Senate Deputy Minority Whip, Senator Abu Ibrahim in this interview with OKECHUKWU JOMBO, in Abuja appraised the upper legislative chambers having been there since 1999 and summed up that they are better off now than before. Excerpts:
You have been in the Senate since 1999 and some of us are beginning to think that the Senate of yesterday is not the same with Senate today, what actually is your impression of today’s Senate?
You are asking me to give you impression of myself. I am in the Senate, am I not? Well, honestly I do not know, I was in the Senate 1992 and 1993 but that was not a Senate because it did not have full powers and so all my operations are in this Senate from 1999 till date. The other one was an incomplete Senate.
Well, to me senate is a very good institution, two now we are having a little bite of mixture of younger ones and elderly ones like us, three we have a mixture of those who were governors and those who have come straight to the senate. So obviously, it is made up of those who know Nigeria very and so my senate experience is within this particular period of civilian dispensation.
There are insinuations in some quarters that the Senate led by Sen. David Mark is like a captured Senate because of lack of aggressiveness on the part of senators in opposition parties. What do ascribe to this?
Well, I do not know what you call aggressiveness in the previous Senate. Honestly, I do not understand what you mean by aggressiveness. David Mark has been somebody who has been part of the government in power, an experienced person. I think he thinks it is his duty to help this administration, which is why he will not be as combative as people might push him to be. But I know when we sit in private during our leadership meeting which is critical people will never think that it is the same David Mark that speaks the way he does, looking at things objectively devoid of party affiliation. Some of these attributes he does not bring at the floor of the senate because of you people in the Press. So I think he is a very cheerful person but at the same time he doesn’t refuse anybody when it comes to giving him advice privately and not at public podium. However sometimes he makes very critical decisions more so when it comes to security issues. As a solider, he gives his frank advice on security matters.
As one of the leaders of the minority in the Senate why is it that the opposition appears to compromise virtually on all the issues on the floor of the Senate?
I need to explain this; you see we are not practicing true parliamentary system. In parliamentary you have opposition in one side and the government in power in one side. The Prime Minister on the other side but here since the president is here, he is an institution by himself but here we mix up as legislators. In the Parliamentary system, the Prime Minister sits with the ruling party and presides over the parliament while the opposition sits on one side.
Two days ago, your colleagues in the senate painted a graphic picture of the security situation in the North-East where thousands of lives are lost on daily basis even as the parts of the zone is being annexed and taken over by Boko Haram. What is the position of the opposition on the situation in the North-East?
Well, first let me understand you. You want opposition to do opposition on what? To engage in fighting against the government? You see, I participated in the meeting of the leadership last Monday night before the resumption of the senate plenary on Tuesday on what to do about the security situation in country. We have being calling service chiefs all the time without achieving any result. So our suggestion was let’s go and confront headlong the growing insecurity in these areas with President Goodluck Jonathan and find out what is the problem. As a result of this, we went with the motion which every senator signed the motion and with that the senate empowered us to meet with the President on to the tackle the security challenges with the seriousness it deserves. In the course of the deliberations, several issues came up and even some misunderstanding arose. We were to meet with the Service Chiefs with the President and Senators from that area so that we would have frank discussions. The questions was can we fight Boko Haram in the areas they have taken away or shall we embark on getting mercenaries or are we going to train the JTF on how to tackle the insurgency. If you look back all those who fought civil war large percent of them are from Benue state and even Second World War are from North Central, with this kind of thing it doesn’t make any difference whoever fights but you see this war is beyond partisan politics. It is an issue of fighting an enemy, which has nothing to do with All Progressive Congress, APC, or Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, or any other party but requires all hands on the deck. So we were given mandate to go and meet with the President but beside the mandate were given some people called for total war and some people were nursing the idea of extending the tenure of this government. Shortly after our plenary, some people called my from our party asking how did we agree to extend the life of this administration. Nobody is talking of the extension of the life of this government, even when somebody talk about total war, total war means that there are certain conventional things that we must not do when there is need to crush insurrection. It is completely different from fight another country. If you are going to war there, certain things that you are authorised under the international convention to do but if it were local issue you cannot do such a thing. So obviously the most important thing here is that we are still trying to discover what are the problems and that is why this approach by National Assembly with the Senate President who is responsible for sitting together telling us the truth on how to tackle the problem and come back to the senate. And even this meeting we are sitting together with the House of Representatives. So to me, it is a comprehensive representation to meet with Mr President but normally we as opposition, we have a critical role to play there because we have to ask questions as why ex-Governor Sheriff should be allowed to enjoy his freedom when there indications that he was a promoter of Boko Haram under his administration. All these things definitely will come up in that discussion. What I am trying to say is that it has not reached that stage to showing indifference because our main request that time was authority to go and find out facts. The Chief of Army Staff may give us reasons why army are running away, the president may tell us that he has constraint of budget or whatever and we know what we approved in the last budget or some constraint that he knows as President of Nigeria. But as I said people start saying if you go, this what you should ask and the advice that was given by our colleagues are taken as if we have reached a conclusion. There is no conclusion.
In your honest estimation looking at the level of insecurity in the North-East in particular and the country in general do you think the 2015 elections would hold and if it does, do you expect elections to take place in the North-East?
Where on this planet is the most violent country now? I will give you two: Iraq and Afghanistan. Elections were held two three months ago in those places. Afghanistan never said it will not hold election in its country because of the violence there and INEC did not say it would not hold elections. Therefore, to me David Mark said it but look the issue of election is not on the table now just like the Senate president said, it is not the issue of election that we are talking about now. We cannot say we are not going to hold election there because we have seen countries that are worse in insecurity but they held elections but we even hoped that with the pressure being mounted on the security forces now hopefully before the election date proper all these insurgencies will end. But if we allow things to linger that is where the issue of whether to hold election or not will come up but if say by November when we are coming for another edition of extension of emergency rule. We hope that by then the issue of insurgency will have finished. When we come together, we hope to bring solutions.
It has been noticed that some governors are using the Senate as a retirement home which is why virtually all state governors serving out their tenure are gunning to the senate in 2015. How do you perceive this trend?
Honestly, I do not know. First, that shows us that the Senate has become a retirement centre for Ex-governors. I think if the governors will adjust from executive style of governance to parliamentary system of government where nobody’s is there waiting for you then we have no problem. They have the competence and administrative know how to work in the Senate. My only fear is that will they afford to give the time and hard work required work in the senate.
Do you foresee a situation where David Mark would be returned as President of the Senate if he gets his people’s mandate or do you believe the APC would be the majority in 2015?
I want to assure you that APC will take over Senate leadership in 2015. APC will win 2015 elections and there after form the next Senate leadership.