National assembly
member representing Abia North/South federal constituency, Ossy Prestige
believes that time is ripe for people to patronise made in Nigeria goods. In
this
interview, he spoke on various issues including the present economic
recession in the country and the need for the executive arm to reduce the cost
of governance.
What will you say
about the House of Representatives?
I wish it is
something you can say “so far, so better”, if there was anything like that. Why
I said so is because all my three core areas as a legislature, I think I will
say that I have done very well. In the aspect of law making by raising motion,
presenting bills to the House, I have at the moment had about 10 motions so far
within one year and I am about to pass
six bills which first reading had been passed and it remained the second
reading. Another aspect of my job which has to do with oversight, most of the
times, there is no oversight function I undertook that will not raise issues
and questions that will be for the benefit of this country. So indeed, in the
areas of lawmaking and oversight function, I will say yes that I have done very
well.
And then, on the
third one is representation which has to do with what goes to your people. You
will agree with me on July 23, when I marked my one year in office as a
lawmaker, I empowered some of my constituents. Before the end of the year, I am
going to commission my constituency office which will house every department
that has to do with representation to Aba people. I have also given scholarship
to over 25 natives of Aba North and Aba South. I have sunk about eight
boreholes within this one year. I equally have bought about six transformers
and also energized them. In the area of roads reconstruction, because I come
from a place which has serious roads problem, I decided to undertake that
aspect which is not my duty, rather the duty of the executive arm of
government. I bought a grader and at the last count, we had graded about 56
roads within the dry season of last year. I have equally paid hospital bills
for over 15 patients who are resident in the city.
What are you doing to draw the attention of
government to the deplorable condition of federal roads in Aba?
If you recall on
August 23 last year, I moved a motion on the floor of the House where I put
across the number of federal roads in my constituency that are very bad. The
motion was unanimously adopted and a resolution passed that the Federal
Government should do something about the roads. One of the roads, the Aba/Ikot
Ekpene road which is in the 2016 budget is slated for dualization. As a law
maker, my duty is to raise the issue before the Federal Government and by the
special grace of God make sure it is in the 2016 budget which is there now but
the only one that is not there is the Aba/Owerri and Aba/Port Harcourt roads
which I believe will be in the 2017 budget despite any palliatives measures the
state government might be coming up with.
What led to your
recent motion calling on the Federal Government to patronize Aba products
especially in the area of military wears?
If you had listened
to me during my debate on the floor of the House, I tried to itemize the amount
of money the military had been spending on their wears ranging from boots,
belt, berret and what have you which cost over $14m and that was what we
budgeted for them in 2016 and last year, they had about $8.4m. So, if you bring
a quarter of that amount to Aba, imagine what will be the multiplier effect
where we have about 15,000 that produce 80,000 shoes manually every week. We
will conserve that foreign exchange because now, we are talking about
diversification. So now, what should be paramount to every good and loving
Nigerian is to look for how to stop depleting the foreign reserve and how to do
that with this over $14m. If you remove it from the foreign reserve, you know
that the thing will nosedive. Why should we continue to patronize foreign shoes
and garment companies overseas when we have them here?
Sometime in
February, there was this made in Aba trade fair that was organized by Senator
Enyinnaya Abaribe where military boots and belts produced in Aba were given to
the Army, Navy and even to the Nigeria Customs and Immigration Services, they
took them and were happy. If you go where they do it, you will see they have
almost everything that you need, so what is the essence of importing these
things from outside the country? All the armed forces have appropriated budgets
for boots and belts for instance and put part of that money into Aba, I want to
bet you that the IGR that will come from this city alone will be enough to pay
at least teachers salary. I did a thorough research on this and came out that
if this one alone is done in a year, we will save about $14m for this country.
Having said, I am happy that the army have placed order for 50, 000 made-in Aba
boots and I implore other establishments to follow suit.
How do you think
that we are going to reduce cost of governance in the face of this economic
recession?
The cost of
governance is very high; it calls for real sacrifice. Let’s just be very frank,
we will believe that we are not helping matters, there are so many wastes in
governance. For instance, some months ago, the former governor of Abia state,
Chief Orji Uzor Kalu said that for every governor to come to Abuja, he takes
N30m to N35m as allowance and they almost come to Abuja every week, so check it
times four which is N120m to N140m, then how much does it take to fly business
class. Some governors go to Abuja with a security rating of over 10; why?
Again, there is this thing they call security vote and we have argued that
security vote should be retired. These are moneies kept with the president or
state governors in the case if there were any emergencies to avoid bottlenecks
that are part of government system operatives. In order words, instead of
waiting for appropriation from the National assembly or state assemblies, you
have that for emergency. But the truth remains that these moneies are not
really accounted for. Emergencies will happen in the states, yet those moneies
will not be used for that purpose; it has now become part of the governors’
personal money which they first take even before thinking of paying salary. For
us in the National assembly, yes, there are also one or two areas where we need
to reduce cost. I will also advise that the governors should reduce their
fleets. Just imagine one man moving with over 10 cars at the same time, not
that those cars are filled up with persons, rather some cars run empty and that
is wastage.
As a member of
police and Army committee, do you support the idea of FG dialoguing with the
Niger Delta Militants?
I believe strongly
that the Federal Government should dialogue with the Niger Delta militants to
end the crisis in the area. If not for any other thing, the huge amount
government is spending in keeping the military in the area can as well be
mobilized for other things if there is peace. So, my suggestion to the Federal
Government is that they should look at, at least the cost of keeping the
military in that zone and find out sincerely that they are spending fortunes of
the Nigerian money to keep those military, so the best thing is to sit down and
dialogue for us to still keep our quota of oil production which is 2.4barrels
per day and we will make more money than this slightly above 1barrel per day. I
think it is counter-productive, I intend to write a proposal to the Federal
Government to undertake a visit sincerely to the area and I am sure by the time
they will go back to Abuja, nobody will ever suggest to the Federal Government
to send one soldier to the Niger Delta.
You talked about dialogue as the panacea to
the Niger Delta crisis, what is the solution to the agitation for Biafra?
Biafra, far from
what the president kept saying that it was dead, but Biafra is not dead. So far
as the youth of the South East and beyond keep feeling that what belong to them
were being taken and little or nothing gets to them, so far the agitation will
continue. By the way I am a strong believer in physical federalism and resource
control. This nation, let’s tell ourselves the truth, we cannot make any
headway with the present way the country is because there is no where in the
world where this kind of system is practised because it creates room for
laziness and for those who don’t have business in government to be calling the
shots in government. We say we are operating federal system of government but
we are not because there is no federal system of government in the world where
every revenue/ resource goes to the center and the center will decide what will
go to the states. It is wrong and that is part of what is causing all these
agitations.
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