Senator Sani Musa represents Niger East in the 10th Senate. He spoke with journalists in Kano at the end of the three-day Senate Committee on Review of the 1999 Constitution. TAIWO AMODU brings the excerpts.
One of the issues agitating minds of Nigerians is the restructuring of the country. Is it on the front burner in this move of the review of the constitution? Secondly, where do you stand on restructuring of the nation’s political architecture?
Going back to your question on restructuring, today presidential democracy is all about structural changes. So when you are talking about fiscal responsibility, you are talking about federalism; it is involved and this is one of the reasons when you talk about, maybe, restructuring, they think it is one whole affair. It isn’t. This retreat, we are going to deal with the issue of state police, and local government autonomy. But when you are talking about restructuring, in the context of it, we are doing a restructuring. We are already doing the restructuring. By my understanding of what restructuring should be, we should be able to give the local government the autonomous power to be able to run their administration from the grassroots level so that the impact of governance can reach the grassroots. And when we are talking about state police, every state in this country is facing one insecurity or the other and I believe that if we look at the issue of state police and we look at it. Is it good for us? What are the advantages and disadvantages we may have? In the interest of this country, I think, we will come out with an outcome that Nigerians will want. So, I think this is the reason why we are here.
There is a growing trend in the passage of bills for regional commissions: North East Development Commission has joined the Niger Delta Development Commission. North West Development Commission has been signed into law by President Bola Tinubu while the bill for South West Development Commission has been passed by the Senate. Is the Senate pushing for a return to regional government ?
It is an Act of the National Assembly to pass laws. We have passed these laws before and they have been working. If you look at the NDDC, it has been working for the people of Niger Delta; it is just an agency. The nomenclature is just to tag the name to an agency and the South West Development Commission, North West Development Commission, North East Development Commission, I don’t see it as one of those things that give any root to regionalism. We are practising constitutional democracy and we are practising presidential system of government. We are not in a parliamentary system of government or regional system of government. But if Nigerians, today, say we subscribe to doing it, we as the parliament, they should send it to us and we will consider it. We will hold a public hearing to hear the views of Nigerians. You know there are processes to amend the constitution. Almost every segment of lawmaking in this country is involved. So, I don’t think that our passage of all the laws regarding regional commissions should be termed as restructuring based on federalism. It is restructuring based on development.
You talked about LG autonomy in passing. What is your take on the enforceability of the Supreme Court judgement against the background of strong reservations coming from the governors?
We are a country governed by law; we have a constitution and if there is no conflict between the judgement and the constitution. And who are the people to be able to give us an understanding of what the constitution means, to interpret the constitution? It is still the judiciary and the Supreme Court has interpreted that and given that autonomous powers to local government, their financial autonomy. So, I think what has been done is in the right direction and I believe that if there is any loophole in the constitution, this is an avenue for us to be able to put it right.
You are from Niger, a state at the mercy of bandits. Do you think the implementation of state police will adequately address the challenge of insecurity?
I strongly believe that state police is desirable for a country like Nigeria, but it has to evolve. It can’t be taken just at once; we have to take it bit by bit. First, let us start with community policing which we haven’t strongly put down and see how workable it is. When we are able to do community policing; from there, we will be able to determine how far we can go, to the extent of having state police and then we have a federal police. So, I believe that what we are trying to do here is in the right direction and I believe that we are going to come out with a stronger outcome.
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