Honourable John Owan Enoh represents Etung/Obubra Federal Constituency of Cross River State in the National Assembly. In this interview with Gill Nsa-Abasi, he speaks on Acting President Goodluck Jonathan and other national issues. Excerpts:

Some people have condemned the National Assembly for the manner it made the vice-president an acting president, saying that it was unconstitutional. What is your take on that?
Let me say this: first and foremost, the matter has been challenged in court, and we have to await the court’s decision on it.

But without prejudice to that court decision, what the National Assembly did was politically expedient. Our country was going down daily, the level of tension was becoming unbearable and we were at the verge of losing our democracy.

Once the decision was taken by the National Assembly, the tension was reduced considerably.

So, whether the decision was the right or not, it helped the nation to the extent that the anxiety is no longer there.

I think that you need to wait for the court to come out with a judicial pronouncement as to whether what the national assembly did was right or wrong.


Can the Acting President remain in that position till the end of his tenure in case the president does not get well enough to return to office?
There is no constitutional provision that talks about the limit of remaining an acting president.

All these are issues that are ahead of us and we cannot say anything for sure whether Goodluck Jonathan will be the Acting President to the end of this administration or not.

All other issues are matters of conjecture as far as I am concerned.

As the chairman of the House committee on Finance, your work covers the budget. How soon will Nigerians see the Acting President signing the 2010 Budget?
Well, our committee has gone very far. You know the finance committee normally looks at the revenue estimates and I can say we are 99 per cent done with our work.

The budget, you know is not just on revenue estimates, as the expenditure estimate is the main issue and the Appropriation committee is handling that.

The budget is normally committed to the two committees of appropriation and finance. What I can assure you is that within the next two weeks, before the end of February, the budget will be passed by the two chambers of the National Assembly.

We are working hard to harmonize the two versions and ensure that any difference in the two would not be so wide when it is passed as to delay the harmonized version, so that the Acting President can sign it.

Your committee recently alerted Nigerians to some unremitted funds to the federation account running into trillions of naira. Can you give more insight on this?
The unremitted funds are actually of two aspects; the one that the committee was concerned with was the non-remittances to the federation account from revenue funds.

We did an investigative hearing, spanning about five years and the outcome showed that over N3trillion was actually not remitted. There is little we can do about that now; what we can do is try to be more accountable and enforce strict compliance with the remittance to the federation accounts.

The second aspect has to do with unspent funds. Year in year out, we have actually been emphasing the issue of unspent funds.

For the 2009 unspent fund, because the National Assembly has shifted the deadline for the implementation of the budget to the end of the first quarter of 2010, the issue of unspent funds will be less resonant because the government has the chance to spend funds between January and March.

So, the unspent funds element in the 2009 budget would not be outstanding, as it was in the previous year.


There have been arguments for and against members of the National Assembly from the state spending up to three tenures and even more in the legislature. what is your view on that, taking into consideration the necessity of zoning being promoted among communities?
For the legislature, without prejudice to the fact that I am a ranking member, I proffer arguments that support ranking.

I think that there is an undeniable fact that if we are serious with our democracy in this country, we must look at the West, which offers us a model in terms of the legislature being a bedrock in strengthening a nascent democracy.

Let me give you an example; in the United States for example, the late Senator Ted Kennedy got into United States Senate at the age of 30 and died at the age of 77 as a serving senator.

That means he served for 47 years. I am not advocating that such should take place in Nigeria, because we are not at the same level of development with them, but at our own little stage in the country, we need to know that for the legislature;

experience will enhance performance whether you like it or not and without prejudice to where you come from in the National Assembly; there will be senators and House of Representative members that will be coming for the fourth time which means they have been there since 1999.


So, for any state that does not know this, and wants to throw up new members, such states will continue to suffer some disadvantages because ranking is important and there is a huge difference between somebody who is going back for the third or fourth time and a fresh comer, no matter how intelligent.

As I said, our level of development may not support the kind of situation we have in the United States but we must begin to learn and appreciate the fact that that is where we are going.

The system is going to throw up some people that they think are going to add value to the state and governance.

Will the argument for zoning within and among communities be a huge challenge to the necessity of experience, which you pointed out?
Yes, it is challenging. The return of the legislators may not be in totality but a State like Cross River that has eight members in the House of Representative and three in the senate, as we make calculations about sending people to the National Assembly, we calculate in teams of benefits to Cross River State.

So, if the leadership of the state looks at 11 of us and determines that this and that number can return, they would be doing those calculations because they think that, with the kind of people returning, the state can always do better and the interest of the state will be protected and promoted more in Abuja.

So, what I am saying is that experience will enhance our democracy and give us more benefits but as we make those calculations, we must try to balance out the logic of zoning.

For example, if, in a particular federal constituency, the argument of the state leadership is such that a particular member must return, then that state leadership must be able to appreciate that they have to offer something in return for the argument that a particular member should go back to the assembly.That’s the way politics is played.

A leadership that denies a particular area the chance to run for election because they feel that the particular member or senator will do better for the benefit of the state should be able to offer something in return for that denial, I think that is the way politics should be played.

As a major stakeholder in Cross River State, how would you appraise the performance of Governor Liyel Imoke?

I think that the governor has done well, especially in the face of the hardship that the state is confronted with.

Anybody who knows the financial circumstances of Cross River State will appreciate the worth of this administration in terms of what it started doing when it came into office, especially when the situation was good and we had the full benefits of our oil wells and all the monies we earned were coming in.

There was no political ward in Cross River State that did not get government’s attention via projects.

We also have an administration that is so humane, which has demystified governance and has made governance to be accesible to the people.

The governor has a date with history and needs to deliver the dividends of democracy to the people and I believe this administration, so far, has done well and it still has a lot of room to do a lot better because it has the interest of the state at heart.


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