'NIGERIA NOT RIPE FOR STATE POLICE'

By NBF News

A  former chairman of the Senate Appropriation Committee, Senator Iyiola Omisore, in this interview with WINIFRED OGBEBO, decries the lack of appropriate laws to regulate the Public Private Partnership (PPP) in the country, x-rays the controversy over budget implementation and points out how state police might be equivalent to the legalization of thuggery.

You seemed to have dropped out of sight after your tenure at the last Senate. What happened?

I didn't drop out of sight. I have been in government since. I am in politics but I'm an intellectual as well. So I tried to pursue human capital development on one side and it has to be one by one. I must lead by example; I must show leadership by example by developing the knowledge, imparting the knowledge and acquiring knowledge. So I have been in and out of the country.

Why are you pursuing a PhD in Public Private Partnership (PPP) considering your oversight functions when you were a senator as the chairman of appropriation committee in the Senate?

My experience in the senate shows that infrastructure is the key and funding is not in line with our demand. So, what we call private sector participation in infrastructure and all advanced countries go to where they are private sector-driven; the public will provide their own structure, the private sector will provide their own resources and you run it like a good business, then you have value for your money. That is the crux of what I am doing and that is also what spurred me to go into that area.

Looking at Lagos-Ibadan expressway where a firm won the bid to fix the popular expressway under the PPP arrangement, the firm is unable to fix it as it is still having some challenges. But with your knowledge of PPP arrangement, what would you advise the federal government to do in this regard?

That is one of the reasons why I insist that there is need for adequate regulatory framework to guide the concept of the PPP in the country. There is no agency, there is no expert; I am the only expert in PPP in Nigeria today. So, I want to draw a framework for them. That was done hurriedly. There are no clearly defined timelines between the government, the contractor/finance, and the users. There is not much arrangement. We are going to start from procurement, the standard, TOR of the standard and the terms of the standard. Then everybody will now work within the confines of what it ought to do. There won't be issues of abandonment, crisis or disagreement. All those things will be taken care of. PPP has a lot of issues at stake. But the main issue is the procurement side so that you don't create more problems for the road user. If all factors are put together in a correct framework, I am sure there won't be any of these crises.

But some of your colleagues in the engineering sector have alleged that the federal government prefers to use foreign firms as against our own indigenous engineers. Being an engineer yourself, what do you think is the way forward to address this discrimination?

I am a member of the Council of Registration Engineers of Nigeria (COREN). I have been saying this for a while. I think it's a hangover from the military regime. Now that we are making this impact, many Nigerians have to be involved and in the budget as well. All over the world where you have local experts, when you are bringing foreign engineers, you will bring in local experts who will now do the domestication and local experience to merge with our own specialist area.

We read that the South-West has endorsed true federalism and state police. Are you in support of the stance?

It's just use of language. Federalism is already endorsed in the Nigerian constitution so what are they talking about? There is nothing to endorse about it. It's just tautology and waste of time.

But what is your take on state police?
I am totally against state police. The country is not mature for it. Even now, we have a situation whereby state governors are using thugs. Now, they are using thugs, using government money to train them. That means you want to legalize thuggery locally. We have desperate politicians who want to hang onto power at all costs because they are jobless. Now, if you want to give them license for state police that means you want to break this country. Now, they are using thugs preparing for election. About six years ago, they decided to send police inspectors and above to their local areas, they messed up. They started taking sides. That is a small example. How much more when you put in the police team? It's a dangerous precedence for this country. In advance countries, they are far above us. Former President Bush's brother was the governor of California, yet they are from Houston. Those people have gone beyond primordial sentiments. Here, they are desperate. Most of our politicians are jobless. They want to hang onto power at all cost. I think state police is an anomaly because it's going to break this country. They will use it to frame their enemies.

On the issue of good governance, people often claim that from 1999, we've been in the same direction for 11 years. As one of the politicians, are you satisfied with what has been happening in the country?

In 1999, there was this desperation to change government from military to civilian. That time, anything went. Now, after 10 years, we sit back and reassess ourselves and do the change. It's a gradual process. Nigerians are quick to make references to the United States and the United Kingdom; these are 400, 500 years democracies. The underground in the UK was done in 14th, 15th century. So it's far from now. America's democracy dates back as far as 1789 during the time of George Washington. So, it's difficult at this time for one to compare us with these people. But I am sure that by the grace of God, the way things are going, definitely, we will surely get to where we are going.

Looking back at your days in the National Assembly, there was also controversy generated over budget implementation. With the benefit of hindsight, what is the best way to avoid the rancour between the executive and the National Assembly?

The issue is that it is still the same thing of changing from military to democracy. The only difference between the military regime and democracy is the National Assembly and the main thing they do is appropriation and budgeting. This is the sole work of the National Assembly. But in Nigeria, they are used to doing it alone. So, it's a habit they don't want to relinquish. But the process is very gradual. But once we are able to get ourselves together and see that we come together, it will be difficult for them to relinquish their interest. But the budget issue is solely a National Assembly affair but because of the overhang of the military regime where they were doing everything for themselves, they have forgotten that there is an arm that checkmates them and it is in the constitution. So that overhang is where we have to settle ourselves. For those years, we had a long time. In 1979 and 1983, during Shehu Shagari's time, we had a case where the budget was passed in September of that year, so it's not a new thing.