From Noah Ebije, Kaduna
A Kaduna-based constitutional lawyer and member of the 2014 National Conference, Mr. Festus Okoye, has taken a critical look at the administration of the Kaduna State Governor, Malam Nasir El-Rufai, saying that the governor’s seemingly hard and tough policies are in the public interest. Therefore, he said that the governor should continue to implement his policies and ignore criticisms that are not contructive.
In this exclusive interview with Daily Sun, Okoye said the only way to restore the lost glory of Kaduna State is to give the people shock treatment.
Excerpts:
What is your assessment of the administration of Malam Nasir El-Rufai?
El-Rufai came to office well prepared for governance. He is not behaving like those who are not prepared for public office. From the beginning, it was very clear that the people of Kaduna State needed a governor with a strong will and a strong character, to clear the mess left behind by previous regimes. And from the voting pattern in the last governorship election, you can see that the entire people of Kaduna State made a very conscious choice and a conscious decision, that they needed somebody in the mood of El-Rufai to be the governor of the state at this point in time.
So, he came to public office well prepared. And because he prepared for public office, he decided from the beginning to show that his administration will be a cosmopolitan administration. It will be an administration that will take into consideration the diversity of Kaduna State in terms of ethnic identity, ethnic diversity, and also in term of religious and other diversity. So, he decided to take into cognizance these diversities in making appointments. Once he had made appointments that reflect the diversity of Kaduna State, that reflects the cosmopolitan nature of Kaduna State, and also he had made appointments that go to show that he wants to build a new Kaduna State where every segment of the society will be taken on board.
He wants to build a society of inclusiveness, where everybody will be included, and everybody will come to the table for purposes of service delivery.
Secondly, when he came to office, rather than sit back and wait for people to bring problems, and bring complaints to him, he decided to move to critical organs and agencies of government to go and find out where they are, where they have been, and where they want to go.
He went to the judiciary to understand what their problems and challenges were. He went to the prisons to understand what the issues are and what their challenges were, and he took himself to all the critical agencies of government to go and find out what their challenges were.
This is a new style of governance, a style that sees the governor as the servant of the people, that sees the governor as somebody who is engaged in service delivery, and who wants to go out there and understand the problem of the people, rather than waiting for the people to bring their problem to him.
Would you say El-Rufai is the messiah Kaduna people have been waiting for?
I think he is the governor the people of Kaduna State have been waiting for. The people believe that so much had gone wrong in Kaduna State. They believe that Kaduna needs shock treatment. El-Rufai has come to give Kaduna State that shock treatment, he has come to sanitise the way things are being done. To that particular extent, if he continues in this tradition, in the next four years, the streets of Kaduna will be very clean. There won’t be reckless erection of building in Kaduna. Those who have no business being on the streets, will not be on the streets. There will be a new face of public schools and public institutions; teachers will enjoy a new lease of life if he continues the way he is going.
So, I think that he is the governor of the moment, and he is the person this state needs at this point in time.
What is your view on the demolition exercise by the governor?
Another thing that he has done which is very creative is the land recovery programme. It is immoral, it is against public policy, it is against the constitution, and the law for any individual or government to cannibalise government schools and hospitals to give them out to private individuals or private developers. It is possible to take a portion of government school or facility for another public purpose in the public interest. But it is not right for people to convert things that belong to government into their private use. So, the land recovery programme is in consonance with government policy that says that our children must have fields to play around with, and also must have ventilations in their schools.
However, I think that one of the drawbacks in the land reclamation programme is that this particular government is also bound by what previous government did, there were people who got some of the lands in question through genuine due process. It was the government that gave it to them. It was government that gave them the Certificate of Occupancy (C of O), Kaduna State Urban Planning and Development Agency (KASUPDA) approved their building plans, and they built. So, in such circumstances, the best thing to do is to give the people sufficient notice of what is government intention, find out whether some of them got the land through due process, and those that got the land through due process, you find a way of paying some form of compensations for the loss they have incurred.
And more importantly, I believe that if this government will succeed in sanitising lands in Kaduna State, it must move into KASUPDA and the Kaduna State Property and Development Company (KSPDC) and reorganise the entire places because those two places are dens of corruption, everything that has happened to land in this state is traceable to them, they allocate streets and give C of O. They are the ones who will mark buildings that have not been approved, and when corruption set in, the paint remains there forever and the building will go up and is painted.
So, the governor must completely reorganise the Bureau for land, KASUPDA and KSPDC, and not only that, those of them that were part of the process of giving out these lands without due process must be arrested and prosecuted to show them that if you erred, the law will take care of you.
I think it is a contradiction for the same agencies that allocated these things to be given the responsibility to go now and mark and demolish when in the actual fact, they are the perpetrators of what is going on, so they must also be dealt with.
So, while supporting the land reclamation policy of the government, we believe that due process must be followed and persons who have genuine cases must be compensated.
In terms of security of the state, I think he has done well. It is important for us to make sure that streets are kept safe. It is important to make sure that persons who constitute nuisance in the state are taken off the streets.
But one thing we must bear in mind is that beggars are part of our society. You find beggars in every society. So, I support the process of rehabilitation of persons who have no visible means of livelihood and persons who have one form of disability or the other that has prevented them from earning a genuine living. So, I support their being taking out of the streets, and I also support a process of building rehabilitation centres. So that if they are taken to a rehabilitation centre, they don’t feel abandoned. So, I think that the government should take a second look at the policy. But in terms of sanitising the state and taking these persons off the streets, I support the governor in this regard.
It did not take him time before he appointed his commissioners. It did not take him to appoint Chief of Staff. It did not take him time in appointing special advisers. It did not take him time to appoint local government sole administrators. And since he believes in local government autonomy, I support his not paying attention to state/local government joint accounts.
The joint account is a constitutional issue, so until the constitution is amended, he must still comply with the constitution.
I think that the machinery for him to organise local government election in the state should be put in place, because the constitution does not permit the setting up of any caretaker committee in any local government. What the constitution recognises are the democratically elected local government chairmen, and I think that since the governor wants to see a new face in governance, a face that is democratic, and also a face that recognises the sovereignty of the people to choose their leaders, he should advise the State Independent Electoral Commission to immediately set the machinery in place for the organisation of local government elections.
I believe that in his first 100 days in office, he has shown that he is a pacesetter. He has shown that he is prepared for good governance. He has shown that it required courage in governance, he is ready to make mistake on behalf of the people of Kaduna State, he is ready to accept responsibility, and he knows that Kaduna State needs shock; a shock treatment in order to get it moving again. So, I support him and I believe that with the cooperation of the people of Kaduna State, all will be well with us.
Some people were not in support of the pruning of the ministries to a sizeable number. What is you take on that?
I think some of the ministries are just duplication. I believe that some ministries could be merged together for the purposes of better performance, and also to cut waste, because you cannot be telling the people that salaries cannot be paid when you have ministries that have no jobs to do; when you have departments that have nothing really to do other than muddling pettiness.
So, I support the governor for cutting down the cost of governance. But when things improve, and there are genuine cases of ministries that need to be alone, he can still reverse all of those things, but I think that for the purposes of the present situation, in our present circumstance, giving the genuine resources of government, giving what is going on in the country, merging of ministries is the best thing to do in this circumstance, so I think to this particular extent, he is right.
Incidentally, some persons in the ruling APC are not comfortable with El-Rufai’s policies.
What is your advice to such persons?
I think that APC as a political party actually told Nigerians that it was coming to change the way things are being done. Its members said they were coming to change the face of governance, that they are coming with the mantra of social democracy, mantra of social justice. As it is now, not everybody will be happy with the way things are going. People who had benefitted from the status quo, will definitely resist change, and sometimes when people bring change, and they see it coming, sometimes they resist it, sometimes they will say this is not the type of change we want.
But the truth of the matter is that reclaiming lands belonging to public that some persons who acquired illegally is in the public interest; getting beggars off the streets, taking them back to the rehabilitation centres, re-energising the rehabilitation centres is in the public interest; making sure that persons who are on the streets are not threatening the security of the state is in the public interest; pruning down ministries in order to cut cost of governance is in the public interest too. So, I think that it is not everything that this government will do that people will support. Of course, there will be people who will oppose it, but the question that should be asked at all times, is what is going on, is it in the overall interest of the people of Kaduna State? If that question is in the affirmative, then that should be the direction the government should go.
Some lawyers were said to have taken the governor to court over the demolition exercise. What do think they intend to achieve?
I think that the government has made its position very clear on this issue. The government has said that it was not going to engage on arbitrarily demolition, and that if there are some buildings that have been sited near public schools, if those buildings do not do any serious damage to those public institutions, that the government will leave those buildings.
For instance, the buildings on Constitution Road, if you pull down, the number of buildings that have been marked, you would have pulled down buildings worth over N1 billion, and you would have destroyed businesses worth billions of naira, and most of the buildings on Constitution Road are not used for private residential purposes, they are business ventures.
The problem with those buildings is that it was government that allocated those places to those individuals. It was government that re-designated those places and carved them out and gave it to those people. Most of them have C of O covering the place. Those buildings were approved by KASUPDA. So, they are not there illegally because government is continuity.
I think that what will happen is that if those buildings do not in any way obstruct the business of the public schools, those buildings can be left. But if they are obstructing the business of the public schools, those who have genuine C of O and genuine approval to build houses there should be compensated.
The legal angle will only drag for long, but I think that dialogue can solve the problem, and I think that the lawyers of those involved and the Solicitor General of Kaduna State and the Attorney General of Kaduna State should enter a process of dialogue, and I am sure the governor will listen and he will do what is just in the circumstances.
In this exclusive interview with Daily Sun, Okoye said the only way to restore the lost glory of Kaduna State is to give the people shock treatment.
Excerpts:
What is your assessment of the administration of Malam Nasir El-Rufai?
El-Rufai came to office well prepared for governance. He is not behaving like those who are not prepared for public office. From the beginning, it was very clear that the people of Kaduna State needed a governor with a strong will and a strong character, to clear the mess left behind by previous regimes. And from the voting pattern in the last governorship election, you can see that the entire people of Kaduna State made a very conscious choice and a conscious decision, that they needed somebody in the mood of El-Rufai to be the governor of the state at this point in time.
So, he came to public office well prepared. And because he prepared for public office, he decided from the beginning to show that his administration will be a cosmopolitan administration. It will be an administration that will take into consideration the diversity of Kaduna State in terms of ethnic identity, ethnic diversity, and also in term of religious and other diversity. So, he decided to take into cognizance these diversities in making appointments. Once he had made appointments that reflect the diversity of Kaduna State, that reflects the cosmopolitan nature of Kaduna State, and also he had made appointments that go to show that he wants to build a new Kaduna State where every segment of the society will be taken on board.
He wants to build a society of inclusiveness, where everybody will be included, and everybody will come to the table for purposes of service delivery.
Secondly, when he came to office, rather than sit back and wait for people to bring problems, and bring complaints to him, he decided to move to critical organs and agencies of government to go and find out where they are, where they have been, and where they want to go.
He went to the judiciary to understand what their problems and challenges were. He went to the prisons to understand what the issues are and what their challenges were, and he took himself to all the critical agencies of government to go and find out what their challenges were.
This is a new style of governance, a style that sees the governor as the servant of the people, that sees the governor as somebody who is engaged in service delivery, and who wants to go out there and understand the problem of the people, rather than waiting for the people to bring their problem to him.
Would you say El-Rufai is the messiah Kaduna people have been waiting for?
I think he is the governor the people of Kaduna State have been waiting for. The people believe that so much had gone wrong in Kaduna State. They believe that Kaduna needs shock treatment. El-Rufai has come to give Kaduna State that shock treatment, he has come to sanitise the way things are being done. To that particular extent, if he continues in this tradition, in the next four years, the streets of Kaduna will be very clean. There won’t be reckless erection of building in Kaduna. Those who have no business being on the streets, will not be on the streets. There will be a new face of public schools and public institutions; teachers will enjoy a new lease of life if he continues the way he is going.
So, I think that he is the governor of the moment, and he is the person this state needs at this point in time.
What is your view on the demolition exercise by the governor?
Another thing that he has done which is very creative is the land recovery programme. It is immoral, it is against public policy, it is against the constitution, and the law for any individual or government to cannibalise government schools and hospitals to give them out to private individuals or private developers. It is possible to take a portion of government school or facility for another public purpose in the public interest. But it is not right for people to convert things that belong to government into their private use. So, the land recovery programme is in consonance with government policy that says that our children must have fields to play around with, and also must have ventilations in their schools.
However, I think that one of the drawbacks in the land reclamation programme is that this particular government is also bound by what previous government did, there were people who got some of the lands in question through genuine due process. It was the government that gave it to them. It was government that gave them the Certificate of Occupancy (C of O), Kaduna State Urban Planning and Development Agency (KASUPDA) approved their building plans, and they built. So, in such circumstances, the best thing to do is to give the people sufficient notice of what is government intention, find out whether some of them got the land through due process, and those that got the land through due process, you find a way of paying some form of compensations for the loss they have incurred.
And more importantly, I believe that if this government will succeed in sanitising lands in Kaduna State, it must move into KASUPDA and the Kaduna State Property and Development Company (KSPDC) and reorganise the entire places because those two places are dens of corruption, everything that has happened to land in this state is traceable to them, they allocate streets and give C of O. They are the ones who will mark buildings that have not been approved, and when corruption set in, the paint remains there forever and the building will go up and is painted.
So, the governor must completely reorganise the Bureau for land, KASUPDA and KSPDC, and not only that, those of them that were part of the process of giving out these lands without due process must be arrested and prosecuted to show them that if you erred, the law will take care of you.
I think it is a contradiction for the same agencies that allocated these things to be given the responsibility to go now and mark and demolish when in the actual fact, they are the perpetrators of what is going on, so they must also be dealt with.
So, while supporting the land reclamation policy of the government, we believe that due process must be followed and persons who have genuine cases must be compensated.
In terms of security of the state, I think he has done well. It is important for us to make sure that streets are kept safe. It is important to make sure that persons who constitute nuisance in the state are taken off the streets.
But one thing we must bear in mind is that beggars are part of our society. You find beggars in every society. So, I support the process of rehabilitation of persons who have no visible means of livelihood and persons who have one form of disability or the other that has prevented them from earning a genuine living. So, I support their being taking out of the streets, and I also support a process of building rehabilitation centres. So that if they are taken to a rehabilitation centre, they don’t feel abandoned. So, I think that the government should take a second look at the policy. But in terms of sanitising the state and taking these persons off the streets, I support the governor in this regard.
It did not take him time before he appointed his commissioners. It did not take him to appoint Chief of Staff. It did not take him time in appointing special advisers. It did not take him time to appoint local government sole administrators. And since he believes in local government autonomy, I support his not paying attention to state/local government joint accounts.
The joint account is a constitutional issue, so until the constitution is amended, he must still comply with the constitution.
I think that the machinery for him to organise local government election in the state should be put in place, because the constitution does not permit the setting up of any caretaker committee in any local government. What the constitution recognises are the democratically elected local government chairmen, and I think that since the governor wants to see a new face in governance, a face that is democratic, and also a face that recognises the sovereignty of the people to choose their leaders, he should advise the State Independent Electoral Commission to immediately set the machinery in place for the organisation of local government elections.
I believe that in his first 100 days in office, he has shown that he is a pacesetter. He has shown that he is prepared for good governance. He has shown that it required courage in governance, he is ready to make mistake on behalf of the people of Kaduna State, he is ready to accept responsibility, and he knows that Kaduna State needs shock; a shock treatment in order to get it moving again. So, I support him and I believe that with the cooperation of the people of Kaduna State, all will be well with us.
Some people were not in support of the pruning of the ministries to a sizeable number. What is you take on that?
I think some of the ministries are just duplication. I believe that some ministries could be merged together for the purposes of better performance, and also to cut waste, because you cannot be telling the people that salaries cannot be paid when you have ministries that have no jobs to do; when you have departments that have nothing really to do other than muddling pettiness.
So, I support the governor for cutting down the cost of governance. But when things improve, and there are genuine cases of ministries that need to be alone, he can still reverse all of those things, but I think that for the purposes of the present situation, in our present circumstance, giving the genuine resources of government, giving what is going on in the country, merging of ministries is the best thing to do in this circumstance, so I think to this particular extent, he is right.
Incidentally, some persons in the ruling APC are not comfortable with El-Rufai’s policies.
What is your advice to such persons?
I think that APC as a political party actually told Nigerians that it was coming to change the way things are being done. Its members said they were coming to change the face of governance, that they are coming with the mantra of social democracy, mantra of social justice. As it is now, not everybody will be happy with the way things are going. People who had benefitted from the status quo, will definitely resist change, and sometimes when people bring change, and they see it coming, sometimes they resist it, sometimes they will say this is not the type of change we want.
But the truth of the matter is that reclaiming lands belonging to public that some persons who acquired illegally is in the public interest; getting beggars off the streets, taking them back to the rehabilitation centres, re-energising the rehabilitation centres is in the public interest; making sure that persons who are on the streets are not threatening the security of the state is in the public interest; pruning down ministries in order to cut cost of governance is in the public interest too. So, I think that it is not everything that this government will do that people will support. Of course, there will be people who will oppose it, but the question that should be asked at all times, is what is going on, is it in the overall interest of the people of Kaduna State? If that question is in the affirmative, then that should be the direction the government should go.
Some lawyers were said to have taken the governor to court over the demolition exercise. What do think they intend to achieve?
I think that the government has made its position very clear on this issue. The government has said that it was not going to engage on arbitrarily demolition, and that if there are some buildings that have been sited near public schools, if those buildings do not do any serious damage to those public institutions, that the government will leave those buildings.
For instance, the buildings on Constitution Road, if you pull down, the number of buildings that have been marked, you would have pulled down buildings worth over N1 billion, and you would have destroyed businesses worth billions of naira, and most of the buildings on Constitution Road are not used for private residential purposes, they are business ventures.
The problem with those buildings is that it was government that allocated those places to those individuals. It was government that re-designated those places and carved them out and gave it to those people. Most of them have C of O covering the place. Those buildings were approved by KASUPDA. So, they are not there illegally because government is continuity.
I think that what will happen is that if those buildings do not in any way obstruct the business of the public schools, those buildings can be left. But if they are obstructing the business of the public schools, those who have genuine C of O and genuine approval to build houses there should be compensated.
The legal angle will only drag for long, but I think that dialogue can solve the problem, and I think that the lawyers of those involved and the Solicitor General of Kaduna State and the Attorney General of Kaduna State should enter a process of dialogue, and I am sure the governor will listen and he will do what is just in the circumstances.
No comments:
Post a Comment