Patrick Abba Moro, an educationist, activist and unionist turned politician, is the Senator representing Benue South Senatorial District in the 9th Senate. A former Minister of Interior, the political science graduate from the University of Lagos with a Master of Public Administration from the same university and Master of Science in Public Administration from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, was inaugurated as a Senator on June 11, 2019, after he was duly elected by his people in Benue South. In this interview with MICHAEL JEGEDE, Moro spoke on his journey so far in the National Assembly and other salient issues of national concern. Excerpts:
You have spent more than two and half years now as a first-term Senator in the Senate. How has it been representing the people of Benue South Senatorial District?
The period has been very wonderful. It has been with mixed feelings. A lot of challenges are on our way, a lot of efforts have been made. At the level of legislative intervention, I think that we have done very well. Several bills have been passed and then several introduced. A lot of motions and resolutions drawing the attention of the Federal Government to the happenings in our various constituencies, especially the Benue South have been passed by the Senate. And it’s like a work in progress. So, we continue to move on to see what can be done. You are aware that one of the very essential aspects of our legislative intervention has been the change of fiscal year from July to March now January to December. That gives an ample opportunity for the budget to be worked on to implement for the benefit of the Nigerian people. I think it has so far worked very well even though we had initial hiccups of non-release of finances and non-processing of budget contract documents, procurement documents for the purpose of high-level implementation of the budget from January. But it’s a necessary change which the National Assembly introduced. So far we have been able to pass the electoral act amendment bill to accommodate some of the loopholes that were identified in our previous elections to enthrone a deeper democracy and ensure some level of transparency, credibility, and trust in our electoral process. The constitution review is in the works and very many salient points have been worked upon. We are expecting that in the shortest possible time the report will be presented to the National Assembly – the plenary of the two houses and then it will be passed. I do know also that as a legislator, I have been able to attract various necessary projects to the Benue South Senatorial District. And we have been able to ensure that these projects are spread across the nine local governments of the Benue South Senatorial District. The Ohimini Local government, my mother’s local government that had not been captured in 2020 and 2021 is sufficiently captured in 2022. I was telling somebody the other day that it is like the Shakespearean adage of ‘what touches us most shall be last treated’. But I think that as it is when projects of 2022 roll out Ohimini will not feel the pain of 2020 and 2021. Otherwise, all other local governments from Agatu to Apa, Obi, Ogbadibo, Ado, Oju, Ukpokwu and Otukpo, one aspect or the other of the lives of the people have been touched – either it is opening of roads or it is the construction of health centres or it is the provision of hospital equipment or it is the digging of boreholes to make water available to our people or it is the fixing of street lights for our people and the electrification of some communities that actually in the next couple of months will be rolled out in our town hall meeting. I can assure you that these are projects that are live and available for anybody to inspect.
“When I was at the Ministry of Interior up to 2015 (from 2011), we were renovating the Ministry of Interior secretariat with N94.7 million. In the current budget, it is still N94.7m”
In spite of these numerous projects you said you have done for your people in Benue South, there are some persons who still feel that you haven’t done much. Could this probably be because they have not been touched? How do you feel about it?
That is the beauty of democracy. But I can assure you that people who talked about me not having reached out to them up to this moment are just ignorant of my job. I am not the executive president of this country. I am not the executive governor of a state. I don’t control my budget. I’m a legislator. I’m a lawmaker. But I do know that in addition to lawmaking, it is incumbent upon me to facilitate projects into my constituency. That is exactly what I’m doing. And I can assure you that apart from the leadership of the National Assembly, no single legislator has been able to attract to his constituency the number and quality of projects that I have attracted to my constituency. But you see the human needs are insatiable. And I give it to anybody who is complaining about my not having been able to reach out to them. In addition to what I am talking to you here about infrastructural development, I have undertaken more than five empowerment programmes. I have distributed sewing and grinding machines to our women and youths. I have trained our women and youths in agriculture value chains to take advantage of the provision of starter packs and some funds to start with. Only recently I trained 60 to 70 youths in Benue South Senatorial District on digitization. And at the end of the two-day training, each participant was given a laptop to start a business, to start working and earn their living. It’s the first of its kind within this environment. That people should be able to use the laptop given freely to them to operate in their own world for opportunities. This is what we are doing in Benue South Senatorial District, because we realised that the government alone cannot provide employment for our teeming youths that are graduating from our tertiary institutions by the day. To complement government efforts to get our youths out of idleness, we are providing these facilities and trainings; we are providing empowerments so that on their own the woman by the corner of her house can confidently become a public grinder and earn a living, so that the tailor in our community, the fashion designer, with the machines that we have supplied them and the appropriate trainings that they have received can earn a living. Even where you cannot do it yourself, you can employ tailors and designers; you can lease out the machines and earn a living from the proceeds. So, this is exactly what we are doing. We want a situation where a few of our people can be trained at a point in time and it has a multiplier effect on the rest of the community. To make these enterprises very sustainable, I expect that as every year rolls by we will continue to do them. Even in the 2022 budget similar provisions have been made. If approved by the National Assembly, another round and set of our youths will be empowered to live their lives. I think that is the right way to go.
There have been complaints about the much pressure mounted on lawmakers by their constituents. How do you handle and cope with such pressure?
Well, it’s a very, very, very delicate situation that requires some level of delicate balancing. People erroneously think of legislators, and generally government officials, as moneybags that must attend to every aspect of their problems and needs. It is a very, very ridiculous situation. And these are the same people who want you to provide hospitals, provide electricity, provide water for the people, provide roads for the people, provide schools for the people and all manner of things that they require for a living. And so, it is an enormous challenge. But like I said it requires some delicate balancing because the ordinary constituent does not know how it feels to raise funds for the day-to-day activities of maintaining the constituency. One pole of electricity has fallen in a community, they must call the senator to come and fix it. The senator wants to re-energise community electricity that has fallen apart for the past decades. You must bring money to even clear the bush to be able to fix the poles. It is a very dangerous situation that we have in our own democracy that requires a lot of sensitization. I think that in addition to clamouring to want to represent the people we must also sufficiently educate our people to realise that we are just legislators and that we have limits. Even at the level of the executive, there is a limit to which resources are available to execute government projects. But of course, having accepted to be a public servant, you must also accept the challenge of tending to the needs of the people.
“Let me say that one of the major problems that we have with our budgeting system is the envelope system. And that has made the budget an annual ritual that defies reality because most of the things that are on ground that require urgent attention or incremental attention or as it were effective attention are consumed by the envelope system
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What is your take on the rate of turnover in Nigerian legislative bodies?
The average Nigerian politician doesn’t think of politics in terms of service delivery. That is why you have a lot of legislative turnover in the National Assembly and in the State Houses of Assembly, that now they say zoning. Even though it is clearly stated that the legislative election or process shouldn’t be subject to zones and terms people still feel that it is always my turn. When is it my turn? So after four years, the legislator goes away. And so, it becomes a situation of come do your own share of the national cake and step aside for other people. They are not talking in terms of service delivery.
Nobody cares whether you are performing in terms of service delivery or not. It’s not their agenda. You make promises during election campaigns and then you try to fulfil those promises and you imagine that people will recognise that. But no! They won’t. Where obviously there is a glaring case or cases of incompetence and inability to deliver, yes, of course. We can talk about it. And people can be free to speak to power. People must be free to clamour and ask for accountability because that is what public office holding is. It is public trust and we must render an account to the people.
There is this perception by most Nigerians that members of the National Assembly usually come here to represent themselves without doing anything spectacular as a legislative body to solve the country’s problem and ameliorate the sufferings of the people. What would you say that the ninth NASS is doing differently to help put Nigeria on the fast lane of progress?
What are we doing differently? What does a legislator do differently? Except that this Assembly has undertaken to establish a system that would tend to the welfare of all Nigerians – a system that works for all. And I have just enumerated a number of issues that have been raised. The last time the president refused to assent to the electoral amendment bill because it came too close to the election. We have passed our own. I told you about the change of the fiscal year from June – July down to December to March to January to December giving enough time for the executive to implement their policies. I told you about the constitutional amendment that will tend to certain grey areas of the needs of the Nigerian people – an amendment that in a couple of months will be available for the plenary to consider and passed for the Nigerian people, the several motions and resolutions drawing attention to the predicaments of our constituents. I started this interview with those interventions that have been carried out by this Assembly. And I think that even though there are hiccups here and there, this ninth Assembly has tried more than any other Assembly. This ninth Senate has been very, very proactive. And one of the differences between this ninth Assembly and previous assemblies is even the quick passage of the electoral bill.
The budget issue has become more like an annual ritual. Now we have the 2022 budget when the 2021 budget appears not to have been reasonably implemented. How do we tackle the problem of poor budget implementation which has been the major reason we are not faring well in the country economically?
Well, I wouldn’t know exactly how far, so far the 2021 budget has been implemented. But I do know from the perspective of my constituency projects that some of the projects have been funded 100%. Some projects have been funded 70%. I think one or two of my constituency projects have only been funded by 20%, 19%. But the rest have gone a long way. But like you said it’s an annual ritual and all we can say and do is continue to press on the government, the executive to do everything possible to invariably implement the budget as proposed. After all, it is the executive that proposes the budget. If you are not ready to implement the budget, why propose in the first place. So, we will continue to work with the executive to ensure that our budgets are properly and timeously implemented. That is how much we can do. Do not forget that the National Assembly members are merely legislators. We can pass Acts and budgets. But the implementation of the budgets rests squarely on the executive.
But so far I think a sizable budget has been implemented. Our role as legislators is to ensure that whatever we pass is usually implemented by the government. We also have in the Senate for that purpose a committee on legislative compliance whose sole mandate is to ensure that resolutions, bills and motions passed by the National Assembly are implemented by the executive. Let me say that one of the major problems that we have with our budgeting system is the envelope system. And that has made the budget an annual ritual that defies reality because most of the things that are on the ground that require urgent attention or incremental attention or as it were effective attention are consumed by the envelope system – the envelope system that continues to repeat the implementation of execution of items year after year. For instance, secretariats of ministries and parastatals are every year renovated with the same amount of money. I will tell you about the Ministry of Interior. When I was at the Ministry of Interior up to 2015 (from 2011), we were renovating the Ministry of Interior secretariat with N94.7 million. In the current budget, it is still N94.7m.
Is it copy and paste that is being done or what?
We used to buy computers every year. Up till this moment, it is still there because of the envelope system. We used to do e-library every year, up to this moment we are still doing e-library. Every year! And so you begin to wonder if you buy say 20 computers every year for the ministry, within five years you are buying 100 computers. If you go to all ministries now you won’t find them. You won’t find them. And so you begin to wonder. The world is dynamic; the system should also be dynamic. If we are working on the envelope system for our budgeting system, and it has become rather obsolete, why don’t we change and budget according to needs? Why don’t we revert or convert to the incremental budgeting system that realistically assesses needs and allocate funds according to needs? Who is benefiting from the envelope system of budgeting? Perhaps, government officials, because the envelope system of budgeting that continues to allocate funds to a particular project or item of budget every year is not useful to the system as far as I’m concerned. I have argued this time without a number because I have experienced it in the executive. My colleagues are yet to see my position on the issue. I think that very soon we will all realise that we have been making mistakes allocating money to items that are not necessary, that are not priorities of our communities.
What would be your words of encouragement to the people of Benue South Senatorial District who gave you the mandate to represent them in the Red Chamber?
Well, for the good people of the Benue South Senatorial District I want to urge them to keep hope alive that we are on a very good trajectory for improving our wellbeing. I will continue to strive to serve them. I will urge them to remain law-abiding and to face the challenges of our time with some level of equanimity, believing that at the end of the tunnel there will be light.
