This explosive interview published by DailyIndependent newspaper is a must read. It is certainly to spark off numerous
political fireworks in Akwa Ibom State ahead of the 2015 general elections.
Read the full interview after the cut…
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| Senator Aloysius Etok |
Senate
Committee Chairman on Establishments, Aloysius Akpan Etok, who is representing
Akwa Ibom North-West, in this interview with Assistant Politics Editor,
CELESTINE OKAFOR, talks about defections, especially in the Senate by both PDP
and APC members to either side, his problems with his governor, Godswill
Akpabio, Akwa Ibom State politics among other issues
Looking
at the whole drama that attended the defection recently by some Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) senators to the opposition All Progressives Congress
(APC), what should we expect as the 2015 general election approaches?
Certainly,
l will like to say that we in the Senate have a way of looking at things quite
differently. Agreed that there have been attempts to read the defection letter,
but it is still the duty of the presiding officer of the Senate to determine
whether or not such letter should be read. I want to say here that the
presiding officer, who is the Senate president, has handled the situation well.
He has advised senators involved to engage in wider consultations before the
action is taken. He has equally assured them of protection. More importantly,
he was restrained by the Madakin report which is currently being looked into by
senators themselves. The Senate president is also trying not to offend the
section of our rules which says that when a matter is before the court, the
Senate would not discuss or take any action on that matter. That is protective
enough, so that we don’t offend the spirit of the law and the principles of law
guiding the Senate. Therefore, l would like to say that while the right to
belong to any group is the individual right of every senator, but it is
important to exercise such right with adequate consultation of the
constituents. I therefore want to join the Senate president in appealing to the
affected senators to tarry a while and look at the reason for the delay in
reading their letter, so that everything will be well sorted out later in a
win-win situation. They must belong to where they want to belong, but the law
should be respected by the lawmakers.
As
a PDP senator, are you worried that the defection is diminishing the strength
of your party?
Well,
as a member of the PDP, I am not worried about the defections. I rather will be
worried in a situation of apathy. I said in one of my media interviews that
there is nothing too difficult for the PDP as a party to handle because it is a
family. The new national chairman of the PDP (Adamu Mu’azu) has so far taken
quite some commendable steps to reconcile and reposition the party. He has been
addressing all the key areas of differences and has even visited every one of
the aggrieved governors and assured them that they will soon see difference in
his style of administration. Politics is all about your interest and the
interest of your constituency. If somebody wants to trample on those interests,
you can go to any length to protect that interest. So, l am sure that the new
PDP chairman will be able to take care of all the outstanding issues, so that the
party can move forward.
Some
of the lawmakers have been touting the issue of automatic tickets to enable
them return easily to their positions in 2015. How do you see that, as a
democrat and lawmaker?
It
is not only touting the idea, we are asking for what is right. There is always
this issue of first option or what, in American politics where we copied our
presidential democracy, is known as the ‘Right of First Refusal’ by any
incumbent President or senator or any congressman. It is done in other advanced
democracies of the world, just as it has even been done in Nigeria in the past.
We can do it again this time. This means that when you are a legislator and you
want to contest another election which involves a primary, the option of saying
yes or no to such offer should first come from that particular lawmaker. It is
only that we are shying away from doing the right thing. That arrangement
should even be formally incorporated in our Electoral Act. But l think it
should be limited to individual lawmakers who have been found guilty of
non-performance. If the party is satisfied that you did your job very well in a
particular tenure as a lawmaker, why should another person be allowed by the
party to take over from you when you have not been given the option to decline
or accept? The right of first refusal should be given to the sitting senator or
any lawmaker. That is why we are not moving as fast as we should in the issue
of the quality of lawmaking. It is not good for the nation’s democracy and
quality of laws made for the good governance of the country, when we keep
having high rate of turn-over of lawmakers in every election. The experienced
ones are thrown away while new ones are brought in to start learning the ropes
afresh. After every election, we always have less than 25 per cent of
experienced lawmakers returning to their positions. It is not fair when you
consider the cost of training one legislator. And no matter who you are or how
brilliant you are, it will not take you less than one year to learn the
legislative ropes. It takes some about two years to learn. Having done that,
you have less than two years of your remaining tenure to sharpen your skills in
the art of lawmaking before you go for a fresh election. Therefore, it is to
the great disadvantage of the nation and the constituency, that we are not
having mature and experienced legislators, who have the skill to impact on good
governance, after every election. So l am definitely in support of automatic
tickets, not only for the PDP, but for all the political parties, so that we
can lay a proper foundation for the workings of the nation’s legislature which
is the engine room of our democracy. In fact, the rate of return of experienced
lawmakers should not be less than 80 per cent after every election, so that we
can always have mature lawmakers to sustain the quality of lawmaking in the
country.
Now,
if you are given an automatic ticket in 2015 as an incumbent senator, would you
see that as an insurance against your governor, Godswill Akpabio, from successfully
challenging you, even on a different political platform?
That
is a good but tricky question. But that is because some of you in the media are
beginning to see state governors as alpha and omega. What makes you think
Governor Akpabio has the right to challenge me?
And
what makes you think you have the right not to be challenged by the governor,
because he has accused you of non-performance and…?
(Cuts
in sharply) Look, Governor Akpabio does not own this seat (Akwa Ibom
North-West Senatorial District seat). It does not belong to him. The seat
belongs to the people. They are the ones who will select between the two of us
who will represent them from 2015. Power belongs to God. And when you speak to
me, you speak so conclusively as if Godswill (Akpabio) will just come and
remove me from the seat and throw away.
But
the governor is carrying on as if he can do that, and you’ve not proved to him
that he does not have any such powers.
You
see, that is the problem. The problem of this nation is that everybody has
turned the state governors to demigods. They are not! They are still
accountable to the people, just as l am to the people as a representative
senator of the people. If there is a proper democratic process carried out,
both Governor Akpabio and I will all be given a level-playing ground, to
go to the senatorial primaries and test our strength before the people. And
mind you, there is a great difference between the work in the executive arm of
government where Akpabio is coming from and work in the legislature where l am
also coming from. So the people of Akwa Ibom North-West will decide whether
they will go for a mature and tested legislature like me, or they want an
opulent man who wants to carry himself into the Senate. It is a wrong signal.
You people are setting the wrong precedent to the public. I am not talking
about any protection with an automatic ticket, l am talking about a general and
acceptable practice in every presidential and Westminster democracy that we are
all familiar with. In the American Senate, John McCain challenged President
Barack Obama in the elections, and after he lost to Obama, he went back to his
job in the Senate. So McCain’s senatorial district knows that he has something
to offer in the Senate. Therefore, nobody should make it look like the
automatic ticket was meant to protect the weak from the strong.
There
are two issues here. One is that Akpabio has been castigating you for
non-performance which you said is not true. The second is that since you have
said you are more popular among the people than Akpabio, who, between the two
of you, do you think is likely to humiliate the other at the polls in February
14, 2015?
The
people prefer me to Akpabio because l have touched their lives in many ways. I
am more popular among our people in the North-West than the governor. The
people still want me to represent them in 2015. On the basis of all these and
more, l will defeat Akpabio in any free and fair election in our constituency.
He is not my match, though he has too much money in his pocket. Therefore, it
is only the people that can decide between the two of us.
Now,
what are those things you have done which your constituents have acknowledged
but which Akpabio is yet to acknowledge or is trying to impugn?
You
are asking very good questions. If Governor Godswill Akpabio said l have not
lived up to the expectation of the people, did you ask him what the
expectations of the people are. Was he talking about his own personal
expectations or that of the people? To answer your question, l am the only
senator in Akwa Ibom today that has set new record of public expectation. As at
today, l am the only senator in Akwa Ibom state who has given scholarship to
about 500 people. It is on record, and l have not seen any senator before me in
the history of our area who has broken that record. I am talking about my
senatorial district. From the first senator, Umoh, to Ikpe who is from the same
local government as Akpabio. Senator Ikpe is from the village behind Akpabio’s
village. As at today, it is on record that l have distributed about 54 motor
vehicles to the people. There is no senator from my area who has ever given one
car to anybody. Go and investigate as a journalist because most of those past
senators are still alive today.
For
what purpose are the vehicles?
Whether
it is private or commercial, l have given to people. I have also given two
buses to ethnic and cultural organisations in Akpabio’s town. Apart from the
first bus that was given to Etinan by Dr. Ime Umana when the organisation
started, no other government nominee or elected public official has ever given
anything to that organisation. I gave them a bus before the governor did. I
gave a bus to Anang Youth Development in Lagos when they did their programme.
No senator has ever done what l have done, including reaching the people and
taking empowerment projects to them. Generally and across the board, l have
taken Millennium Development Goal (MDG) health projects including roads,
primary schools, electricity transformers to the areas. Right now, the
transformer l donated to Abak has been fully installed to working capacity. I
did all that through the budget. But the scholarships were personal. I have,
right now, a programme which will run all through my tenure in the Senate,
especially in the area of education and supplementing Law training in the
universities. I have been doing all these since l came into the Senate. Last
December, l gave the last batch of 74 Law scholarships. This year, l am equally
going to give. Nobody has empowered their people more than me. So, what
expectation are people talking about? I have far gone beyond Akpabio’s
expectations. The governor is just intimidated by my records, my achievements
in the Senate. And l dare Akpabio to challenge me or contradict me. So whenever
you see the governor and he tells you again that he is more popular than me,
please ask him: in which area? Power belongs to God and he gives to whoever he
wants to give it to. This time around and since power belongs to God, we will
leave all that to him to decide who He wants to give the power to.
How
many local governments under your senatorial district do you actually have
control over?
I
am a minority in my constituency. I have only two local governments from my
tribe out of a total of 10 in our senatorial district. The other eight local
governments belong to Akpabio’s tribe. But whenever election is coming, there
are always wonders. No group of people or local government will say l have
disappointed them in my parliamentary representation and in my provision of
welfare to the public when the need arises. I have given diverse support to the
people. Let Akpabio say what has made him to say he is more popular than me.
Those who are truly popular will be known after the 2015 general elections.
There
is an emerging trend now, where state governors who are serving out their
second term are angling in a mad rush to go to the Senate. There are about 13
or 14 of those governors on queue, including your governor, for 2015. What is
the implication of such invasion of the Senate?
Well,
the Nigerian people should be indeed very worried about this development. Most
of these governors are not truly coming to add value or to enhance the quality
of legislation in the National Assembly. Most of them are coming with very
sinister motives. Already, some of them are coming to be Senate president. They
have already drawn up a programme. They have drawn their list. They are coming
to cover themselves up. Some of them are already anticipating that the evils
they committed during their tenure will haunt them, and they are looking for a
cover; an umbrella that will shelter them. There are few of them who are truly
honest, but the trouble is that when people like that come, they will carry
what they were doing in the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) to the Senate.
Right now, they have taken over power from the party and the presidency, and
they have become the managers of the nation. If anything is not done by the
President according to their caprices, they will attack the President and
compel him to do their biddings. The same thing they do to the party. They
insist that the party must make them a clearing house. So they are a danger to
our democracy. When those governors come to the Senate, they will stop at
nothing to carry forward that kind of programme and agenda and they endanger
democracy. They certainly will scuttle the peace of the Senate and disrupt that
mature character of the Senate. Some of the governors who are coming will not
have legislative attitude. The legislature is a different place. Anybody can be
a governor because he will have advisers and people like commissioners and
specialists who will tell you what to do. But it is not everybody that can be a
legislator because it is a job you must do on your own. The country has not
provided enough for experts who will help in the legislative work. You are left
with the alternative of putting your feet down on the job. But it is not like
that in governorship.
What
is the cause of your brawl with Akpabio?
My
problem with him started when l moved in support of President Goodluck Jonathan
succeeding the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. Akpabio, then, actually did
not want Jonathan, who was Vice President then, to be sworn in as President.
Akpabio was with the then PDP national chairman, Vincent Ogbulafor, in the
business of stopping Jonathan. So, when l voted in favour of Jonathan during
debate in the Senate, Akpabio scolded me that l didn’t consult him before
voting for Jonathan. That was how his hostility towards me started. Apart from
that, l can’t think of any other thing l did to him.
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