The Chairman, Presidential Committee on Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution of Security Challenges in the North, Kabiru Taninu (SAN), was quoted to have said the Boko Haram sect had agreed to a ceasefire. Is this true?
Our chairman did not say that there was any ceasefire. He said that there was an “understanding” to enter into a dialogue that could lead to ceasefire. So he was talking about progress in terms of discussion and we have to understand that when it comes to signing a ceasefire agreement, it is not the committee that will sign, it is the Federal Government.
But since we are involved in discussing with as many of them as possible, whatever progress we are making is good. I cannot divulge the full extent of the progress that is being made but in an organisation that has thousands and so many leaders, it is not impossible that you are speaking to some and you have yet to speak to others.
It is not that everybody is being spoken to or have been spoken to, but definitely it is that quite a number had been spoken to and are being spoken to. Dialogue is going on. Our prayer is that it will yield, sooner than later, conclusive dividends that can improve the security and well-being of our country. Look at the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland for example, has it stopped some elements from doing certain things?
Don’t say nothing will happen. The point is that issues over time will be receding up till a time we will eliminate them and anywhere you have this kind of situation, it is not easy at all to handle because of its sensitivity.
We are happy where we are. If the President was not happy with what we were doing, he would not have given us additional two months to complete the critical stage of our work. We would have been given the marching orders.
So, let me emphasise that the chairman said the committee was in a serious dialogue with critical elements in the sect that if handled well, could lead to the signing of a ceasefire agreement, and so far it has been handled very well.
What is your take on calls by some Nigerians for the disbandment of the committee for failing to extract a ceasefire?
Why should I comment on that when the President has extended the life of the committee by two months? The person who decides over that is the President. That is the person who set it up and gave us three months and in his wisdom and based on reports, he has extended the time given to the committee by two months for us to conclude. People are entitled to their opinion but the decision will be based on facts and the President has based his decision on facts available to him.
The integrity of this process appears to be in doubt because nothing has shown that the leadership of the sect is part of this process. Why is this so?
Let me say that I cannot tell the media who has been contacted, otherwise we would be aborting whatever we are doing. As journalists you also have to exercise caution. It is not everything, when dealing with security issues, that you come out to say. Anybody who does not want you to succeed can also sabotage you.
Think seriously about the issues that are on ground, it is not a media issue. You can use the media to mobilise people, to sensitise people and appeal to their sense of patriotism but if you say you are going to engage this and that, you are basically aborting the peace process and we will end up in a worse situation than we are now. I think it will not be right for me to follow suit because the end product will not be good for all of us.
But people should wait until we conclude our work and then they can judge based on the totality of the work that we have done. As we are working, people should not be passing judgment over what they don’t know and cannot know. It will be counterproductive.
Were you not jolted by the recent events in Kano and Borno states?
Any event that is a breach of peace and security, must jolt all of us. I mentioned earlier that even in the developed part of the world, where you have proper agreements in place, you still get groups doing one thing or another. But for me we should not relax because of seeming quietness. People must continue to be alert. If people are alert, they would see anything suspicious and things will be averted. But if we relax because of the improved security, people who want to breach the peace can make use of that to do one or two things.
We must continue to be vigilant for a very long time. We must be conscious of what happens around us, so that where we need to take certain preventive measures, to avert events similar to what happened in Kano, we can take it in good time.
Provisions of the Petroleum Industry Bill especially the host community fund have been in contention. What is the situation now?
The bill is in process. There is no committee report yet. Public hearing just took place a while ago. Inputs are being made, discussions and negotiations are going on. The position of all of us as senators in the National Assembly is to have a good legislation that is fair and just and we are working towards that. Of course, at second reading, people will express their reservations over the key elements in the bill.
Right now, I cannot say what the final position will be until the report is received and until we take it clause by clause. But I believe that at the end of the day, we are going to end up with a just, balanced and equitable legislation.
Let me relate that to the issue of Senators not sponsoring bills. When you are in the National Assembly, you are a lawmaker and a lawmaker doesn’t mean a law producer. Every law that comes out of the National Assembly you have your consent there, that is what a lawmaker means, whether it is the President or whoever brought the law, you have to consent to that law and make input into it to make sure that it is a legislation which represents the larger national interest and also any particular interest you may be representing in that National Assembly.
Somewhere, somehow, people think that it all begins with and ends with sponsorship of bills. You have mentioned this critical issue of the PIB. Our role is to see that a fair, just and equitable law comes into being and when it comes into being, we would have properly represented our people. It is not about whether it was the President that brought the bill, it is about the quality of the bill at the end of the day, which all of us bring out, which serves the interest of the nation and the people we represent.
If I allow anything to happen to the people I represent, that would harm their interest, then I would have failed to represent them well and that is how legislators should be assessed. From 1999 to date, of about 500 private member bills, only two have become laws, the local content in oil industry and HYPADEC bill, even though that one is yet to take off. So it is not that you keep on piling bills that even you honestly know cannot become laws just because some people think that they want to look at the number of bills you introduced. You will be missing the point. We are not lacking laws in Nigeria, what is the fundamental issue is law implementation and if you add 109 senators to about 300 House of Reps members, if each one of them is to make five laws, how many laws are we going to end up enacting every year, is that what Nigeria needs?
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