Hon Saheed Akinade Fijabi is a federal Lawmaker representing Ibadan North West/South West Federal Constituency at the National Assembly, he was a guest on the breakfast talk of the Southwest Group of Online Publishers SWEGOP in Ibadan Oyo state where he spoke about his achievements as lawmaker, the issue between him and minister of communication, Barrister Adebayo Shittu and others excerpts.
You are the chairman of the House Committee on Communications, what have you brought to the South West and to your constituency?
If I have had the opportunity of being the Speaker or Deputy Speaker, I would have done more. If you go to Osun now, you will the projects Lasun has been able to facilitate to his constituency. That is the reason why we keep telling our leaders in the party that as legislators, it is better to give us chance to repeat the class as many times as possible. It is very important. What I was able to do in my first term, you can’t compare it to what I have been able to do in the last two years. I know in the last two years, I have been able to facilitate projects very close to like a billion Naira to Oyo State. If you go to the Ring Road Hospital and Adeoyo Hospital, there are some maternity wards renovated by MTN, that is through facilitation, just down the road here in the College of Hygiene, Eleyele, there is one school, there is a project worth about N 300 million. And if you go to UCH, which is not even in my constituency, just to show you that what I think about is how to develop Oyo State and not just my constituency alone. Just go to UCH and see, it is there. The problem about politicians, especially the past politicians, which we should correct is that they have turned our rights into privileges. The moment they try and dig a borehole in an area, they will go to Gbagi Market, buy Ankara and people will be dancing round and be commissioning. When I was growing up in Orogun, if you opened our taps then, water was running. We should be moving forward not backwards. I didn’t even understand what borehole meant then. It is your right to walk on good roads, to attend good schools, to have access to good health care; it is your right not privilege. Politicians, I am also part of them anyway, we have turned it into privileges. I was somewhere yesterday, they were saying “won ma npariwoninuoseluni” (you have to make noise in politics). I said leave it. What I believe is that any project done, so far it is useful and people are benefitting from it, let us move on to another one. We have a lot of people who would do a project of N 10 and use N 100 to make noise about it. Why don’t you use the resources you are spending to embark on another one.And no matter the amount of noise you make, it doesn’t even mean people will vote you in in the next election. In my constituency, we have done over 40 boreholes but it is still not right in this century to be digging borehole everywhere, it is not right. I told you, back in the 70s, water was running in Orogun. So what has happened? That is the reason people think I am not making noise about what I am doing.
The budget of 2016 generated so much controversy and currently there is hardly any hitch on the budget. When is the National Assembly likely to pass the budget and what significant improvement should people expect from your committee in this year’s budget?
What an average Nigerian wants from the communication industry is to be able to make a call, no drop call. Send a message; you don’t want any unsolicited text messages, no stupid caller ring tones, effective data use. Since the inception of this committee, we have been working on that. As journalists, you know that we have engaged all these telcos, and we have told them what we expect of them, in conjunction with NCC which is their watchdog. But what is important is that we should also understand that this is a nation in which nothing is equal. As we are sitting here, if we are using electricity from the grid, it can go off anytime. They too face it and their equipment is being vandalized. Most of their base stations are being vandalized. Though they should be able to safeguard their infrastructure. We need to understand that as Chairman of this committee, I am suffering the same fate as you and I want you to know that the way you walk on the road, buy your credit from the road, is the same way I do. Most of the people don’t know what NCC was before but with the help of this committee and now there is what we call customer rights, which was launched recently. We have told NCC to let people know their rights when it comes to telephone services. But the most important thing is the energy sector because it cuts across almost all the other sectors. If we get it right, our businesses will definitely be right. But I want to assure you that my committee is working to ensure that things are in place. There has been some amendments to the NCC Act again especially concerning unsolicited messages, calls, it has passed the second reading. And the 2016 budget, the reason why you will not see such now is probably that we have the right mind. The Chairman of the Appropriation Committee then, Jibrin, he probably didn’t understand what he was doing or he was just actually playing to the gallery
Can you shed some light on the friction that happened between you and the Minister for Communications?
I don’t think there is any issue between me and the Honourable Minister for Communications. He is a father, he is from Oyo, he is a member of our party but it is going to be a shame when you and I come from the same state and you don’t understand what is expected of you and you are not even ready to listen or learn from others. That is a shame but there is no friction.
Are you trying to say the Honourable Minister should learn from others who are better experienced? Or is it because he wants to be Governor and you are also eyeing the same position?
I have never sat with anybody to say I want to become Governor. At least at this point of my political career.If they ask me to become Governor, I think I am fit to become Governor but I haven’t sat with anybody to discuss that. He as Minister for Communications has said that he wants to be Governor. As you are sitting down here, if CNN tells you to come and become Editor-in-Chief, what would you say? You are even more than qualified so if they call me tomorrow, I have everything that can make me to be a governor of the state but I have not said I want to be. This one I am doing, I am just praying to God to let me finish in god health and come out shinning. It is very important to me. I don’t understand our democracy. We are in 2017. So now, everybody will stop working and concentrate on politics. Even on his own side, there is a lot of distraction because he wants to be Governor. The things he is supposed to do in the ministry, he leaves them and puts his concentration on being the governor of this state. And if you want to be the governor, when you live in a glass house, you don’t throw stones.
Your position now is that the Honourable Minister is distracted.
Obviously he is distracted. We are not even up to two years in this dispensation and somebody is saying he wants to be governor. If you are capable of what you are doing, you might still campaign but if you don’t know it, you don’t know it. That is a fact and if you want to learn, you can learn from others. We have four committees in the National Assembly that he is responsible to. We have the House Committees on Telecommunications, the House Committee on ICT, headed by HonourableOnao and we have those two Committees in the Senate, one headed by Senator Nnaji and the other by Senator Buhari. Fortunately, three of us are from Oyo. Two Chairmen in both houses and one minister; I think by now Oyo should be the home of communication. I understand what Senator Buhari has done, I understand what Honourable Fijabi has done. People believe more in the executive arm of government because they are the ones that drive the policies. He has the right in the budget to facilitate projects to his town. But all he comes up with now is ehn because Fijabi wants to be Governor, ehn Buhari wants to be Governor. I now said if Fijabi wants to be Governor and Buhari wants to be Governor, does Nnaji too want to be Governor in Oyo State? Will Onao from Nasarawa also be Governor in Oyo State? There was a time they did a page in Leadership that I am fighting a proxy war on behalf of Governor Ajimobi, obviously I can, yes; because he is my leader. And I am not going to allow anybody to rubbish someone I call my leader because I have pledged my loyalty to him. The Honourable Minister came out recently to say Ajimobi is a dictator. But let me say this, if as a Minister, you went for confirmation on the floor of the Senate, and they asked you about Boko Haram and you said you don’t want to die. What about these recruits? These corporals, the sergeants, the colonels that died for the nation where the patriotism in someone is we call our minister? He said he is a stakeholder in the state and Ajimobi is not calling him. I don’t expect Ajimobi to call him. On this same floor, he said he does not believe in the primary that produced Ajimobi, so obviously, he does not believe in Ajimobi. And after that, Ajimobi, being the leader, had the power to stop him from being a Minister but he did not. If just two Senators from our state said no, that would have been the end. But he did not, After that he organized a reception for him at Kakanfo. What I am saying is that if three of us sit down and say this is what we want for Oyo State in terms of communication, we will get it, with his cooperation. If as Honourable Minister of Nigeria, the most populated black nation in the world, I was on a programm, he was in Umrah, praying for himself, Oyo, and the country as a whole, he called in and tried to defend himself. To me a leader should be like a garbage dump. For him to now call and say people on that radio are minors, they are riff raffs, on a live programme, what type of Minister is that? Well, lets leave that. All I am saying is if the Honourable Minister is ready to work with us to drive the development in the state, we are more than ready.
Specifically, what message do you have for him?
He is in his 60s, so the age difference between us would be like 20 years; he is old enough to be my dad and as a well brought up Yoruba man, I owe him that respect and I have always given it to him. But when it comes to the job, I am not the one to advise him. As a Minister, he has a lot of SAs, Pas, let them sit down together and see what is wrong. And I keep saying it that Oyo State is lucky in terms of ICT and telecommunications now, let us make use of it. This is just two years and people like them won’t even allow us to concentrate because all they talk about is election. It is distraction.
If he calls you and says let’s forget the past. Will you support him to be Governor?
It depends on the quality and the other people coming out. I can’t just make up my mind like that.
