By Our Reporter
In this interview, the former Senate Leader and Senator representing Kebbi North District in the 9th Assembly, Senator Yahaya Abdullahi has urged President Ahmed Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to allow Senators to choose their own leadership rather than imposing somebody on them.
He also bare his mind on the causes of Herdsmen and farmers clashes and what government should do to arrest the situation. Also not left out is the issue of fuel subsidy removal by the president during his inaugural speech on the 29th May, 2023.
It promises to be an interesting read so come along with me.
Excerpts
Yahaya Abdullahi is the Senate Majority Leader.
Qstn: There is a tussle over the issue of principal officers of the 10th Senate. What does this portend for us? Is it party supremacy or democracy at work?
For me and given my experience in the Senate in the last eight years, I think all these is politics. Politics is about nation building for me. The most important thing is the way in which Senators across party lines perceive what their interest is and the interest of the Senate itself. The most important thing really, is just like you are going in a flight. The first thing they will say when the oxygen mask drops, the first thing if you want to survive is for you to save yourself before you even think of sacuring your child. Because if you are trying to secure somebody and when yourself is not secured, you will both fail to survive. So the most important thing really is for us to select a leadership that can unite the Senate. The Senate itself has to be united because if the institution is not united, public policy is possibly going to collapse. Because the Senate is the institution that partners with the executive arm of government at most of the times and House of Representatives also, because you can’t really pass the budget without the House of Reps . But key presidential appointment of key institutions and key issues of policy, the Senate. Now If anybody toys with the Senate and allows some scheming to happen within the Senate, the executive cannot perform optimally. So the important thing for me is for us to look at the Senate and allow the Senate as an institution to be stable and the only way it can be stable is to allow members of the Senate, irrespective of political parties that there are, to select the leadership of its choice.
You can see what we did in 2019, we came in with experience of what happened in the 8th Senate, while there were some tussle in the House, they were not working together very well with the executive arm of government. We said that look, in order for the Senate to perform, and the government to also perform, the most important thing is to unite the institution first across party lines. So what we did was to make sure that we reached out – when you look at the vote thar was counted, more than half were members of PDP and they voted for our candidate.
Most of them were even first-timers bit we didn’t leave them like that , we also reached out to them and vrought all of them together. When I became the Leader of the Senate, the first thing I said during my inaugural speech was that first of all I never expected myself. I never, in my widest imagination thought I will ever be leader of the Senate. I said well for me, anyone who comes from that panel door as Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, irrespective of the political party he belongs, the major issue is to unite the institution itself; get the institution and members who are at the institution a sense of belonging. Make sure that within Senators there’s justice, make sure that you reached out to everybody. Make sure that you do not discriminate anybody, that everybody gets what is due to him as a Senator in form of appointment, Committee membership and other kind of things that is the most important thing to do. What is the use of someone as the Senate president of the 10th Senate if they don’t command the respect and the support of the members of the institution. Senate as it is, from when we came in upti.the time we finished our four years, there has never been anytime when you found that we are not working together. In fact, when you see us outside, you will not know which party we belong to because everybody has been given his due and everybody is respected and recognised. So for me, the most important thing is to make sure that you allow the Senators to choose its own leadership and Senate leadership is by election anyway. And most of the people who are Senators are very experienced people. Some of them are past governors, some have been ministers and people who have excelled in their various callings. They are not just people who were picked on the streets. So you don’t sit down and denigrate anyone of them when you dig deep or even on the surface, you will find out that these people are accomplished individuals, so you don’t treat those kind of individuals as babies or put them in the background. Everybody in the Senate is important so that is the way to go. Give the Senators the due respect, let them sit down, work together. For us on opposition party, we are not going to begrudge the APC from taking over the leadership because if we participate in the leadership, it means that any fault of the party we are going to take share of it. That is what.happened in the 8th Senate. The PDP could not speak because they had the Deputy Senate president. We don’t want any, let them take whatever but what we want is that there should be bi-partisanship in everything that happen and the only way you will have bipartisanship is if you respect the individual members of the Senate irrespective of which party they belong. You have to treat Senators of the Federal Republic like the Senators of the Federal Republic. Make sure there is inclusively and leadership that is respected and also respect all the members of the Senate. I.think the executive arm of government should be very weary of any form of imposition because impositions don’t work. The moment you divide Senators across party lines, you are going to have a very rough day.
Qestn: The president in his inaugural speech said he would tackle menace in agriculture and the announcement of removal of fuel subsidy, what do you think as the chairman of the committee on agriculture?
Well agriculture is a much more complex subject, it transcends both the issue of petroleum subsidy and several other issues. It has a lot of bearings on society, economy etc. The major issue is that on the subsidy matter, the position of the President is very right. It is not sustainable. Not only that it’s not sustainable but the way in which it’s administered, it doesn’t reach those people who are expected to benefit from it. So since it doesn’t do so, why don’t you capture the resources like he said. Capture the resources that are wasted or used on subsidy and spent it on other issues like health, education and even agriculture so that you can establish a foundation for food security. And now the issue of Food security is not just a policy, it is now part of the amendment that the 9th NASS did. That food security and food supply is a constitutional right of Nigerians today. The government can be taken to court for allowing anybody to starve under the constitution. It is there now on the new amendment so it’s no more businesse as usual. If any Nigerian dues of hunger, the government of the day can be taken to court and people can now seek redress. So there is right to food as part of human right of Nigerians enshrined in the constitution. So if you are saying there’s fuel subsidy, I hope there is not, we hope that the resources that are going to be released as a result of removal of subsidy are going to be used to make no Nigeria die of hunger.
Qustn: Distinguished, major threat to food security has been this Herders and farmers clashes. What will be your advice to present government?
The most important thing for the president to do is look at the problem of herding community in particular because this is one area that has been completely mismanaged. We have been talking without action and this have led to a lot of insecurity because we have not managed the livestock sector properly and the people who are engaged in livestock production have more or less been completely abandoned by government because the way the government was managing the herdsmen, they became violent. A lot of them became violent because they don’t have the space to herd their animals. They are harassed by cattle theft and they were completely devastated. Their livestock were stolen by criminals. So the criminals came back and recruited them and turned them into bandits. This is exactly what happened. So the issue of the management of land resources and management of lands of communities is key. Don’t abandon any Nigerian community to it’s own fate. Every Nigerian community is important like any other community. Make sure you look at the occupation structure of the country and uplift the level in which the people live.
