The leader of 8th Senate, Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume, represents Borno South in the Red Chambers. He was minority leader of the House of Representatives on the platform of the defunct All Peoples Party (later ANPP). He won elections to the Senate in 2011 and was re-elected, now the senate leader, where he has been holding sway for the ruling All Progressives Congress. In this interview with TORDUE SALEM, he speaks on President Buhari’s plans for anti-graft agencies, oil subsidy and how the APC plays out matters with the minority Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the Senate.

The Senate president just announced the Senate Committee Chairmen, there are some members of your party who are not satisfied even though the APC got over 40 Committees and the PDP got lower. What do you say about this?

Well let me say that I think the problem is that we are still having the hangover of the past administration. We have changed the way thibgs were done in the past. We had the committee chairmanship based on equity, justice and fairness and so when we had to appoint chairmen of the various committees, we made sure that every zone had at least 10 committee chairmen. Fortunately or unfortunately, in two of our zones we have only one APC member and we cannot give chairmanship to areas we do not have a member. We also must be seen to have acted in line with equity, justice and fairness. In South-South we have only one member in Southeast we do not have any.

To be fair and equitable as demanded by the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and our Order paper, even in the distribution of the so called ‘grade A’ Committees. You cannot say because you are in the ruling party, we should do what PDP did in time past and keep everything to itself. We felt we should do things differently according to the change mantra, we should be fair to even the opposition and I think we were fair. As to the issue of complaints by individuals, I think it is normal. When you have 109 members with only 65 committees, it means that about 44 members would go without chairmanship positions. It is a normal thing but let me confess that I am just hearing this for the first time as no Senator came to complain about the issue.

We reached out to some of the Senators although they craved anonymity

So it means that if someone is complaining and he does not want his names to be mentioned, that means that there is something wrong somehow. There is no way you can give everyone chairmanship, because we are the government in power. We are preaching the gospel of equity, justice and fairness, we cannot be found to be gluttonous in any way by taking all the committees to ourselves. We cannot also take what people term the scrap committees and also give it to the opposition that is not APC. That was PDP.

What yardstick will the senate use to esnure effective oversight of the execuitive?

We are going to introduce what we call oversight tracking system and also introduce the committee tracking system. As you may have noticed, this Senate is trying to improve on its way of doing things by improving on the way we play our oversight functions. When committees now go on oversights, they immediately file a report once they are done and such reports will be analyzed and laid before the Senate and deliberated upon and the recommendations so reached will be sent to the president who is the Commander-in-Chief, who is also the executioner of the executive arm of government.

What will be the purpose of this?

If there are observations, the president can now depend on the report from the national assembly to have an insight and an independent assessment of the performance of various ministries and that too will also show to the world and the Senate what a particular Committee is doing.

What are your expectations of the incoming cabinet?

The president is very concerned about securing the country. That is one of his priority and since the Service Chiefs are on board, a minister of defense will now coordinate the activities of that area and the president’s agenda in that regard will continue. Secondly, is the issue of capital infrastructure and this includes power, roads, health, agriculture and so on.

What about the fight against corruption?

The president is very resolved in the issue of fighting corruption, that is very critical to his administration and it is on-going, practically and effectively. But on the overall, this Senate is poised to provide the necessary legislation for this new government in order to achieve the desired change Nigerians are craving to see.

In one of your sessions, the issue of N5,000 monthly stipends for indigent was really a controversial issue

I think that there was a political ambush there, if not, how would the senators of the Federal Republic tell the president to start the implementation of payment of N5000 to youths who are not working. I was of the opinion that if they were serious and patriotic about it, and that is why I wanted to amend the motion, that the Senate would have asked the president to bring a supplementary budget to cover such expense. That what I wanted to amend but that would have been a better prayer to ask Mr President to bring to the National Assembly, a supplementary budget that will be approved to enable him to start implementing the payment of N5000 to indigent people.

The president cannot just pay such monies, where will he get it from without Appropriation? So, the National Assembly cannot be part of that unless the resources were appropriated for and the president says he has only about 30 million in the bank. You cannot use that to pay people. PDP wanted to use that for a cheap blackmail but that did not work, Nigerians are more educated than that. But the president is still serious about it and we are looking for all avenues to be able to raise resources to be able to execute the project which is laudable. I am sure that by 2016 when the budget is brought room will be made for it.

Also, you have to build a data base because if you start paying, who will you pay to? The first thing now is for the government to be able to have the statistics of all those concerned, the indigent, the unemployed, the elderly and then you know where they are including their data before you start payment.

During the ministerial confirmation sessions, the PDP staged a walkout and had the confidence that the sessions would stop. What do you think gave them the confidence?

The confidence they have is in their number because they occupy 49 seats. So, they are thinking that since they have about 40 percent, they can be a clog in the wheel of our progress but it does not work that way. In the US Congress as it stands now, Republicans are 54, Democrats are 44 and you have 2 independent candidates yet, they working. My question therefore will be, is it in the interest of PDP to make things not work? Is that why they are in the Senate? I do not think so. They are senators of the Federal Republic and not senators of PDP. So, those statements are just coming out of emotions. Besides, the day to day decisions of the Senate chambers require a simple majority and the business of the Senate starts with a simple quorum. 60 is more than a quorum, it is in fact, double the quorum and if we had six more members, we would have had two-thirds.

Do you see them crossing over to the APC?

Yes, because PDP is in a coma and only God knows when it will recover. As you can see now, they do not have any doctor or pharmacist and the only nurse is Olisa Metuh.

There are speculations making the rounds that later on in the life of this Senate, some bigwigs may join the PDP with the hopes of having the party ticket. Can you substantiate this?

No! I am part of some of the APC members trying to convince some of them over to move over to our side and they will soon move in their numbers in the Senate. So, when you tell me that APC members are going over to the PDP, it is strange to me because like I said earlier, I am trying to convince some of my colleagues over to the APC. And you know that electoral shock is worse than electric shock. That was what PDP suffered and they had a relapse again by the decisions at the tribunals so, we do not know when they will get out of it.

On the issue of corruption, are you satisfied with the way it is going because there are allegations and counter allegations over the head of EFCC and where do you think this will take us especially that people think now that the Senate is also investigating the agency, it may weaken it.

Well, this anti-corruption crusade is being led, fortunately by the Commander-in-Chief who is known for honesty and accountability. The institutions on ground which he has to use are what you are talking about. Is credibility there? And President Muhammadu Buhari is looking at those issues. It is not only the EFCC alone, but all other institutions while the work is still going on. But the luck Nigeria has in terms of the fight against corruption, is that the head is clean, active and alive and it is the head that normally controls the body and the tail. So, once you have a sound and good head, the other parts of the body simply join the head. But in those days, it was the tail that was controlling the head.

We are aware that the president is very interested in what is going on in the Northeast..

And the Senate is giving him all the necessary support to do the needful, secure the Northeast and you can see that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Not only there but the entire nation, to see that crimes are reduced to the barest minimal. Armed robbery and kidnapping in the Southeast is being addressed seriously. Therefore, it is part of our agenda to provide all the necessary supporting legislation. We are actively involved in the presidential initiatives for the Northeast and we are there to provide all the necessary legislative assistance in order to reconstruct, rehabilitate and resettle the northeast. The Senate is also thinking of going out to follow up on the efforts of the president in the international community by visiting other parliaments. The Senate President started that and the 8th Senate is poised, with the formation of the committees to continue in that direction.

Are you satisfied with the Zero budget system the President is introducing?

I am a pro zero budget person so, I will support the government on that because you cannot be spending what you do not have. You are not eliminating anything but spending what you have from what you get. Zero Budget is done to eliminate deficit and even when you borrow, it is from the anticipation of what you will have. So I support it. In any case, we do no decide for the government. The Nigerian populace has given President Muhammadu Buhari the mandate. What he needs to do is to lay it before the National Assembly, that is what the constitution requires. If the president feels that adopting zero budget will enhance the livelihood of Nigerians, fine.

What about subsidy?

It is really a big cartel. Every government has to manage it carefully and whenever subsidy debt accumulates, the major oil marketers will strategically try to blackmail the government and I think this is almost what is happening. It is a filth that needs to be cleaned up gradually. In the long run, this government will know what to do in order to break this cartel. I believe that the new government and management will clean up the place but that is my personal viehttp://www.leadership.ng/news/472889/pdp-senators-will-soon-defect-en-masse-to-apc-senate-leader

na joke or

With the level of dictatorship,
Judicial partiality.....
witch-hunting......
political bullying....


if you cant beat them you join them!!!!!
Am not surprised that Nigerian masses
are keeping a deaf ear and a blind eye
to what is happening in the country!!!
until Nigeria turns to a war zone!!!
Look at boko haram, look at Biafrance
for how long do u think we can continue this way?
ISIS members are now granted Visa in our country!!
how long would we continue this way?
how long would it be till the worst happens? till Buhari sells the country
to its doom!!!

It's not unexpected.

Especially the Senators from the Southeast.

No joke, the south must be brought on board to achieve the desire of the north to rule for 16years, secondly for buhari to be able to hand over to el rufai after 8years. knowing fully well the south west will not agree to this u need a one party state as in one major party and some mini parties to achieve presidency by consensus like abacha. With time the south will gradually wake up to the scheming the north started afte buhari victory.