assembly, challenging the system, and now he doesn’t want anybody to challenge him. I wonder whether there existed a leader in a democratic system that would not want to be challenged. Why won’t he be challenged? He must be challenged because he was elected by the people.
Did the alliance between the opposition lawmakers and the APC Senators affect the oversight functions?
Go and interview most of the Senators. The oversight functions are not functioning. How will there be effective oversight when the President would bring the budget and his Representatives are here to insist that the financial document must be passed as presented. How will you go on oversight when you know that the budget estimates would be passed as presented? That is why the contractors and civil servants are doing whatever they like with the budget. Even when you decided to go for oversight functions, the heads of the ministries departments and agencies would not be available to answer questions about how they implemented the last budget because they know that the next one would be approved as presented.
Security is a major concern to the nation now and the PDP caucus has started an action against the president by threatening him with impeachment if he failed to act within six weeks. Is that a right thing to do?
On security, most of the people that voted for Buhari did so because they felt he would address insecurity being a military general. Unfortunately, the issue had escalated to the extent that kidnapping and killings of innocent souls happen every day in Nigeria. They terrorists had successfully entered the nation’s capital. Kidnapping has become a very lucrative business in Nigeria with the terrorists demanding up to N100m each to set their captives free. The insurgency in the North-East is still there.
Are you not worried that the terrorists are not being arrested?
It is obvious that somebody somewhere has been remotely asking the security agents not to arrest the terrorists. Even when they dared to enter the city centre and blew off the Kuje prisons. No arrest was made. This is a clear indication that Nigeria security had collapsed.
Is that why your colleagues in the Senate are threatening President Buhari with impeachment?
By the time we come back in September and the security situation had not improved, automatically, we would impeach him. Anybody that try to stop us from carrying out the impeachment, we would first impeach him. Anybody that is blocking us, whether the Senate President or anybody here, we would remove him. Everybody is in deep trouble now.
Don’t you think the heads of the military and security formations are tired and needed to be replaced with more agile ones?
It is difficult for the President to sack them because he appointed them based on the trust he had in them. Ordinarily we expect him to sack those people but there must be something we don’t really know and he has to tell Nigerians. Many people are even insinuating that the President is not in the Villa.
Is the impeachment not too late going by the period left for the 2023 general election?
Many of our members are not coming back and they will not go for any campaign. They would want to retire to their various constituencies in peace where there would be no insecurity. They are resolute about the impeachment. A few of us that are coming back would also have to make a statement to convince their people on why they should be re-elected. Who even say they cannot attack the National Assembly if we fail to act on time?
Do you think President Buhari has started doing anything security wise to beat your six-week ultimatum?
The announcement we made had shown the whole world that we had passed a vote of no confidence on the President. The international community is seeing it. He has not convinced anybody that he is doing anything serious to tackle the menace yet.
There is a report that you had backtracked on your planned impeachment. Is it true?
That is a very big lie from the pit of hell. The fact that it was a particular newspaper that reported it should show Nigerians that it is a hatchet job to confuse the citizenry. It is not only the opposition Senators that are involved in the impeachment, it cut across the political parties including the House of Representatives. Only a few leaders are dissociating themselves from it and their number is very insignificant.
Do you think the current level of insecurity could affect the 2023 general election?
Insecurity is swallowing Nigeria and you are talking about election. Who will come out? It is like the people in power don’t also want election. He had promised to address insecurity and guarantee a peaceful election. He also pledged to hand over power to the winner. Let us wait and see. However, the constant harassment and attacks on Nigerians by the terrorists is a terrible threat to a peaceful election. We pray there would be election. If there was an agreement between those in government and the terrorists, let them settle it and ensure that they return to where they came from. I nevertheless doubt if the criminals who are already collecting ransom in dollars and in millions of naira, would ever agree to go back to their countries. They’ve bought a lot of ammunition. To worsen the situation, the local people who are jobless had already emulated the foreign criminals because it has become a lucrative business. They have the cover of the police so they are enjoying their new trade.
