By Willy Eya
Former member of the House of Representatives, U.S.A. Igwesi has said that the federal government should as a matter of urgency mandate the Attorney General and minister for Justice, Abubakar Malami to articulate all the views on restructuring including matters arising from the 2014 National Conference and forward them as executive bill to the National Assembly. Just recently, a court of Law outlawed IPOB and declared it a terrorist organization. What is your reaction? The activities of IPOB are just like those of other known ethnic agitators in Nigeria but under Nnamdi Kanu, I think seriously speaking, they went too far. But if you look at it, what they did cannot be said to be different from what other ethnic agitators in Nigeria have done. IPOB does not even bear arms like other ethnic agitators except specifically at the crescendo of their madness that attracted the attention of the federal government. I am from the Eastern part of Nigeria. I have never heard of person or persons who were attacked or molested by IPOB in any form except their recent outbursts and actions which I believe were actually uncalled for. The aspect of parading uniformed army, regardless of the guise and using uncivilized and erratic languages should be discouraged and seen as a joke carried too far. They may have genuine intentions as regards what we all know about the marginalisation of the Igbo in the scheme of affairs of the nation, but the method used by Kanu and his group was untamed, unnecessary and wild, and it gave the government the opportunity to use a sledge hammer to kill an ant. I therefore call on the federal government to stand up to the challenges of democratic leadership which was founded on the philosophy of consultation and continued conversation. People need to be engaged in round table to sort out naughty issues. The government should never close the windows of discussion and conversation, because agitations are necessary in any polity and society. We have to cross our fingers to see how the issue will play out in various courts of law, especially now that the proscription order has been gazetted. What are your views on the issue of Restructuring? Restructuring as the word suggests, is an acceptance of the fact that there is an existing structure in place that needs to be tinkered with. You can choose to restructure a house based on the fact that the present structure of the house was no longer fashionable, thereby demolishing an aspect of the house and introducing newer things to make the house attractive and trending, same to a country, state and society. Restructuring suggests that there was a structure in place but may not be working properly to the admiration of the people and they feel there is need to tamper with the structure to enable it work effectively. The whole idea is to address those challenges that had not allowed it to work. It is as simple as that. Some Nigerians feel that the present ‘feeding bottle economy’ should be discouraged to allow the federating units to take care of their resources and pay royalty to the federal government. Others believe the federal government is over saturated with powers and they are asking for power devolution, to strengthen the federating units and ensure that democracy dividends get to the grassroots. Others are calling for abolition of the present bi-camera legislature of our parliament to be replaced by a unicameral structure that will operate on the part time basis based on the cost effectiveness of running a dual parliament in the centre. Many are equally calling for state police to guarantee adequate community policing. So, it will sound procrastinating for any responsible government not to yield to critical issues like these. This challenge is indeed the true test of quality leadership. The federal government should as a matter of urgency mandate the Attorney General and minister for Justice to articulate all these views including matters arising from the 2014 National Conference and forward them as an executive bill to the National Assembly. After the debate on these issues and subsequent conference committees, they can now pick those ones that will go through constitutional amendment and those to be strengthened administratively. Do you believe the Nigeria Bureau of statistics that the country is out of Recession? I understand that the bureau used the word slightly out of recession, not that we are completely out of recession. It even admitted that it is a process. To be honest with you, I am not an expert in figure manipulation and like every other Nigerian who has the same challenge; I can only recognise statistical figures when they are translated to food on the table. I may not totally disagree with the NBS because I am not a professional to comprehend whether we are slightly out of recession or not. But my advice is that the D.G. of the Bureau had assured Nigerians that it is not yet ‘Uhuru’ because the recession exit is not an end in itself but a process that will take time to assimilate in the system. According to him, certain negative economic activities might slide the country back to recession if not abated, so the government should strengthen all sectors of the economy and support same to ensure the sustenance of the present economic success recorded so far. So, let us believe the Bureau because they were the people who announced that Nigeria is in a recession and for them to say otherwise, we have cause to believe them because I can’t see them play politics with such a sensitive and critical assignment. The CJN has recently mandated the Heads of Judiciary in the state to create special courts to speed up trial of corruption cases. What are your views? The president in his nationwide independence broadcast recently stated that corruption is Nigeria’s number one enemy, and any right thinking Nigerian will definitely agree with him that there is need to speed up the trial of all these corruption cases. So, the designation of judges and special courts to enhance justice delivery in this direction will be much welcomed by Nigerians. Moreover, it is important that the National Assembly must be carried along in this direction because they have the constitutional powers to brainstorm on it as the representatives of the people to ascertain if it is a worthwhile venture or another wild goose chase. This is because I am aware that only the constitution and National Assembly can create and establish special courts. Moreover, there is need for our judiciary to procure cutting edge equipment that will enhance the pace and speed with which data collation in our courts are done. Our judges should be exposed to relevant capacity buildings that will keep them abreast with the challenges of new technologies and extant developments in the profession. This is because some people may argue that even the present size of our regular courts now, can still deal with the corruption cases, but since it is the same Nigerian judges in our regular courts that will be drafted to man these special courts, it may not make a difference. It will be a case of old wine in new bottle and cannot help issues in that direction. So it is our attitude and orientation as individual judges in the temple of justice that will determine the success in that direction. We need to commend the CJN on his passion to sanitize the judiciary from corrupt practices with the self-cleansing mechanism recently adopted by him to ride the judiciary officials from contamination and compromise in determining corruption cases before them. You must remove the log in your eye for you to see clearly to remove the speck in another person’s eye.