…blames State governors over escalating insecurity
…says economic hardship is strangulating Nigerians
Distinguished Senator Abba Moro , the minority leader of the tenth Senate, a grassroots politician and a former Minister of Interior, he represents Benue South Senatorial District, in this chat he spoke extensively on Democracy day, insecurity particularly in his state, falling standards of political parties across board in Nigeria and other knotty issues, excerpts.
Democracy Day is here again, what do you have to say about the journey so far since we have been experiencing an uninterrupted democratic process in the last 27years?
June 12 has been designated as a democracy day for celebration, and of course, June 12 has come, so for every year that June 12 comes and Nigerians are still in democracy, we have reason to celebrate, but I can assure you that many Nigerians will not agree with anybody here to say that our democracy is on the right track, because a lot of things are happening within the democratic space, party primaries, party organizations, and rest of them that doesn’t give anybody any hope at all that our democracy is on the right track.
There is virtually no political party in Nigeria today that is not involved in one crisis or the other, all of them facing litigations, and the rest of them. There is no political party in Nigeria now, except perhaps the PDP, that has a semblance of candidates all over now without serious distraction, that has pronounced candidates for elections in 2027 And today we are here preparing to celebrate democracy. I am not sure that I’m comfortable with the direction that our democracy is going. I think that we better retrace our steps and then forge a more germane trajectory for our democracy to drive and deepen.
Nigerians are facing difficult economic realities, from soaring inflation and rising unemployment to the ever increasing cost of living. From your vantage point in the National Assembly, how would you access the government’s handling of these challenges, and what different approaches would you suggest?
Well, I I think that Nigerians, and I’ve said it repeatedly before, Nigerians are hurting, no doubt about it. Inflation is on the high side, unemployment is on the high, no doubt about it. And if you think about so many things, there are so many things, like poverty, for instance, on the increase, there are so many things that are on the table now. The reality on ground is that things are not just going out too well for the average Nigerian. If you add up everything, you want to think that everybody has a fair share of the circumstances in which we find ourselves here, because insecurity is no longer news in Nigeria increasing by the day, every day people are killed in their numbers every day, people are ambushed by hellish men in their numbers, and like I said yesterday on the floor of the Senate, a young man from my constituency, Silas Oloche, has been incarcerated, have been arrested and incarcerated over a year now on allegation of illegal possession of arms, and we are aware that complaints have been raised again in the Senate in the past that armed herdsmen go about with very sophisticated weapons, and if you ask the police, they tell you they can’t confront them because their weapons are very sophisticated, and of course people have been told to go and defend themselves. I have advocated that in the past, and so if somebody is in possession of firearms to defend himself, and you go and arrest him and incarcerate him, and armed herdsmen are wielding AK 47 AK 49 all over the place. Then, who is deceiving who are we now protecting the people that we have sworn to protect or not? So, I think that there is some level of contradiction in our attitude to insecurity in the country, and so I believe that we can do better. We can do better in managing our democratic space, political parties and rest of them introduce some level of even if it is false ideology on the political parties, so that we have something to believe in at the moment.
The political parties are just there as platforms to provide space for people to contest elections and gain power. There is no commitment, and that is why you find people moving from party A to party B to party C, and back to party B to party A, because there is no ideological commitment to any of the political parties. We just dare any political party that can give us a platform to contest election.
Everything goes, and so I think that we can change our attitude to the whole situation, we can change our attitudes, for instance, for market money to say incremental budgeting, identifying projects that are germane to the people and put money there, and not the envelope system that we are operating now. I think that on the surface, the present administration is trying to introduce some reforms, but those reforms must align with the expectations and the aspirations of the people. Unless we do that, it’s just a mirage, because in spite of the efforts that are being made towards ameliorating the circumstances of which you have, things are getting worse by the day, and Nigerians are groaning under the weight of the situation we find ourselves which is on the increase, no doubt about it. Everyday you find somebody calling on elected officials. We need money to go to the hospital, we need money to take our children to school, we need money to pay our bills, and the rest of them. These are the regular occurrences every day that we found from Nigerians today, and we as a country, we cannot continue like that. So I want to insist that we must try to redirect our efforts towards ameliorating the conditions of the Nigerian people. Yeah, distinction is still on insecurity. Your district is the seeds we said it yesterday, and then we have a government, federal, state, and local government. Local government for the moment, they can’t do anything because there’s no empowerment.
Now, as somebody who has been in the grassroots, and your people always always facing incessant attacks and you just gave an instance of where a young man is still in police custody or DSS custody, which way do you suggest your people can grapple the situation?
Well, thank you very much. But if you were in the plenary yesterday, if you listen to me yesterday, I would say that look, the state governments must take responsibility for their actions. They are in charge of the purse of the state. They are the ones that draw regular security votes, humongous amounts of money. They are the ones in charge of local government funds. They are not giving the moneys to the local government.
So, at that level, swearing to protect the lives and property of the average person in the state is their primary responsibility, and not to sit in the comfort of government houses while people are killed in the villages. I talked about flash points yesterday in our local government. These are areas that you know already that are parole to attacks and ambushes. What proactive actions have been taken by the state government? And when people are beheaded, people are killed by the day. Where is that empathy demonstrated by state government by sending even officials, as little as directors in the state government, to go and empathize with the people to go and assess the situation. If you don’t assess the situation, how can you provide solutions to them? And that is what we are facing today.
The local government, like I said, are incapacitated because their funds are not given to them. I challenge anybody to say that the humongous amounts of money that goes to the local government now are directly channeled to the local government. No, the state governments corner them, and they keep them apparently for the local government. So I think that the time has come when we must call a spade a spade, whether you call it asymmetric war, whether you call it attacks, ambushes, and the rest of them. You see war against the people. For how long are we going to remain in this war? For how long are the people going to endure this harrowing killings of their people? For how long? I remember very well, as Minister of Interior, we had this scenario at the government of Doctor Goodluck Belle Jonathan took some steps to curb the situation, providing for reserves of police and rest of them to take over areas that have been liberated, but today, what do we have? The situation has deteriorated. It has even metamorphosed into kidnapping, into armed banditry, into hoodlums, seizing children from school, and the rest of them by their numbers, and so the situation is not abating, and it’s because, especially the state government, and I must say, have refused to take responsibility for governance. Otherwise, you can’t expect the federal government in Abuja here to know what is happening in a remote village in Apa, but the local government chairman should know, the state governor should know, the state government should know, and funds are provided for these things.
So, why are they not deploying these funds to service security outfits to combat this menace of insecurity? I can tell you for free here that in Benue State we have Operation Zenda that comprises all security outfits in Benue State put together. In the past, they used to have presence in all the local governments. We have the volunteer guards that are there in Benue State, and you have the Homeland Security, for instance, in Zone C, where I come from, in the past, this organization security outfits have been funded, and they provide security for the people, but now nobody is caring for them, nobody is paying attention to them, nobody is servicing them, nobody is providing fund for them, and then when communities are attacked, you just walk in there in answer to the cry, unnatural moment, you go away, the police will go away, the soldiers will go away, the people are not allowed to carry guns to defend themselves. Local security outfits are not encouraged to defend themselves. So, what do we do? So, we are very reactive when it comes to insecurity and not proactive. Actually, Eduku, for instance, was attacked in January. People moved in, and they left in April. They came back again and attacked the people, killing people, in their numbers, because they know that there is no standing regulation, no standing coordinated action against insecurity.
So, why are these people that are killing people with AK 47 not arrested and prosecuted for worse, it embodies them, and they come after our people time without number.
The 10th Senate, under the leadership of Senator Godswill Apparbio, is marking its third anniversary on Saturday, the 13th of June. What have been the achievements of this Senate so far?
Well, you know, the Senate, like any other legislature, eh, parliamentary organization, is responsible for making up for the good governance of the state. So, at the moment that we are talking up here, under the period under review, we can talk about approximately 844 bills that have been sent to the Senate, and out of this number, about 96 of them have been passed, and out of this number, again, about 52 of them have been assented to, and so if you go on and on, about 187 or so of them under process at the various levels of the legislative intervention, if you come to motions, several motions, especially on insecurity, on the FCT budget, and rest of them have been passed, and much more importantly, on a regular basis, since the scaling down of the budgetary session from January to December, the Senate has been able to see those attend to budget proposals, budget appropriations, and pass them into law on a regular basis up to this moment that I’m talking to you. Implementation may be another thing altogether, which is in the realm of the executive, and so I can tell you, therefore, that yes, we have had our challenges, no doubt about it, but the Senate, under review, has been able to predictably besides the responsibility of making laws.
The political landscape ahead of 2027 is already taking shape, and there are reports of growing opposition to your re-election bid. How do you intend to navigate those challenges? And why do you believe the people of Benue South should return you to the Senate for another term.
Well, thank you very much. When I’m asked some of these questions, I just simply respond by saying that you don’t teach the monkey how to climb the tree, because that is the monkey’s job, climbing the tree.
And so I am here, and I want to insist that I have not finished with my people yet, and I’m very sure that my people have not finished with me. There is no doubt about it, that you’ll be hearing from people we don’t want Abba Moro there. We don’t want Senator Abba Moro to go back for a third term and rest of them. I can tell you, here this is where these things are coming from. Our opponents are insisting that certain local governments have not produced ta senator before, and so they want Senator to come to their side now. And I want to ask you, you don’t elect people term by term, you elect people on the basis of elections, you present yourself for election, you win or you lose. I intend to go into the next election. I intend to win, to come back to the Senate. And if you ask me, I have a convenant with my people. If I begin now to roll out my project list and race again to you, they are in their numbers. It is there for everybody to verify, we have health centers spread all over the place in the nine local governments that we have as we have water projects, electricity projects in virtually the nine local governments that we have facilitated the construction of classrooms in all over the place, and so when you come to infrastructural development as a lawmaker, I have been able to influence some of these projects, some of these interventions to my community, to my senatorial district, and so I believe that when we get to the field, eventually to talk to our people, they will listen to us, the things that I’m saying, the bridges that I’m constructing, the roads that I’m constructing, they are all there for the people to see, and so it is not going to be a matter of hearsay anymore. It will be a matter of facts on ground, and I’m hoping that my people will see these things for themselves, know them for themselves, and know that I’ve been doing these things from the past. I am still doing them, and I’m going to continue to do them. And, like they say, majority of my people are saying, the devil you know is better than the AJ, you all know. And so they have confidence in me, and I promise that I will not disappoint them. And so my message clearly to them is this: I have not finished executing the covenant that I have with them, and I need more time, I need more support to be able to comprehensively meet my own expectation of what I should do for them to make a difference in their lives. At that point, I can now say, okay, I’m done, but for now I’m not done. For now, my people are not done with me.
On june 13, you marked seven years in the Senate, representing Benue South Senatorial District. Looking back, how would you evaluate your performance over that period, and what impact do you believe your legislative work, constituency projects, and other interventions have made on the lives of your constituents.
Without sounding like a broken record, I have given you my records. I have told you what I’ve done for my people, what I’ve been doing for my people, what I will continue to do for my people. And so, maybe at a more appropriate time, if you have time. What I have here is a compendium of my projects, my projects that span roads, construction, and bridges, my projects that combine comprised water provision, healthcare services, women, and youth empowerment, educational intervention, rural reification in their numbers. I have up to 19 rural education arrangements in this place, and then, of course, other interventions, renovation of formation of police command, and resident projects facilitated and captured in the 26 budget.
Again, we have about 21 here, that is to say that I mean business when I say I’ve been doing, I am doing, I will continue to do
Your final words for your constituents and Nigerians on Democracy Day ahead of the 2027 general elections.
Well, I have always insisted that building a nation, building a community is work in progress, and that you never give up. And so I know that we are not where we are now, we are not where we are supposed to be, but it is still work in progress. So I believe very sincerely that we will get there, and my message to my constituents and Nigerians is that we must keep hope alive, believing that at the end of the day efforts that are being put in place by government and the people now will yield results, and that we’ll get to where we want to be.