Ameachi Can’t Stop Us From Supporting Jonathan – Hon Tamuno Ruth Choji — Aug 18, 2014 | 1 Comment Hon Gogo Bright Tamuno represents Okrika /Ogu/Bolo, Rivers State in the House of Representatives. In this interview with Ruth Choji, the lawmaker speaks on the need for Nigerians to support the military and join government in the fight against terrorism. Many Nigerians believe that the army has been polarised. As a member of the committee on Army, what is your take on this? That is what is happening today. I think the general belief is that the army has been infiltrated. It is a multi-ethnic thing. Whoever is in Boko Haram has their brothers, uncle, wives and children and some of these relations are in the army and they know them. Since they know them, they relate with them and if your brother is somewhere doing something negative and they are going to attack or arrest them, you will inform them. So it is easy and I want to agree with those who think the army is infiltrated but that does not mean that the army is not doing its best. Do you think the current Nigerian army is capable of defending the nation? They are more than capable. If you look at Nigeria, outside the civil war, we have never fought a war. Our army, aside peacekeeping, has never fought any war. They have been training but they have not been confronted with such things like insurgency and you know it is domesticated. The army in the process of fighting this insurgency will develop its skills and that is why it is important that other nationals are here to teach them how to tackle such situation. So our army will learn how to confront insurgency. The situation is made difficult because you don’t know the people, they don’t wear a different uniform; some will wear Agbada with a bomb and some will wear jeans and T-shirt and still commit suicide. So it is a difficult war. Corruption has been attributed as one of the reasons the army is losing the war against insurgency. What is your take on this? The truth is that Nigeria is in a situation and everybody has to support the army in every way. We should not be apportioning blame, like some will say they are not paying the soldiers well. We must come together to appreciate what these soldiers are doing. How much can you pay somebody to defend and protect you? Corruption is not an issue now, let’s join hands to fight this battle first and after we have succeeded, we can now apportion blame. The bomb that went off in Jos recently did not choose who will die, it killed people from every tribe and religion. Everybody talks about corruption but nobody wants to define it well. As a member of the army committee, I have been privileged to go round all the army barracks in Nigeria and you will see a situation where a colonel is living in one room apartment. What is the way out? Terrorism is a global matter. Sometimes, people tend to compare the militancy and the insurgency we are now faced with but they are two different things. What we have today is terrorism, the other one was mere agitation and the people were not faceless and you could actually go to the creeks to talk to them. They open the way for people to see them and talk to them but now we are dealing with faceless human beings, you don’t know who is who. Today it is Syria, tomorrow is Pakistan and so on. Some Nigerians have criticised the federal government for inviting foreigners to help in tackling the security challenges. Do you support the government’s move? We are talking about territorial integrity and 80% of the people that have been apprehended are not Nigerians and the Sambisa forest we are talking about cuts across three countries which include Niger, Cameroun and Chad so to handle such a multi-nation problem, you need collective efforts of everybody. You cannot just cross to Cameroun or Chad to fight but when it is a coordinated affair, everybody can go in to fight. Some have attributed the rise in insurgency to poverty while others are afraid that the crises to lead to the breakup of the nation. What is the true state of insecurity in the country? If as a poor man, you are fighting poverty, will you be killing the poor? What is happening is massacre. They invade villages and kill poor people. If poverty is the cause, people should come out and state their case. When the federal government saw what the Almajiri menace was something that could cause a threat to the nation, they moved immediately into building Almajiri schools and they have built over two hundred of such schools. This is where everybody is given free books, uniforms and everything to be in school. While they build these schools for them, they are still saying that they are fighting western education. The same people are using western things produced by the West and you went to school, yet you are saying others should not go to school. You are busy kidnapping girls and killing villages. Some have blamed the President for not nipping the insurgence in the bud, what do you think? Mr. President is the president and commander and he is not expected to speak anyhow. He is not the commissioner or minister of Information. You don’t expect him to shout that I am doing this and I am not doing that. It is a federal system of government and both the state and federal government has its role to play. If we begin to blame Mr. President, will he preside over every local government in Nigeria? We have the international court of justice where people have been shouting that they should take Obasanjo there for the massacre in Odi. Is it when he moves to live in Borno State that they will know he is not slow? Even with the best he is doing, they are shifting blame on him. After the attack in Yobe State secondary school, the ministry of Education wrote the three states of Adamawa, Yobe and Borno to close down all the schools there and when they knew that this Chibok school was under threat, WAEC wrote that they should close down the school. Not only WAEC, the federal ministry of Education wrote twice to the state governor to close down the school but they refused. So who is to blame? As it is now, we don’t know the right figures of the girls abducted. Why can’t the school come up with the right figure up till now? Can somebody register WEAC without passport? Where are their pictures? People are not playing politics with the issue of the missing girls, if not, why can’t they produce the exact figure and passports of the girls that registered? Now they are saying seven escaped and another four. How did they escape? So you will see that something is wrong somewhere. Even at that, we are talking about lives of Nigeria and corporate existence of Nigeria. Are you saying that there is a conspiracy somewhere because some Nigerians believe it could be aimed at tarnishing the image of the Goodluck Jonathan administration? I can tell you without mincing words that people don’t like the face of Mr. President because of where he comes from. Change is a very difficult thing but we know that it is something that must happen. Some people are used to being in leadership and they are not used to staying out of power for long. In 2011, some people said if we don’t win, we will make the country ungovernable, now the man won by divine intervention. He never contested for president, but God decided to make him one. People are itching that after eight years of Obasanjo, how can we wait another eight years again? They decided to start something that will hurt the president and before they know it, Al-qaeda has hijacked the thing and now it is uncontrollable. Now they are shouting wolf and looking for people that they will blame. Will Mr. President order for genocide? But has the House taken a stand on this issue? I cannot speak for the House because I am not in the leadership of the House but we have discussed on how to incorporate security from primary to secondary and university level. We haven’t taken a stand apart from the extension of state of emergency which initially our friends from the north felt should not be extended. But by the time we all listened to the service chief, even those from Borno agreed that it should be extended. If it were personal, I will propose that they go for all out state of emergency where the military will take over the whole state because in this situation, the military is trying and the state governor is talking rubbish like what the Adamawa State governor was doing. All they are saying is unnecessary. We must also advice those in position to respect what our army is doing and also Mr. President for what he is doing. This is a new thing and they are trying to find ways to coping it. You are also in education committee, what is your take on the state of the sector at the university level? I will tell you that we are in a situation. Education in Nigeria is now politics. Our university education comparatively are not doing very well and the problems are multi-faceted. You cannot apportion blame to just one state. I am privileged to know what is happening to the university system because of the committee. In 2009, a thirteen point agreement was signed and some of the demands of our lecturers was that all landed properties of the federal government in every state should belong to the federal university in that state. If the property is of the ministry of health, the university will take it over and it was signed. At the point of negotiation, because of pressure and for the children to go back to school, you hurriedly sign something. Imagine how funny that is. What has that got to do with quality of education? So these days, it is one strike after the other and we don’t even know what the school calendar is anymore. Youth corps members have batch A and B for those with good grades and those with carry-over but these days while University of Lagos is on second semester, University of Ibadan will be on first semester or mid semester. We don’t have a unified school system because of this incessant strikes. ASUP is on strike, COASU is on strike. We listened to them recently and if you listen to their demands, you will know that the things are not necessary. What has these things got to do with the standard of education in Nigeria? But because ASUU went on strike, we should also go and look for our own and by the time they finish, the secondary school teachers will start their own. That is why I told you that the problems are multi-faceted. We must sit down and take a general look at the sector. Some are of the opinion that a year’s budget should be dedicated to education, do you think it will solve our problem? Then what will happen to the other sectors? Is education the only sector in the country? Why not say government should hands off education? That they should regulate? It is only in Nigeria that university students are paying seventeen thousand to go to school when others are paying one hundred and fifty thousand for a child of 2 years in nursery school. If they increase the fees, they will go on strike. We must invest on education and government should regulate. Nigerians leave here to go to Ghana and pay millions for schools, but if it’s here and they say pay fifty thousand, they will protest or go on strike. You don’t want to invest in education, you want government to do everything for you in education. What will happen to other sectors? Are you in support of private universities? Yes, because that is the only thing that can drive us out of our state of illiteracy because government institutions have been taken for granted by lecturers that work there. It is like what we experience in government hospitals. They don’t take care of government things but spend money on their private clinics. Lecturers in government schools don’t give their best, they recycle handouts every year and make the students pay; no improved knowledge, no research or anything and you hear they have become professors. Going back to the Niger Delta, what has been the effect of Ameachi’s defection on the state? How can Ameachi’s defection divide the South South? I am from Rivers State and Ameachi is my governor. I am still in the PDP and I am supporting Mr. President. As far as I know, Rivers State is PDP and will continue to be PDP for ever and ever. Ameachi is a governor and he has done his bit, his defection was not a collective decision. We came here under his supervision but some of us refused to follow him because we know the cause he is fighting is a wrong cause. What is he really looking for? Does he want to be a president, vice president or what is it that he wants us to sacrifice Jonathan for? If he were running for president, then we will know and it will divide the Niger Delta. But he has not told us what he wants. Every day he shouts corruption, this and that, we have not seen what he has for us. So for me who is representing Okrika, I have not seen anything he can do because the people of Rivers state are united in their support for President Jonathan and he will get their vote. Will the party support him if he comes back today? The constitution gives freedom of association and he is a product of the PDP. If he comes back with good intention, why not? The party will welcome him back. Have you been able to impact the lives of your people since you got to the House? To an extent, yes. We have an adage that says a dancer cannot see his back but I will say yes. For me to be here is enough hope for others that they can aspire to and become members. This will make them know that it is good to stay away from crime and respect your elders. I came from the grassroots, I was born in the village and did my primary and secondary school there. I am a village boy and I go there every weekend.
Posted on: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 05:22:47 +0000
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