Nobody can accuse Mr. President of poor performance- Tejuoso

Senator Olanrewaju Tejuoso is the All Progressives Congress senator representing Ogun Central senatorial district. In this interview with CHRIS EMETOH, Tejuoso says he is not against the proposed cut in the pay of national assembly members only if it will be remitted to the lawmaker’s constituency. He also submitted that President Muhammadu Buhari is setting a good foundation that will discourage corruption especially when the new cabinet is formed, adding that his 100 days is a success. Excerpts:

How did you manage the crisis period in the Senate?

I don’t like to sound like a broken record. It has been established generally that there is what we call party supremacy and we all came to the senate through a vehicle which is the party, and of course it is just normal that we should respect the pathway through which we came. So party supremacy is what is supreme and whatever the party says is what we should do. But of course above the party Nigeria is most supreme and after listening to your party and if we find out that we are asked to do what we have to do and Nigeria will be at stake I believe that at that stage one has to consult God for divine intervention and take a position so that Nigeria will progress.

One of the principal actors in the crisis, Senator Lawal Mohammed has remained mum making it sound like the storm is over even when we know it is not yet over?

I don’t want to speak for Senator Lawal I believe if he has something to contribute he will contribute, so I believe it is his nature. He is not the only one who has not been contributing and I will not say he has not been contributing because I know he contributes, you are not always there when we meet so I don’t know why you said he doesn’t contribute, or well maybe he hasn’t seen any reason to contribute yet. But at best he is a member of the senate.

What is the justification of APC’s drive to probe the immediate past administration?

I personally believe that if one should make any promise, one should strive to keep to it. The APC as a party whilst campaigning, corruption was a key point of the campaign and how they will stamp out corruption in Nigeria. At least we all agree there’s corruption in this country and there is this saying that ‘if we don’t kill corruption in this country corruption will kill Nigeria’. So I believe corruption and anti- corruption process must be a major aspect of this government. However, that should not be the only thing we will talk about but we all agree that corruption is what is keeping Nigeria down. So I believe the government of the day is not just talking about anti-corruption, many other things are happening but it is because corruption has allowed our economy to get so bad and without a good economy there is no way we can attend to all other aspects. So this is why you can expect corruption to be the major talk of the town.

What specific Bills do you intend to sponsor?

We keep talking about sponsoring Bills, but looking back at the Assemblies that have passed I realized that there were so many Bills that were passed and I ask myself what is the problem. The problem today is not the issue of introducing new Bills; the main problem is the problem of oversight function in the system. So, I believe more than introducing new bills, how we will ensure that we perfect the oversight functions should be paramount. So if any Bill should be uppermost on my mind today, it is the bill that will ensure that any ministry or parastatal that fails in its responsibility of implementing the budget or project and the senator in-charge of that oversight did not point it out at the right time, that senator must not qualify to be called ‘ranking’ in the next Assembly, or there must be something apt for senators to do their oversight functions because if for example we are talking about power today, if the senators in-charge of power have been doing their oversight properly, there wouldn’t have been any need to say we are probing something 10 years behind or 20 years back. What happened at the Assembly that time, there was no uproar, no noise. Assuming the oversight was done properly then, there won’t be the issue of probing the sector 10 years or 15 years back.

What is your stand on the directive for a Single Treasury Account (STA), do you think it is the best way to fight corruption?

I think that having a Single Treasury Account is more of reducing confusion in the accounting system of the federation and also reducing the chances of corruption. If you give one account to a secondary school student he can manage it more than twenty accounts, and one account can take what twenty accounts can take, so why do you want to have multiple accounts when one can do the work. Again, with one account we can actually have a close monitoring of the countries’ revenue and reduce unnecessary distribution of incomes in about twenty different accounts. I believe it is the issue of proper management, so that at the end we will all know that it is that one single account that is servicing the nation, so it is a good thing.

What tactics will you adopt to ensure that resolutions passed by the senate are taken serious by the ministries and agencies?

These resolutions that come out from the senate are resolutions that even the executive should be happy that we are churning out such resolutions. The main thing that will make it work is the unity of purpose between the executive and the legislature. If there is cooperation and we all know that we are serving the same purpose, we all know that it is all for the progress of Nigeria, why would the senate say that NEC is doing something that is against the will of the people and the executive would hesitate to implement whatever suggestion that is given by the senate. So it boils down to truthfulness and honesty. So with that cooperation I don’t think there will be any problem implementing resolutions.

What is your take on the inability of APC to adopt a Chief Whip for the senate two months after inauguration?

The South West Senate Caucus has already appointed a Chief Whip, but of course you know in Nigeria today the party supremacy is most respected in the South West. So we are leaving it to our leaders in the South West to give their final approval and take a decision on what we have proposed.

The president will soon be celebrating his 100 days in office what are the areas you think needs to be touched before then?

The issue of this administration taking off without a full cabinet has been over flogged, but the body language of the President is giving some improvement to the way we are running things in Nigeria, and I believe he is setting the foundation so that the ministers when they finally come in will be able to do business not the way it has been done in the past. Because we can all see that in the last few days of the 100 days we have seen changes in Nigeria. They say Mr. President is going very slowly, but I will say it is not whether he is going slowly or not, it is the result that counts. I believe we are seeing some improvement in some areas and people are now so cautious they are just not behaving as if there is no law in the land, and everybody is trying to do things according to how decent societies behave. I believe there is light at the end of the tunnel.

On the reduction in the lawmakers’ salaries and allowances, what is the situation?

The only thing I will say is what I tell my constituents before we became senators.   They were telling us that national assembly members are collecting a lot of money, and so I kept telling them that if I get there the money you say they collect is going to be your money.

This is because before we became senators, I used to give them N5000 each, every month. (This is an ATM card which I use for about 1000 people every month, what Mr. President said he would be giving as social security).

So if before we came to the national assembly I was already giving out this amount about N5000000 a month, then whatever we get from the senate will be like peanut.

How do you do it with the ATM card?

This is my ATM card, you register them with a bank and issue directive for payment every month. And of course it is not just about giving them money, anyone with good business I will guarantee for the banks to give them loan and they continue with their business. So of course it is not about giving out fish all the time, you also teach them to fish. But like I said, before I came to the senate I was giving them N5000 each month, so I told them that now it means they will be getting N10000 when I get  there.

What I am trying to say is that the more they reduce the money, the more they are reducing what the people are getting. It is not the senators’ money that they are reducing but the peoples’ money.

Are you against the reduction given that it will affect your constituents?

No I am not against the reduction but that money they reduce I will suggest that the gain should be remitted to every individual senator’s constituents. I mean for instance, if they reduce money from a senator from Akwa-Ibom State, that difference should be remitted to that particular senator’s constituency, but unfortunately I tell you that the money will not get to them.

It is just like when they said they were reducing money from subsidy to touch the lives of Nigerians; and the people never saw the money. Instead some people somewhere sat on it and embezzled it. So if you are reducing this money let it get to the people.