• ‘We must confront things as they are’

Enyinnaya Abaribe is the Senator representing Abia South Senatorial District at the National Assembly. In this interview, he speaks on his recent reactions on the floor of the Senate over rising insecurity, among other issues, ANAYO EZUGWU reports

You spoke on the floor of the Senate on the withdrawal of troops from the school in Kebbi State 45 minutes before the kidnappers struck. Did you do that angry performance deliberately and did you want people to hear the sort of frustration the whole thing was generating for you or was it spontaneous?

Let me just say it was spontaneous, and I was just angry. I mean, what you would call righteous anger. The reason is that this was not the first time we’ve been hearing that there has been some type of collusion between the security people, and what happens, villagers have said that they will tell the security people, and they disappear.

And then these people will strike, and then immediately after, they will come back. So, I was really angry, because the point really is this: How does a government operate this way? In this sense that, let’s try pacification, what they euphemistically call non-kinetic.

It’s nothing but paying someone just to enable him to come back tomorrow and do even worse things. So, my anger stemmed from the fact that this is the Nigerian Army that had actually imposed peace in areas where there were all this guerillas and all that in West Africa, and at any point that Nigeria is part of any international contingent, they always come first, and the history is there. And I cannot reconcile the fact that the Nigerian Army is now being portrayed as weak.

There was this story of a Brigadier General that was killed. It makes us seem helpless, and I felt that from the way the debates were going among us, maybe the import of what actually we are confronting was not properly assimilated by my colleagues.

That reaction you had in the National Assembly touched a lot of people, including the President of the Senate, who said he was associating himself with the comments that you made…

There is something that has developed within our polity. Whenever you give any sincere advice, a sincere criticism and you say, maybe this is a better way; you’re seen as an enemy or someone who wants to pull down this government. That is very wrong. That’s not a democracy. It makes a lot of people who have things to offer now shrink back because they’re not so sure that they will not be misunderstood in this way.

And I think that those people who do all this, trying to impress Mr. President, are not doing him a favour because for a government to succeed, it will not only be the yes men that will make it succeed. A government succeeds because you now take impetus from all kinds of people. I will just give one simple example.

During the time of President Olusegun Obasanjo, he hired someone as one of his special assistants. His name is Dr. Stanley Makebu. He was hired as a contrarian. So, when issues come up and people are going this way, he goes the other way in order to give the other sense, so that everybody understands that everybody should not pull in one direction.

There is something that has developed within our polity. Whenever you give any sincere advice… you’re seen as an enemy or someone who wants to pull down this government

That’s what he used to do. He was a contrarian in government, playing the devil’s advocate and all that. And Obasanjo let him do that because he needed him.

So, we have now come to the point where some type of sickening sycophancy has now permeated the whole thing and everybody is a member of the choir. If you’re not singing in one direction, you’re seen as an enemy of the government. I’m not an enemy of the government. That’s why I emphasized that we do not blame the government.

They made this. But then, when you take an oath of office and say, I’m going to do A, B, C, D, do it. You don’t come in and then you continue to pamper and say, let me just continue going and the country continues to go down the abyss.

When you were suggesting that the Senate was being told not to say anything against the failures of today, what do you mean?

You say anything, there’s so much brick thrown at you. And people actually will get up and start to say something just for the cameras, so that the Villa will see them as defending the government. They’re actually not defending the government; they’re actually ruining the government.

Moving on from there and returning to that story about the withdrawal of troops. Technically, it shouldn’t be a complicated probe, but a straightforward question. Who gave the order?

It ‘ s s o straightforward that you don’t even need to think about it. I mean, that was what was complicated. Why do we need to argue about this? There’s a commander there. Like you said, the hierarchy is there. Fishing out that person is the easiest thing in the world. What it connotes is a lack of action by the government or by the military authorities, and the bearing of all these things, gives the impression to the public that there is collusion s o m e w h e r e .

And if we feel that there is collusion somewhere; who is safe? It means that I cannot now be sure that even if there are troops around me, that I can be safe. You are no longer sure that even the troops around you can just hand you over and then you become a victim. That is just the point. There comes a time in a country’s life in which this, I don’t know how I would put it now, but I would say we must stop the obfuscation, dissembling and all that.

We must start telling the truth. We must confront things as they are. And if you don’t do that, how are you going to solve the problem? So, we’ve had this problem all the way from the Goodluck Jonathan time, coming all the way down, and it gets worse. It now looks as if somebody is just sitting somewhere and saying let the whole country go to blazes.

In terms of this particular investigation, it’s all right to leave it to the army but what if in the end they decide that it’s not a good idea to make whatever the result is public to protect the image of the army?

That may well be so. But you send the wrong picture to the public. The signal to the public will now be that, people can just be put in jeopardy and nothing will happen because people have always waited. This is not the first time investigations are being done to know what happened. So, the way that information is being given out to reassure the public that you are on top of the situation is not there.

That is just the fact. To maintain public trust, if somebody is being punished, then the public knows that they’re taking action. It will inspire the public that at least an action is being taken. And like I said, this is the best army in Africa. And I continue to say it that there’s something obviously going on.

And when we interact with them, because we interact with the military people and those who work with them and all that, there is always the question of political will. I think President Obasanjo also alluded to it the other day. You must have the will to fight. There must be that burning desire. When you take an oath of office, just like we have all taken, it is to do your best for this country. That’s just it.

The National Assembly has oversight capacity over the army. Can it ensure that military personnel are held to account for their actions as a result of that oversight capacity and ensure that measures are taken to prevent similar incidents in future?

Actually and coincidentally, within this period, the National Assembly as part of its duty is doing security summits. So, it’s coincidental that at the same time it’s also happening. We’re going to wait for the report and I’m sure part of the report will be the measures that will be taken to ensure that such a thing never occurs.

Don’t you think that the National Assembly should take its own steps to investigate that withdrawal?

No, there’s a committee for the Army, Air Force, Navy and Defence and the committees are up and doing. I’m sure they will also interact with the military to say, hey, Nigerians are feeling very bad about this.

Those abducted students and their families belong to constituencies that have representation at the National Assembly. Are there attempts to ensure that support is provided to the abducted students and their families?

You could see the other senators when they spoke and the passion. When the committees come back to the Senate with reports, maybe in the next one week or two weeks, we will see their reports and that will give us an insight into their interactions with the agencies.

Do you think that given all that is going on at the moment, the abductions, the terror attacks, President Trump threat, the declaration of a security emergency and discussions around state police, do you think they have heightened that long overdue conversation about insecurity?

Well, let’s just put it this way. I think that there’s movement now. There’s a greater urgency now and we just want to see some clarity at the end of the day to say we’re going to do A, B, and C, and not just a general talk and then we just leave it.

Obviously, we’re not going to let anybody rest. The job of those of us who are in the opposition is that we put your feet to the fire at all times. The part of the job of the National Assembly is to oversight the executive.

For me, part of the stuff going on is, okay, let’s just talk so that people will not bother us but what we are saying is that we need to see those concrete steps. We need to see timelines and what you do to reach those timelines. What you do, what are all those things that you will have to. We need to see areas that are cleared and there is no more insurgency in those areas.

We don’t want to continue to hear that we are containing this one here, then another thing happens. I mean, as they were talking about the people in Kebbi being released, another one happened in Niger State.

And what do we get from government spokesmen? They want to bring down our government. I do not think that the blame game is what will solve the problem. What will solve the problem really is that if somebody wants to bring down your government, you remove that prop from him.

How does withdrawal of police from VIPs affect you as a senator?

These are cosmetic things. Of course, I don’t use police but that’s not really the point. How do you secure a community? That is the real issue. Maybe, you can ask the police authorities who feel that withdrawing them will make people safer. How does that make people safer? We’re looking and we’re waiting for the results of these actions.