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…says Nigeria should go beyond rhetorics as true federalism will see us through post Covid-19
…wants Nigerian experts to come back and build Nigeria
You were in the forefront in the 8th Assembly, fighting for the resuscitation of Ajaokuta Complex, what’s the situation now?
As we resume I will urge Mr Speaker to tell us the status of Ajaokuta steel mill, when will it be completed. I urge the house to move a motion that the minister should come and brief us what deal did they have with Russia.
Mr President went to Russia and till today we didn’t know what they discussed. They should tell us so that the House will domesticate the agreement.
Never again should the executive go out to draw international agreement that will commit us without the House input. We represent the people and we don’t know the agreement they made. We should review the agreements and make sure they are tailored to favour the people.
Ajaokuta is not put in place, we are still owing because whatever you do in Nigeria you need steel, whatever construction you do in Nigeria be it the construction of a vehicle, be it a building, telephone, we still need steel.
Out there, we have Nigerians in every sector. I heard that one of the telephones making waves today is owned by a Nigerian. Our automobile industry is also an area we should look at.
In the 50’s you can never say you are using Japan, if your motor is made in Japan they will laugh at you, it must be England or Germany, today Japan is dominating everywhere.
So if Innoson and the rest of them are here, why can’t we patronize them and grow them or force the ones we buy from Europe to come and establish here. In South Africa their version of BMW is the best in the world, you can cross check. BMW have a huge factory there because they said no, come and manufacture, start it here.
So when we are looking for work, we are now subsidizing the labour of other countries by massive importation, it is very dangerous.
Peradventure COVID-19 continues, the suggestions you made, the ways and means to ensure that the thing does not go viral…..if it continues what are the things you think the federal government should put in place now?
When you say peradventure it continues you don’t need a soothsayer to know it will continue, it will continue because during the lock it became an urban issue because the potential carriers had remained in the urban areas, when you open now.
I have been here for a month plus, I may want to rush to my village to see things then the potential carriers will go to the villages and it will spread and there they may not even have the number of NCDC, NCDC may not even be close so you can imagine what will happen.
That is why I advised that we should stop fooling ourselves that we are building new hospitals or tents and so on, no, it cannot be.
What is the way forward?
How can you bring a historian to head a science oriented outfit and you want him to give you approval? He will ask you what are you going to buy, what are you going to do because he does not understand what you are going to do.
Therefore research institutes should be headed by a known researcher scientifically groomed, young pragmatic people who knows what to do and how to do it.
We should throw open, to a large extent most of what we are doing in Nigeria is guided by secrecy, our government is run in secrecy, we should be transparent and let us know. Civil servants are also afraid to talk that they may lose their job the next day. Appointment must not be on brotherhood, nepotism, look for those who are experienced.
Why is it that if you go to Dubai, to Germany, to UK, to America and to even China, you will see that Nigerians are all there doing well, why? There are a lot of industries and factories owned by Nigerians in foreign countries and they are doing very well there.
Can’t we give them incentives to come over to Nigeria. Japan is doing it now, they are asking all their industries in China, if you can come back to Japan, you will get incentives to start.
Why can’t we give out such incentives to would be manufacturers? Why can’t we give incentives to farmers by saying if you can produce 100 tubers of yam this is your reward or we will buy from you.
One of those issues that Nigerians were expecting the national assembly to deliberate on was in view of the 2020 budget, including the 500billion intervention fund requested for by the presidency to fight COVID-19. What really happened was it that the house was nonchalant likewise the senate. Coincidentally they passed 850billion …….. is there any discussant…..because they are passing the bulk….?
Let me even ask you realistically, is there any budget now to review? What was the benchmark and what is the oil price now; what are you going to do? We should review paper work, okay you can fault us for not going to do paper work but what is there to do so that I can initiate it. If the benchmark was 52 or 55 and the thing is now zero so we are going to review minus zero and begin; tell me what we are going to review?
We have a problem initially for the executive not really being transparent in the way it manages the economy and the two chambers are not putting the kind of pressure on them to do open budget?
That is one of the restructuring we must do. I don’t want to talk like an opposition man now; I am talking as a Nigerian. Some of us said let’s do a thorough work but some said no we must give it a new date, January to December, now we have done it.
If we were realistic we would have seen COVID-19 coming because it was in the air then, we would have looked away from crude oil absolutely.
I saw some Chinese being paraded on television who were doing illegal mining, they are all over. They must collect taxes from all these and there is a way we can do it we will collect trillions of dollars all over.
So we can look away from oil, we can’t even look there again because it is not there. We should look into agriculture and solid minerals and change our export.
If I have my way all the companies we privatized should be revisited whether they are fertilizer company, petrochemical and so on, all the GENCO they are just fooling us because in every deal it is never done transparently, though a few brokered the deal.
I tell BPE they should all go to jail, they are culprit, they are never transparent in their transactions, they should challenge me. They short change Nigeria in oil for the benefit of a few.
In fact we should hire consultants outside, if they go taking forensic auditors we should get them to come and do their presentation because when they are done by Nigerians you cannot get it.
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