A former Deputy Majority Leader in the Lagos State House of Assembly, Hon. Olumuyiwa Wahab Jimoh, has stressed that Nigerians deserve access to basic necessities of life as part of their socio-economic rights. According to him, these include food, security, housing, healthcare, and other essentials. The former lawmaker, however, argued that it is wrong to heap all the blame for the nation’s woes solely on government officials. He maintained that both the government and the people have vital roles to play in the overall development of the country. Jimoh spoke on these and other national issues in this interview with OLADIPUPO AWOJOBI. Excerpts:
Can you situate socio-economic rights in Nigeria legislatively?
Legislatively, a lot has been done theoretically, but implementation is the issue. I am not trying to discard anything anybody might have said. It’s not about legislating what socio economic right should be. It is common anywhere in the world that every human being deserves a minimum requirement to live just like our plants need light and water to survive through photosynthesis, we human beings need minimum conditions to live as dignified persons. That is why it is not an accident in the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that the welfare and security of the people is the most paramount thing in government. In any government, whether it is democratic or autocratic, the most important thing is the welfare and security of the people. Apart from these, every other thing is secondary, they are mere repetitions. The government must ensure that the people enjoy basic things of life such as food and security. Just like the Lord Jesus Christ said in the Bible, when he was asked which of the 10 commandments is the most important, he said that after accepting that there is only one God, love your neighbour as yourself and that every other thing is secondary. It is important to state that when you love your neighbour, you will ensure that he has certain things that would make life easy for him or her. That is putting it side by side the laws that we have. We don’t need quantity, we need quality. Growth is quantity and development is in quality. We need food, security and healthcare to survive as human beings, these are a part of the socio-economic rights of the people.
But how do we achieve this?
That is why we will keep discussing it so that the government will know what should be done. Discussing it is part of the process, I am not saying that we are going to achieve this within a day or a week or in the next dispensation. But we must be factual, we cannot compare Nigeria’s democracy with that of the United States of America that is about 260 or 270 years old. Nigeria as a nation after amalgamation from 1914 to date is not up to their democracy. I can only recommend a federal system that will give birth to what we want. We are still developing and we will soon get there. We have left Egypt, we are on our way to Jerusalem, very soon, we will get there.
Do you agree that our constitution is the problem?
I don’t agree with that, there are some countries without constitutions, they have unwritten constitutions and it is well understood by the people and they are working for them. If you know what is right, we must be able to treat ourselves as humans. If you have bad people in government, even if the constitution is superb, it will still be bad.
You once said that those who are incompetent should not be in government…
I don’t see why those who are incompetent should be in government, they have no business there. We must not romanticise all these things, we must be sincere with ourselves. There are some political thinkers who don’t believe in democracy. For instance, Aristotle and Plato, they didn’t believe in democracy. They believed in democracy of those who have something upstairs because it will not matter if they have nothing upstairs. The majority may not be right and it is the votes of the majority that will get people into government in a democracy. They may not be the right set of people for the nation.
Do we blame the political class for some of the issues we have as a country?
Yes, you can blame the political class, but the followers too have some blames. Their orientation must change, their perception must change, that is how we can get what we want. The leaders have their roles to play and the people too have their roles to play. We all must do what we need to do if we want our nation to move forward. We should not put all the blames on the government or the ruling class.
