 President Tinibu says governors are critical to the success of his administration and Southwest Senators consider the other options and withdraw support for Gotswila Fabio in the 10th National Assembly race. This is Plus Politics. I am Mary Anacone. President Bola Med Tinibu has said governors are critical to the overall success of his administration and the desire for Nigeria that works for all. The President made this assertion in a statement while felicitating with the new leadership of the Nigerian Governors Forum and Progressive Governors Forum respectively. Tinibu urged the new leaders to use their tenor to advance the peace, unity and socioeconomic development of the country and to join hands with his administration to engender the renewed hope agenda. Joining us to discuss this is Oladotun Hassan, he is a legal practitioner and also joining us is Eugene Abels who is the Executive Director, Extra Step Initiative. Thank you so much gentlemen. Good evening and thanks for joining us. It is a pleasure to be your program. Thank you for having me. Great. Thank you. Doctor, you obviously were one of the biggest proponents of the Tinibu administration when you pushed during the campaign, in fact you campaigned on behalf of the APC. Let's start by looking at the challenge that he is going to face in terms of working together with these governors. The likes of Governor Wike who is somewhat leaned towards the APC during the presidential election and he is the person who is taken over from him, Simphubhaya, is one out of the many others who may not necessarily be APC reliant or compliant in terms of states. But how easy will it be because we've even seen governors who were from the same political party with the party at the centre and yet gave it a lot of headache. How easy do you think that the Tinibu administration will have with the governors? Well, taking it from the president of Nogura speech at the Eagle Square it sees no party rather it sees governors. So I think the level that we are now is the level of total governors predicated on this renewable agenda and it has really started on a very good note and I believe he has, he knows what he's doing for him to have a particularly bring together the governors of all 36 states. It shows that it's equal to the tax because for you to really deliver as a president you need all governors to be on the same page with you. They need to see things because all your vision is critical to the people. The people are the centre of your vision. So the carriers of those vision, the post-medial carriers are the governors. And we know we have a three tiers of government that are under a presidential system that gives a residual exclusive and the concurrent listing of how to do things. But in view of a lot of changes in the statutory, basic part of managing the economy in terms of power now we now have a concurrent management of power between the state and the federal and all other critical sectors of the economy are there to ensure that the state governors are carried along. The areas I want him to really focus on is to ensure not just the governors. It should go downward to all the severance for local government chairman because these are the critical food soldiers you really need to deliver critical governance to the people because the majority of these governors, I'm sorry to say, they have their own divergent views. It doesn't maybe goes to say that it's an electoral student approach. It's a confluence system where everybody must congregate ideas and cohabit together irrespective of their political party. We understand the PDP have their governors. They also have their own areas of interest. But needless to say, the president elects must go directly to force all the severance of full local government chairman and ensure that they equally carry their counselors along because if we can get those ones on the same table, every citizen know they have look at government chairman more than their governors. Not everybody have access to governors. But we know the governors will be very critical to ensure that the security vote are not just pocketed to ensure that education policy must become national. They must ensure that the issue of security must become everybody's business. Not just the business of the president as commander in chief. Every governor is chief security officer and they must represent that. I think Ashwajibola Aghmachunu is really, really giving us what governors for the first time really needs to be interpreted as government of the people, for the people and by the people and that is what democracy represent. And I believe is well experienced. He knows his own yours. And where we'll be looking at is that not just the governors, you should look out for selection of ministers, a round peg in round hole. So that these are just things that will fit in to the governor that is meeting today. Interesting. Eugene, many would say that the campaign and the politicking is over. It's time for governance. But then considering how divisive this campaign season and the elections in itself was and the fact that there are people who are still going to court or the tribunal, it's easy to make these statements, to put out press statements or talk at a tea party as opposed to actionable plans or actually getting across to these people and being able to get through to them. Again, I ask how easy a task is this going to be for President Srinivore Begha Pardin? Well, I think I'll put your question in line. A live question you asked my brother. And I like to say that just like Ridley pointed out, there are three tiers of government and in those three tiers of government, you have the executive legislature and the judiciary at all the three tiers. And that's the sense of federalism to bring governance closer to the people. And if you really if you need to contest for any position in Nigeria, you are required to go to your ward. You don't register in the capital. You go to your ward so that you begin to you begin from that to work government. What local government state states before you begin to play national politics? Yeah, the essence of it is for those of inclusivity. Now, have we been here before? Yes, we have. In 1984, we were here where our debt balloon states were irresponsible. The kind of loans they took and didn't implement them. So they were not commensurate to the nature of the the amount of money's bonus were not commensurate to the kind of development that took place between 1979 to 1984. The same thing, unlike what had happened in Brazil, we have a translator depth into the development of building a major industrial architecture. So we have security which has failed dramatically in the past eight years and then and has to be dealt with now by 1999, when the passenger regime came in. If you remember, when they were appointed ministers, the two people from all other parties who had lost elections in order to drive the government forward and in the south, South Governors, the now set of the South Forest and the South South Governors Forum, the essence of that forum was for peer review so that they will not compete it, compete negatively. But they will they will begin to run projects together. Projects are cut across, maybe like light rail, roads and so on, to enable the nation to complement whatever the federal government was doing on the macro level. We are at that junction now. We do not have the funding. We are our revenue levels are low. And then just like my brother pointed out, we need to begin to manage, like I've always said on the station, we need to begin to call government to begin to function. And the government's basically 90 percent civil servants on my uniforms or in plain clothes, some are in judges' robes, meaning that we need the regulators, the executors and the policy makers. We need to take it all the way down the way. I said that from the local government, all the way down from further to stay state to local, so that we don't just begin to do things the way everybody is doing their own thing. That's because we have the concern that some states are concurrently some responsibilities. I'll give you a simple example. Until recently, we had that national state or a state in the middle belt or so, that the judges were giving time to go and fix for some form of qualifications. And people were beginning to ask, how were they employed in the first place? How have they been administrating justice? A lot has gone wrong. Politics is over. And I would like to use the opportunity that with the experience of President Tinibu, that we need to run the country. And in running the country, it must be devoid of partisanship. We're in trouble. Yes, we're in trouble. That for instance, when people are talking about the subsidy removal on PMS, I'm saying it's not about your emotions. It's a case of a deed in day. You don't have it, you don't have. $100 million a month. Where are you going to get it? If you had $100 million, airlines like Emirates will have to be able to repatriate their earnings from what they had allegedly sold to Nigerians services here. So to change what would be different by this administration is the ability to create a massive collaboration between the center and the local government and ensure strict regulation and enforcement that their leakages are blocked, that clear policies that say, yes, I will not tell you what to do, but you will not run a mediocre educational system. You will not run a mediocre health system. If the schools are mediocre, National University Commission and other regulatory bodies will come in and shut, they don't even start and shut them down. I'm just trying to give some pointers so I don't take all the time. Because that's when we begin to hold people systems, processes accountable and make them accountable and efficient for the people to enjoy. Let me come back to you, Dawson. You talked about local governments. We've known over time that local governments have become an appendage of sorts for state governors. And then I can't remember the last time that local government elections really held as at one do. In fact, I must say for Koshua state, I think that this is, their tenure has just elapsed. But then of course, governors have come up with the brilliant idea, which I think it's crazy, to come up with these caretaker committees, which is very unconstitutional. So again, how is it going to be to break away from this norm that has been built over the years? I think it started happening under the Abbasan Jail regime and has become a norm up until today. If we're unable to break these guys away from or not make them some sort of an appendage to state governors, how are we certain that they can actually function at full capacity? Well, it's all about the constitution. It's all about the mindset and what gives me confidence is the fact that you mentioned the Abbasan Jail regime and I believe it's under the same regime that Ashwajibullah went to a room where they were able to come up with the LCDAs. And that really shot the foreign government trying to shut down Lego state government monthly allocation. And it took them to the Supreme Court till the government of Yara Dua was able to pay. Meaning that Ashwajibullah has that firsthand opportunity of critically injecting his idea of grassroot governors. And for you to talk about grassroot governor, you must show statutory regulatory standard to review the constitution, meaning the LCDAs must face the enlarge to real local government. However, we know that the problem is not just the fact that there are no electoral commission in those state to conduct local government election, but it's all about the LCDAs attitude, the lack of focus of some of our governors who believe that power at all costs and the absolutism of power, meaning power corrupt and absolute power corrupt, absolutely. Whereby they fail in their various line of thought to organize local government election. Even the one of the most popular presidential candidate, majority of them, nobody is insulated. We know there's some state that conduct other local government election. You already know it's going to win the local government chairmanship election. We don't need that. We need full independent process that is critically as the government's tenures are guaranteed by constitution. Such is the way the local government election was guaranteed. And the best thing we can have it done is to remove LASIEC totally. Let the INE condone local government election, the way they are conducting for the governor and the president. But then the local government electoral commissions are also somewhat constitutional, whether you like it or not. No, we are trying to talk about the re-engineering. This is what is called reviewed system. That is why we are calling for a restructured system. These are critical areas that we are failing on because the system is yoked with a lot of grip to power. And everybody wants to hold everybody to his appendage. And if we continue this way, we are not ready. Just as we were able to break the yoke of the subsidy by everybody focusing on the real issue, that is the same way we must break governors. We must be more involved. If by virtue of every citizens getting involved with local government election at that level, we will be more involved in the 2023 election. We will not be having Prime Minister dropout as our chairman. We will not be having all this kind of, they will just turn the local government system as a redundant structure of governors. No, in developed countries, local government are the base of where security issues are dealt with, where economic issues are properly harmonized, where issues of infrastructure development are properly, critically... I think we have a little network connection there with you, but I'm going to come back to you, I'm going from... Enshrine, 323, by-laws, all the rates, we need them to be, and that's why I'm advising the president that it should take along immediately the local government chairman as his strong food soldiers, because they'll be very glad for the first time that they are recognized by the president. Now president has started with our local government chairman in discussing the issue of national development. So if he brings it down to their level and power them, give them all the motivation that they will require to live up to the expectation, they should be the one to really subsidize the hardship of the people at the grassroots in collaboration with the governors. Okay, Eugene, many have said that, oh, and I see what you as president now, for one who has been known since the days of Nadeco, et cetera, et cetera, that he might be the chosen one to bring about true federalism. Thank God for the Buhari administration and the one very important thing that he did, which you had mentioned, oh, I think Dottel mentioned, of bringing the electricity into the concurrent list. And that's obviously a stat, but then there's several other things that need to also be reviewed, just like Dottel said. Can I see what you bring through federalism or can we experience or begin to at least see a little bit of that? Because we say that we are operating a federal system of government, but indeed it is a unitary system of government. Again, Dottel said something about making these local government chairmen, he's foot soldiers. Does that not signal a start of a war, a cold war between governors and the power at the center? Yeah, first of all, I support the call for true federalism and independence of the camps of government at the three tiers of government. But while you're doing that, you need to go through the parliamentary hurdles that you now face in the House of Assemblies and you're gonna get challenges there because the governors want to keep control. I don't care who you bring as the local government chairmen. I don't want any more local governments, which as president, the most powerful president, the worst Nigerian president, with seven and 74 local governments, I get my NFIU, National Financial Intelligence Unit, my EFCC, my ICPC, my Code of Conduct, with this and the fraud wing of the Nigerian police. With these four agencies, I follow the money, follow your budget. There are certain things which I expect to see. If I don't see them, even though some of them might be on the various exclusivity or concurrently, whatever, there are things within the framework of governance which you'll be accountable between the law. I will follow the money and ensure the money is spent and spent properly. I will not tell you what to do, but once the money does not go where it's supposed to go to which you have claimed for it to go to, you the nursery things will be done. The nursery sanctioned to Bethan. If I have to set up special courts, I'll set them. If I have to sanction judges, I will sanction them. If I have to sanction officials of graft agencies for throwing cases, I'll sanction them. Why can you sanction them? When, if you lose a case, we'll review that case. Why did you lose it? What was the nature of the quality of evidence that you brought? What, you know, there's several things. These are the funds, it's not the size of government or the number of people. It's for us, for people to begin to know that it is not business as usual. So I don't care what you're thinking as a governor, that I will follow the money and the money will get to the people. So you will need to write something. You need to show something for you to expand that money. And you, on frivolous projects, you just embarrass yourself and I'll keep you busy. Yeah. So once the place become, because these same people who are looking to you as difficult to run are the same people who are used to mobilize during partisan politics. Now, if I take you back to the SDP and then I'll show you times, it was free. So for instance, in River State, the governor was an NROC man. The political local government chairman was an NROC, I was a recipe person. So there was this competition for projects and ensuring that teachers, salaries were paid, drainages were done, roads were done. And so all those at the Coyah area were done. There was this competition and it was interesting to see. I think the local government chairman's name was Dr. Chukua. So he lives in the Coyah, while the governor was at the judge. So we've seen that it's possible. People are earning salaries to do their job and these civil servants have not done their job or they are not doing their job because people have not been sanctioned. We don't need to grow the bureaucracy. All we need to do is begin to make them to be functional. So you end your kid, you end your Jesse. So you do those things which you are supposed to do. The code of conduct burial does not need much. There are codes which you sign when you have been elected, after you have been elected or sworn in. If you violate them, there's enough on the further plate or when it comes to regulation and sanction to ensure that you do the right thing. And it is time for this. If we don't do it, we're going to sink as a nation. It is not time for finger pointing. This is supposed to be a new beginning. If Presidentinipu wants to have a switch and smooth run, he will need to do what he needs to do. And this applies to the economy, applies to burrowing, applies to security, applies to staffing, applies to every facet of our society. There's enough personnel and enough consequences for people to be dealt with. And we're not coming to punish people, but we're just telling people, let's look at how things were done in the past. Standards were set in the past. And let's try to surpass them. Okay, Doctor, let's talk about something that I think we gloss over a lot in this part. The fact that every single thing that goes wrong or when we're querying governance, we always look at government at the center. I mean, I could ask all kinds of questions. We always forget about the fact that our governors are the ones that are responsible most to us. Yes, we're not in any way absorbing the federal government of their duties. But half the time we're always saying, oh, the box stops at Mr. President's table, which is also true. But why is it that we most of the time overlook the duties of our governors to us? Now we've obviously addressed the issue of local governments because these are the people who are closest to us in terms of governance, they reach us where we are. But for governors, lots of things seem to fly under the radar. Why do you think that is? And every single time, we're always blaming the president. Yes, he does have his blames, but why do we always only look at the governors? You know, you won't blame us, our people, for casting and carrying all their burdens to the decks of the president, because this is the most, we run the most powerful constitution, we have the most powerful president, because this is like the president that does no wrong in this part of this country. And at that same position, why our problems are mainly from the air, the way our problem in this country is from the top to the bottom. It's supposed to start from the bottom to the top. But because of the kind of people that we've had at the ends of our fears, they have mostly disappointed us as citizens. They've left critical structure of governors and then meshed themselves in corrupt activities and reached themselves with state resources. They still date, a lot of them are still running on state resources. So in as much as people see them as a pointer, as a yastic to measure governors, that need less not to say that the partners that carry these equal burdens are the governors. The majority of these governors mostly see themselves in that same position, using the camouflage coverage of the federal government as their own shield when reach themselves. Whereby, citizens don't pay attention to how our budget have been run. Nobody's monitoring the governors. It's supposed to be, watch my back. The federal government ought to be monitoring the governors. The governors ought to be monitoring the local government. But in this part of the world, you see a local government chairman wanting to write on a convoy. Why? Because nobody's even checkmating how they manage the resources of the state. The only thing that will make us get it right is the law. As I've retreated earlier, that until we review and ensure that we totally pull down this present constitution, because it's a constitution that is predicated on military degree. And I don't expect within the focal point of Ashwajibullah Khmeritunagu and the 10th assembly that is coming on board and the entire tiers of government that we have should still be looking at this whole wagon called constitution to still run us a good governor. No. I guess that that's a conversation for another day, daughter. No, no, no, no. It's a conversation for another day because I have many questions. I have many questions as to how soon that can be done. We've had so many constitutional conferences. Let's not even go there. Unfortunately, we don't have enough time to have this conversation, but I want to say, thank you. It's just part of our solutions if you forget to try. Our law must be set down. Our rule of law must have its peace in our governance. Well, I want to say thank you to Dato Hassan who is a legal practitioner and to Eugene Ables who is the executive director, the extra step initiator. Thank you so much gentlemen for being part of the conversation. Thank you for having us. All right. Thank you. Well, we'll take a short break. When we return, we'll be discussing the position of the Southwest Senators on their choice of leadership for the Senate in the 10th National Assembly. Stay with us.