The country must re-examine fuel subsidy – Clement Nwankwo

How would you react to the failure of the outgoing president to assent the proposed constitutional amendment?The failure of the outgoing president, Goodluck Jonathan, to assent the amended constitution, for me, goes to the incompetence of the Attorney General. For you to have an attorney general, empowered for five years, and had no sense of […]

How would you react to the failure of the outgoing president to assent the proposed constitutional amendment?
The failure of the outgoing president, Goodluck Jonathan, to assent the amended constitution, for me, goes to the incompetence of the Attorney General. For you to have an attorney general, empowered for five years, and had no sense of understanding of constitutional amendment process and his role in it, I think for me it represents how much of a failure the attorney general today is and the type of attorney general this country does not need looking forward to have.
What is your advice on the 8th National Assembly and election of their leaders?
The new National Assembly should elect leaders who will give leadership direction and who will help to deliver on the expectations of the citizens. We are happy the president-elect, Muhammadu Buhari, has made the point that he has no intention deciding for the National Assembly a leadership. We also believe that the incoming ruling party, APC, keeps away from the issue of influencing the leadership of the National Assembly. Let the leadership of National Assembly emerge from among its members, someone well respected, who the people elected by themselves in the capacity of the Senate president and speaker of the House of Representatives and deputies of both houses.
Would you say that the National Assembly is underfunded?
Part of the problem of the National Assembly is the distribution of the budget it receives. A lot of the committees are not properly funded. The in-coming government should go back into the National Assembly and get the members of the National Assembly to re-consider its sharing formula, so that the committees and structures are funded to deliver on its expectations. Problem with the National Assembly now is the lopsidedness of the sharing of budget that favours members as against the institution.
What sort of change does the civil society expect from the president-elect in terms of electoral reforms?
It expects the president-elect to work towards an enabling law that will reinforce the independence of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, the insulation of the commission from politics and political influence and we think that the laws establishing the commission, both in the constitution and Electoral Act need to be reinforced.
This will create an INEC that is not open to manipulation and influence of politics and politicians. An INEC that is able to assert an important presence in determining the conduct of elections. An INEC that is able to have a key role in ascertaining the importance of internal democracy in the parties. So it means that in going towards the next election, the president-elect and indeed the National Assembly will need to go back to the drawing board and see what laws exist, that need to be altered or need to be reinforced to give the INEC the strength and independence that it needs.
What change do you expect in combating corruption and reducing high cost of governance?
We think that if corruption is cut back, if monies are kept away from being frittered by public servants or politicians, a lot of money will be saved that will go to development. So, we think the institutions checking corruption need to be strengthened; loopholes through which public officers and politicians steal from public purse need to be tightened and we think there is need for punishment for corruption. The incentive for people to be corrupt is that they get away with it. The system needs to enforce a mechanism that brings people to account for corruption.
What are your expectations in terms of the power sector and other infrastructures?
That is a key to development; that is the key to expanding Nigeria internally and externally. That is the key to curb unemployment, insecurity and indeed all of the malaise that confront us as a country. The president-elect must build and re-build the infrastructure of the country. He needs to go back to the drawing board and see what is hindering the generation of electricity and its distribution. He needs to go to the issue of resources of the country; whether it is resources generated from VAT or income generated by government bodies and agencies or indeed from prospecting of crude oil and its export. The whole business of paying pipeline protection contract to militants is completely absurd, and yet every day, we are told that the country loses 400,000 barrels of oil to oil thieves.
 We think that the incoming government must go back to the issue. The incoming government should also examine the issue of subsidy situation. At the moment, nobody is paying N87 for petrol. This country must re-examine the whole issue of subsidy and in my view, we must scrap the scam called subsidy by first of all, proper pricing of petroleum product and secondly ensuring that whatever proper price is we must avoid the situation where the state pays its subsidy for this to happen. But more importantly, we must go back to the waste that is going on of importing finished petroleum products. I think any country that produces crude and export it is losing in a very lot of ways, not only in sending out the crude and re-importing it as refined product, but also losing the by-product of it.
This country is losing an incredible amount of money by even exporting crude at all. We should be in position where we will process and refine all of our crude and become an exporter of finished product. Not just in terms of plastic, or kerosene or diesel or aviation fuel that derived from crude oil, but also in terms of the employment it generates, for our ability to employ people to do all of this. I think we should decide that this country should stop exporting crude oil and harness the resources that processing it locally guarantees.
What about in terms of the rule of law?
The president-elect must go back to reforming the judiciary, a lot of corruption in the judiciary, a lot of abuse of judicial process, there is huge delays, there is very poor infrastructure for a proper judiciary to function, so the in-coming government must go back to a situation of total reform and rehabilitation of the judiciary.
How about security and unemployment?
It is all tied to re-building infrastructure. Of course, the new government must increase the ability of the law enforcement agencies to carry out their role; recruit more policemen, equip and fund them adequately but re-building infrastructure and creating employment would address significantly the huge chunk of problem that security poses to the country.
What is your take on the implementation of the resolutions of the National conference?
On the confab issue, the new government must address once and for all, the whole debate that arises every four years in every cycle of a new government, going back to the issue of a constitution for Nigeria. The argument since 1999 is that the constitution is not derived from the people. We must answer that question for all time, which means the confab reports will be part of the resource including the reform of the seventh assembly on the constitution to be feed into the final answer of producing a good constitution for Nigeria.