Rep Ifeanyi Samuel Onuigbo, representing Ikwuano Umuahia North/South Federal Constituency of Abia state, has expressed worries over the delay in the implementation of the Climate Change Act almost a year it was enacted.
In this interaction with IGNATIUS OKOROCHA, the Abia state born lawmaker speaks on the abuse of the Electoral Act by political parties and other issues of national interest.
Hon, we discovered that several months after the passage of the climate change Act, by National Assembly, the Executive Arm of Government is yet to commence implementation of that legislation. What is holding its implementation and what can you say about it?
I want to reiterate what I have always said about the Electoral Act Amendment, that while the Legislature makes the law and the Judiciary interprets the law, the Executive implements the law as is spelt out in Sections 4, 5 and 6 of the Constitution. The reason is that the Legislature makes the laws and if there is a problem with the law, that arm of government looks for a way for it to be amended to achieve a good society. And that is what we have done.
In the case of climate Act, I want to thank President Muhammadu Buhari for assenting to the bill on the 17th of November 2021. But before he assented to the Act, it took so many Assemblies (6th, 7th) and 8th Assemblies when I first sponsored the Bill and he declined assent because there were some issues he wanted to be strengthened and God helped me to be re-elected into this House and I re-sponsored it and we worked on it with the support of both Chambers of the National Assembly. But let me take this opportunity to acknowledge the contributions of the people in the Executive arm of government like (the Minister Justice, Abubaka Malami because when I engaged with him and his counterpart in the Ministry of Environment), we had a meeting and he asked some very strong questions on how I wanted to go about it and was convinced about the way we were going to structure the Bill, to give the Council the power it needs to be able to strive and achieve the objectives it wants to achieve. He asked me to do a letter to him so that he could nominate people to work with me and I did the letter. The Speaker of the House of Representatives also did another letter. To be honest with you, the Minister responded to the letter and nominated some people to work with my team. The same thing with the Minister of Environment, who just cooperated and made nominations and we worked together and also visited the Vice President Prof Yemi Osibanjo when the bill was passed.
With the passage of the bill on climate change and Mr President’s assent to it, making it an Act, so many young people, groups and agencies have been visiting my office, seeking information on how to save our environment from gully and soil erosion. From the Sahel down to the Northern part of the country, you can see the destruction climate change has caused, forcing the loss of land, leading to land degradation; such that where people used to farm and live have been turned into rough dust that you can no longer plant and harvest. So, if you come to the coastal area, you can see how the mangrove is destroyed. This young man who just left my office, came here to talk about how the whole area has been destroyed. It is so serious and we are losing so much through coastal erosion and of course those who are frustrated of the pollution from oil. So, we need to focus on these things for generations that are not yet born.
So, the concern is oh! eight months after this bill was assented to, we have not implemented the Act, we have not inaugurated the Council which is going to be the engine room of the implementation of the climate change Act. So, it should be a source of concern, not just because I sponsored the Act but to other practitioners nationally and internationally. Do not forget that there are timelines. For instance, in Section 19(2) or so, it talks about timeline within which to set up the pilot scheme. I think one year. So, if out of one year, you have already lost about eight months, it means as a nation, you are already going to fall foul of the law that you enacted. So that is probably why I had to write to the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I also wrote to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and of course, I had to write to the Minister of Justice. This is because these are individuals who have to cause this Act to be implemented. We do not want to be looked upon as an un-serious nation, that they make law and they quickly violate it.
As one who participated actively in the making of the 2022 Electoral Act, which the Ninth National Assembly passed and was assented to by President Muhammadu Buhari, how did you come up with the document because it appears to have made some improvement on the electoral system judging from what happened in Osun governorship election?
Thank you very much. The Electoral Act, 2022, is a law of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. It became a law because after its passage by the two Chambers, it was eventually assented to by President Muhammadu Bihari. It has become the law of the land as far as elections are concerned. So, in terms of role and contribution made in the final making of the Act, I will only recall that I am a member of the House Committee on Electoral Matters. And as a member of that House, I was also fortunate to be in the retreat where the Chairman of INEC opened up on issues of elections. And that retreat held on Thursday the 4th of March, 2020, at Radisson Blu Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos. The Chairman of INEC was very clear in his speech when he said, and I quote, “this is the first time that the Commission and the members of the National Assembly are coming together to discuss issues relating to the electoral legal framework in this manner.” Why this is particular is that he pointed out that we had different bills that we wanted to amend.
We had a bill for an Act to amend Electoral Act No. 6, 2010, and for related Matters. You know we have been amending the bill up to this point but in this retreat, we resolved that we should just repeal all those existing Acts and just enact entirely new one, so that there would be no confusion about the Sections and their applications. That was what came out of the retreat. I also acknowledge the contributions of the Deputy President of the Senate, His Excellency, Distinguished Senator Omo-Agege, who was there to help push the bill. One other thing that the Chairman of INEC said during the retreat was that he would like the National Assembly to deal strongly with the issue of Internal democracy in the parties. He said that we should curb a situation where parties engage in anti-democratic actions, especially during elections. To quote him, he said, “with 809 pre-election petitions filed before the 2019 general elections, electoral legal framework should provide clear procedures for party primaries and consequences for violation.”
So, you can now see why in working on the Act, we tried to take care of issues capable of allowing the challenges that come from lack of internal democracy. So, you can see that the retreat really helped in the making of the Act. And by the grace of God, Nigerians and the international community really appreciate What the National Assembly has been able to do in improving on the electoral system through the new Electoral Act.
The Chairman of INEC was also concerned about the issue of foreign shopping by the lawyers because they were flooding the whole places with litigation. This again, informed our action in enacting the law by making sure that if you want to get judgment, you do that through the federal high court, so as to reduce incidences of having court orders from flying in from everywhere. But after the retreat, different chambers moved back and did different levels of work. The two Chambers appointed people to go and work together in what was called a Joint Technical Committee. And that Joint Technical Committee on INEC and Electoral Matters met between the 7th and 10th of January, 2021.
And by his grace, I was appointed to represent the South East from the House of Representatives; and Senator Ike Ekweremadu was appointed to represent the South East from the Senate. Senator Shekarau was also there from the North West. We also had Honourable Magaji, who is from Kaduna. We also had in place Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, representing the South West. We also had Honourable Solomon Bob, from the South South and some others. The co-chairmen are Senator Kabiru Gaya, who chairs the Committee on INEC in the Senate and Hon. Aisha Dukku, who chairs the Committee in the House of Representatives. We met at the Transcorp Hilton Abuja, between Thursday the 7th and Sunday the 10th of January, 2021.
During this meeting, we had exhaustive discussions. Sometimes, we had prolonged debates on this issue. And we were supported by a formidable team from INEC, led by National Commissioner, Festus Okoye, and another very strong team from the Ministry of Justice, led by the Director of Legal Drafting. We also had the UK aides, who came and provided goodwill messages. Clement Nwankwo, from PLAC, was also there. I must tell you that it was very exhaustive and intellectually engaging. At the end of the day, we discussed all these things, and we had the support of all these people I have mentioned, that is Professor Mahmoud Yakubu, the Chairman of INEC and Abubakar Malami, the Minister of Justice. We had such a strong team.
How would you look at the party primaries vis-a-vis the application of the Electoral Act?
I think there is some improvement, except maybe, in some cases where people are yet, am talking about the party administrators and some stakeholders, are yet to purge themselves of those anti-democratic behaviours within their parties, then they would engage in some kind of political gangsterism. Other than that, there is serious improvement. You can see the direction the country is going. And that is how we are supposed to be moving forward in a positive way; and not one step forward, three or four steps backward. In this case, we are moving forward steadily.
It was observed that immediately after the party primaries, some members of the National Assembly started finding fault with the Electoral Act and calling for its immediate amendment. What is your take on that?
Thank you. You enact a law to achieve a purpose; to create a good society. That is why we have lawmaking. That is why the Parliament is number one arm of government because it is the law that is enacted that the Executive goes ahead to implement. In this case, we have enacted a law; it is being implemented by the Executive, which is represented by the INEC. Now, after enacting a law, and if it is in the implementation you discover that there are some loopholes or lacuna; for instance, you see some people who are using some provisions to make mischief, it is up to the Parliament or National Assembly or Congress to go back, direct the loophole and look at it again and see where there are some loopholes and try and plug them. I pointed out to you here that the National Chairman of INEC wrote in black and white, that they had 809 pre-election petition cases in 2019.
Now, we should look for ways to checkmate the excesses of party administrators and stakeholders who engage in anti-democratic conducts or who do not allow internal party democracy to take place. Yes, in this 2022 Electoral Act, the Honourable members came back from primaries and discovered that there were again, clear signs of abuses or lack of internal party democracy, especially by some of the governors and party leaders, who capitalized on the Section that talks about only the elected delegates. From what we have heard or seen, some of them did not elect delegates. Some of these powerful individuals went into their offices and compiled names and brought out. So, when we work on it and make amendment, it will improve on the conduct of party primaries. It will improve our democratic journey. We will look out for those things and ensure that they are corrected. Two, because it appears to be an omission, statutory delegates were not captured, talking about elected party officials and those of us who were elected by our electorates or our constituencies. We were not captured and in order not to fall foul of the interpretation, that was why it was restricted to elected delegates. But from what happened, the National Assembly is at liberty to ensure that this is amended, and whatever loophole is clearly corrected. Don’t forget, it was out of the fear of the abuses of some party administrators and stakeholders that some amendments were done. For instance, some governors can tell you, if you like pass twenty bills that impacted positively on the lives of the people but you will not go again. That is anti-democracy. That doesn’t reflect good internal democracy within the party. So, whatever gaps that have been noted will surely be corrected during an amendment.
Looking at the recent governorship election in Osun State, can you say that the Act is working effectively?
Yes, the Act is working, and am sure as we go forward, it is clear to everybody, this is the number of persons registered in Osun, the number of PVCs collected and the number of persons who voted, which is well over fifty percent. So, it was an active performance. As we go forward, I have no doubts whatsoever that with the confidence Nigerians have gained from the performance of INEC in the deployment of technology, many more people will want to secure their PVCs and use it to elect someone to represent them in government, and possess that authoritative power, to distribute resources, to take care of their security; to take care of their well-being. It is through the PVC that you are able to elect those who can effectively represent you in government. It is not leaving the matter to the impostors who steal the ballot box and be masquerading as leaders. So, that way, they don’t have the confidence of their followers. The Electoral Act 2022 is working.
Vote buying characterized Ekiti and Osun governorship elections. Does it mean that the 2022 Electoral Act did not take care of such violation?
Why do we call some acts mischief? Why do we say some people want to circumvent the law; why do we talk about lack of internal party democracy?
There are laws to cover these things but individuals, out of their love for lawlessness set out to beat the system. So, I think what we are going to do, is to make amendment to plug the gaps, and that is where the nation is going. Those who were alleged to have sold their votes, are they going to be better of no matter any amount they received. So, we have to do proper reorientation of the electorate, for them to know that when you put down your thumb to vote for somebody, that person is owing you till the end of his tenure. He is owing you good service, protection; he is owing you whatever Section 14(2) of the Constitution is talking about protecting you, and the overall welfare of citizens. When there is proper reorientation on this, you will not be hearing about people selling their votes or people going about to buy the votes from the electorate.
We have noticed frequent visits by different youth organizations to your office. What actually attracts them to you?
It is born out of the fact that I started engaging in leadership issues from a very young age. I have been a Community development person and I started that very early and as such, I know what it means to mentor people so that they can get ready for leadership at a higher level. So, that is why I welcome young people to my office and mentor them, and provide them with little things I know about leadership and give them the little knowledge that I have. So, when they interact with their colleagues and they find out that oh! this gentleman is receptive which I am doing in line with the acronym with which I ran for the House which is “EAR’ I promised my people that I will be effective, I promised them that I would be accessible and I also promised that I would be responsive. So, as young people whether at village, local government, state or even at this national level, when they found out that okay, this leader, with this status is approachable and he is ready to assist us they pass on the message. Do not forget that nothing is as strong as a word of mouth in terms of what you can believe and not an advertisement and that is why when they are doing anything, they need advice, they need guidance and they will come to me for advice. That is why they come to me with one invitation or another on issues of climate change. They come to give me a report that they have presented in some places and if you check my staff, they are mostly very young people. This is because the youths are truly the force that we have in this country and we have to really nurture, guide, and mentor them to be able to begin to exercise leadership.
So, that is probably why young people come around me. I have been in involved in some community development projects at a very young age. If you recall from my community in Obuohia Iberia in Ikwuano Local Government of Abia State, I have been involved in community development projects quite long before I came into politics. As far back as 2001. So, I was able to complete projects which I facilitate and brought the USA Ambassador to my village there when Senator Orji Uzor-Kalu was the Governor of Abia State and of course he came along with them. So, if you check then and now you will not be surprised that I have been engaging with the youths.
