Senator Sola Adeyeye, a professor of Biology, is the Chief Whip at the Senate where he represents Osun Central Senatorial District. The former Chairman, Ifedayo Local Government Area of Osun State and ex-member, House of Representatives tells FEMI MAKINDE that Nigeria will not have been spending so much on importation of petroleum products if oil is controlled by the families whose land the natural resource is found
You were reported to have said on the floor of the Osun State House of Assembly recently that members of the National Assembly would end up in penury because of their reckless lifestyle. Why did you say that?
I did not say members of the National Assembly, I said the political class. I didn’t say legislators alone; I said many in the political class will end up in penury because of their profligacy. Were you aware of the time of ‘Operation low-profile government’ in this country? That was the time of General Muhammed Murtala and Olusegun Obasanjo. Even the head of state then used Peugeot 505 as his official car. But now, everybody must use a sport utility vehicle, whether they are in the executive, legislature or judiciary. Go to Abuja and Lagos and see the vehicles those in top echelon of political class drive. Everybody drives an SUV in a country that is poor. If you don’t believe that Nigeria is poor, divide the Gross Domestic Product by the population and compare it with those of other countries, you will realise that a budget of N8tn means nothing to about 180 million people.
But most of those driving the SUVs claim that they do so because of the bad roads and insecurity, especially the bulletproof ones. Are they not justified?
If you have your own money and you buy armoured cars, I won’t blame you. If you have your own money to buy the most expensive car in the world, it’s okay. But if you use public money to buy very expensive cars at a time that we don’t have enough money to run our universities and build infrastructure, then something is wrong. On the matter of security, is it cost-effective to have armoured vehicles? Most politicians do not have armoured vehicles; some have but the majority do not. They know that the security you have in an armoured car is limited. Will the driver of an armoured car not stop somewhere to buy petrol? Can’t it be set on fire by the mob? I don’t know if you remember what happened at the 1998 convocation at the University of Ibadan. A well-known Nigerian and an Ibadan-based businessman was at the university with his armoured car. He couldn’t escape with it when the wrath of the people came. Armoured vehicles provide some kind of security, no doubt; but better security can be provided when the problems facing the people are tackled.
Is it not correct to say that members of the executive and legislature are financially reckless because they earn so much?
Many of you (journalists} are dishonest. What you have done is that you have narrowed your coverage. Go and see the official cars that directors in the ministries, who are not politicians drive. Go and see the official cars of local government chairmen, who are not in the National Assembly. Go and see the official cars of judges in the high court, appeal court and the Supreme Court. The thing is that the society has become wasteful. I didn’t focus on politicians when I spoke but I was speaking to politicians. Some will say they are riding the SUVs because the roads are riddled with potholes; but why don’t you remove the potholes? Let all of us ride affordable cars that can allow life to be more abundant for all of us. Unfortunately, when those who are occupying political offices live an ostentatious lifestyle, the result is that everybody will want to be like that. As I said, once upon a time, our head of state used to ride Peugeot 504 and that was a four-cylinder car. Our governors used to ride Peugeot cars. But when they left office, you saw what happened during the (Shehu) Shagari regime. We moved from Peugeot 504 and not to ordinary Mercedes Benz cars but to what we called the Shagari Mercedes Benz. We overstretched Mercedes Benz Limousine and vehicles. We moved from that era to the era of SUV. I am not against people riding SUVs. If you have made the money from your own business, even if you like, you can buy 30 SUVs at once; I will clap for you. You earned the money. But what I am saying is that there must be a template whereby we go back to ‘operation low-profile lifestyle’. The truth is if people choose to ride these expensive cars, if they leave office, can they afford them? When you retire as a senator, Rep, governor, judge and others and the government money is no longer available to buy them, what brand of vehicle will you buy? The truth is that most of us will go back to Toyota Corolla or Toyota Camry.
But can’t this problem be solved if political offices are made less attractive?
I don’t think so. This is because the process of getting elected is extremely expensive. Quite frankly, it is not only in Nigeria, even getting elected is extremely expensive in the USA as well. But most of those who go into politics in the USA do so because they are enormously wealthy. They don’t need public funds; or because they have friends who contributed enormously to execute their political goal. In Nigeria, we don’t have this. Candidates must put their money down and sometimes borrow money. And when they get into office, they must find a way of recouping the money. That is where the problem lies. As a general principle of running a government, we must be less prodigal, less ostentatious in our lifestyle. If the system says everybody should get a Mercedes Benz car, everybody will get it, including the man who thinks it is wrong. I have an SUV because that is what the Senate offers every senator to ride. But I am saying we should go back to the era of low-profile lifestyle and all of us should ride Toyota Corolla; not just the politicians, the permanent secretaries, editors of newspapers, judges and all of us.
Will you blame the rise in crimes on the ostentatious lifestyle of the political class and others?
es, of course! This is because I want to ride a big car like you and build mansions like you. That is the nature of man. We want to be like those we consider successful. And if I don’t have a legitimate means of attaining this, I either accept my destiny or like some people do, take to stealing or crime. Criminals are in the minority in every society but they cause enough havoc for the rest of the society. We must do everything to reduce the number of criminals. One of the things you must do is to not make them to want to use illegitimate mean to get things which are difficult to get by legitimate means.
Will restructuring address the problems the nation is facing including corruption?
It might help. I believe in restructuring. I believe that the federalism we have right now is too warped and it actually makes a mockery of it. For example, to register a business that will only function in my village, I have to go to Abuja. Why can’t I register the business in my own state if its operation is restricted to the immediate environment? What we need is to comply with the standards of safety, environment and quality. No matter where you are in Nigeria, if those ones are established, why do you need to go to Abuja to register a company and spend about N400,000? If you want to open an amala joint, you either don’t register it like an average buka person does or if you register it, the process takes you between N300,000 and N400,000. It is ridiculous.
I believe that restructuring will give us some solutions but we will deceive ourselves if we think that is the only solution. What will happen is, instead of the corruption from Abuja, it will now start from governor’s offices. Don’t we know that even without Abuja, some of the states are running ‘corruptocrazy?’ That is government of the corrupt by the corrupt and for the corrupt. I believe there will be local responsiveness and accountability. But right now, how does the average person assuage their grievances when offices are being abused either at the centre or at the state? We have no guarantee that those who will now run the states will be less prodigal. What we are looking for is that some centres of excellence that other states can copy. For example, how many states will be viable if there is no federation account? The federation account, quite frankly, is the way of robbing Peter to pay Paul. When most southerners talk about this thing, we talk as if it is the North that is benefiting from this system. So, let southerners ask themselves, how many southern states will be viable if there was no federation account? Maybe Lagos State and some oil producing states. All other ones, to a large extent, depend on the federation account. Let us tell ourselves the truth. I don’t believe the Federal Government, the states or the local governments should control the oil. This oil is found on land which belongs to some families. If government does not control the kola nuts, groundnuts and cocoa grown on my family land, why should they control the oil on another people’s land? Let these families pay taxes to their local governments, the states and the Federal Government. When you do so, these families will run their resources very efficiently. Where they don’t have the abilities, they will sell to those who have the abilities and they will pay appropriate taxes to the local governments, state governments and Federal Government. I have taken it to the extreme. There are very few countries in the world where oil revenues are given to the owners of the land because of what is called the Law of Eminent Domains. Nigeria is the sixth largest exporter of crude oil and the only OPEC country importing fuel. No other OPEC country imports fuel. If oil revenues are being managed by families, by now, there will be better refineries all over Nigeria. This is because families in Akwa Ibom or other oil producing states will be running them very well by now. They will get into some kind of competition which will benefit all of us by now. We will not be spending our hard-earned currency to import petrol as we are doing right now.
How do you think the incessant crisis between ASUU and Federal Government and the resultant disruption of academic calendar can be resolved?
Honestly, I don’t know. I used to be a member of the Education Committee in the Senate. We spent enormous hours trying to minimise this crisis. In the budget that has been proposed right now, it projects that we are going to be producing 2.3 million barrels of oil per day. At the end of the day, if we produce less than that, we will be in deficit. If oil prices go down again, it means we have more deficit. If we are producing more and there is international conspiracy against Nigeria not to buy our oil, it means we will have crisis. We know that the buyer nations sometimes say they will not buy from a particular nation. Sometimes ago, they said they would not buy from Iran; they also said they would not buy from Iraq. If that happens and the price of crude oil rises and they didn’t buy from us, what will happen? Petrol is not what we can drink. The point I am making is that the issue of revenue that is not under our exclusive control presents a problem where government does not have the means to do everything it wants to do. Our education sector is in need, no doubt. But shall we deceive ourselves that there are no serious needs in our transportation, security, health, power and other sectors? All these needs crying for attention require money. The demands of ASUU are legitimate, but where are the means to address them? There is no government in Nigeria that can retrench workers; there will be serious security implications. No government will slash income as a means of reducing cost. That is why I am shouting about the profligacy. For you to ask the people to tighten their belts, they must see that the elite, especially the political elite too, are tightening their belts. If we can drastically reduce the cost of governance, ASUU and others will be willing to make sacrifices.
Do you believe the 2019 election will be credible with the situation of things in the country?
I believe so because the stakes are high and everybody knows it is too late to try any hanky-panky. The kind of accreditation we have today is better than what we ever had. The process of voting is better. There might be skirmishes and threats of violence in a few places but by and large, the election will be free. I am confident about that.
