The Speaker, Kogi State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Mathew Kolawole Olushola, has said that the executive cannot use the legislature to witch-hunt the judicial arm of government in the state. In an interactive session with journalists in Lokoja, the Speaker said that the recommendation of the House to sack the Chief Judge of the state had nothing to do with executive/judiciary face-off. He explained that in the course of carrying out its constitutional oversight functions, the House indicted some agencies, including the judiciary. Olushola also bared his mind on his re-election and ambition to retain the speakership seat. Our correspondent, Wale Ibrahim was there.
The face-off between the executive, the legislature and judiciary in Kogi State is getting messier by the day. And the Assembly is expected to play a mediatory role between executive and judiciary. What exactly went wrong?
On the issue of the judiciary, you will remember that there was a letter from the Secretary to the State Government’s (SSG) office to us in the House, reporting what happened between the executive and the judiciary, concerning the pay parade, otherwise known as Table Payment. When the letter came to me, I read it on the floor of the House. I equally set up a seven-man ad-hoc committee to look into the matter and report back to the House within one week. At this point, let me say that we have three arms of government and two are having frictions and the third one is being contacted to mediate between them. But, while we were making concerted efforts to mediate between the executive and the judiciary, surprisingly we received an order from the high court in Koton-Karfe, restraining us from going further from where we were on the matter. The order restrained the ad-hoc committee from doing anything. The first question is this? The court order came from which court? They said from high court, Koton-Karfe and Koton-Karfe is within the state. The court was on strike, but yet passed an order and the same court cannot be used to attend to other issues but the House of Assembly issue.
As a body that respects order, we decided not to go into the matter again. I want to say it here that the executive cannot use us against the judiciary. If we agreed that the executive should use us, then one day, the judiciary will be used against us too. It is far from it. The House of Assembly is a body that was established by the constitution of Nigeria 1999 as amended and under section 103 of the constitution, it says the House of Assembly shall have power to setup committees that shall report all their findings back to the House and that was why we have various committees. The same section 103 equally gave power to the National Assembly to have various committees. So, the committees in the House of Assembly were established by law and allowed to function. Sections 128 and 129 of the constitution empowered the House of Assembly to investigate any body, organisation, person which the House appropriate money for. It is on this premise that the House of Assembly’s Committee on Public Account went into their oversight functions and came back with their reports and one of the reports was that they wrote a letter to the Chief Judge on three different occasions to appear before the committee, which the Chief Judge refused to honour. The same letter was passed to the Chief Registrar and he also refused to honour the invitation. To me, such an act is an affront to the House of Assembly. That we sent a letter to them on issues that bordered on indictment by the Auditor General of the state and they refused to honour it. Whatever are the findings of the Auditor General; they don’t have the power to execute any punishment. But they report back to the House of Assembly for the implementation of their report. That is section 125 of the constitution.
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What we are treating now is the 2015/2016 report of the Auditor General and the report indicted some organisations like Hajj Commission and the judiciary. At the Hajj Commission, we were told that three people spent over N341million and the committee recommended to the government that the three people should refund the money to government account without any further delay.
Concerning the judiciary, the body refused vehemently to appear before the committee and the recommendation of the committee was that the Chief Judge, having ignored the House, should be removed. Disrespecting the House is seen as misconduct, which gave rise to the recommendation we made on the floor of the House because we have the right to do so. Section 292 of the constitution says a chief judge cannot be removed unless he is incapacitated to performed his duties, reached retirement age or due to gross misconduct and the misconduct here was that the House of Assembly invited them to appear for the purposes of defending themselves because we don’t know whether the report against them is true or not. But they refused to honour the invitations. There was a time the Auditor General office indicted the Assembly for spending money above the budgetary provision with virement and the Clerk of the House went to them and defended the indictment, despite the fact that they have to report back to us. So it does not cost the Chief Judge anything to come forward and defend the indictment.
Our decision was based on the committee report that the Chief Judge and the Chief Registrar refused to honour invitations. We did not in any way go against the court order. It was purely on the recommendation of the ad-hoc committee and I have not seen or heard anywhere in this country where a committee of the House of Assembly was stopped from performing its functions. We did not touch the issue of pay parade or the impasse between the executive and the judiciary. It was purely on the report of the committee.
Why is the report coming about the same time when there was a crisis between the executive and the judiciary?
Well, that is nature. We did not plan it to be so and I don’t have the power to stop the committee from carrying out its oversight functions. The report we have today in the Assembly is 2015/2016 and 2017/2018 has not come. It is very unfortunate that the report came when there was a crisis but there is nothing we can do.
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has just released the time table for Kogi State governorship election. Some people are saying that the governor has not performed creditably for him to return for second term. What is your view?
Whenever some people said Governor Yahaya Bello has not lived up to expectation, I wondered because I as the head of an organisation, the governor has tried his best and it is not easy to govern a state, especially where there is paucity of funds. This administration inherited a lot of things, especially in the area of maladministration as many things cropped up before Governor Bello came and he has done a lot to stabilise the state. The state capital, Lokoja is very neat today when compared to the past. There are ongoing road projects across the three senatorial districts. Itakpe-Eika-Okene road has been completed. In the area of agriculture, the giant rice project at Omi Dam, when completed, can conveniently employ over 10,000 youths. Already, over 2,000 youths are working there, despite the fact that the project is not completed. On the issue of salary, I know that the state government is pursuing the release of the balance of the bailout funds to upset the salary arrears owed civil servants and pensioners. Even the immediate past administration left four months unpaid salaries, which Governor Bello cleared. At the local government level, Governor Wada left 34 months unpaid salaries, which was inherited by the present administration.
Governor Bello also inherited servicing loans to the tune of over N700 million, which the banks deducted monthly from statutory allocation. No governor can run his administration without borrowing money from the bank.
You are the first person to be re-elected as member, representing Kabba/Bunu Constituency in Kogi State House of Assembly. How did you do it?
What I have learnt in politics has made me retain my seat or win my re-election. If you take note, this is the first time in the history of Kabba/Bunu to win back to back re-election. However, this is not on a platter of gold. What really happened was that from what I have heard from people, I was re-elected because of those things I have done; the constituency projects, empowerment programmes and above all the quality representation as a member of Kogi State House of Assembly. I have been holding several programmes in terms of empowerment, skill acquisition, scholarship, widows’ empowerment, sinking of boreholes, opening of feeder roads and many other things. Also, one grace I enjoyed in the election is that both Kabba and Bunu communities were strongly behind me. That is not all. I got to know that whatever you are doing for the house of God, people are taking note of it, particularly in the area of contributions to the churches, mosques and Moslem societies in Kabba. All the programmes that I have been running, I made sure I carry along all communities in Kabba and Bunu. For instance, when I was giving out scholarship forms, I gave 10 to each of the families in Kabba because Kabba has 14 families and I gave six slots to Bunu. Whatever I do in Kabba, I replicate it in Bunu. I never knew that those things will speak for me at the end of the day.
Are you still going to retain your position as the Speaker?
Well power belongs to God. But we shall be praying to God to give me. It is not by my power, but it is God’s. I believe strongly by the grace of God, he will help me to retain my position as speaker. I request all of you to join me in prayers, believing that my colleagues will re-elect me. I am believing in God and waiting on the Lord. If by the grace of God, I am given the same opportunity, I will carry my people along. Since I assumed office about 18 months ago, the House has been peaceful and we have cordial relationship with the executive and the judiciary. So, under my leadership, if I have the opportunity to retain the post, I want to maintain the same relationship with the other arms of government.
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The House could not sit for some time, why?
We could not sit because we had problem with our generator. This generator has been there since 2008-2019. It has been developing faults and we have been servicing and repairing it. When we have issues like that, we have to make contact with the authority, which is the executive for help. So I have contacted the governor concerning the generator. He actually said they should give us one from Government House to start with, but unfortunately the one they wanted to give was no longer available. The governor had directed me to write for a brand new generator, which I have done. He has also directed the Director General, Government House to ensure that we do not have power interruptions and that the Government House line coming from Zango should be stepped down at the House of Assembly, which was not there before. I can assure you that with all these arrangements, there will be no more power interruptions again.
Is it true that N14 million was expended on the generator?
It sounds very funny. I can’t believe this. How can I spend N14 million to repair generator? The only money we spent on the generator some seven months ago was just N450,000. If I am going to repair a generator for N14 million, why wouldn’t I buy new one that can power the House. The new one is about N8 million. Why should I spend N14 million to repair generator. I think this is just a political gimmick for those doing it and have bad reasons for doing it. But as far as I am concerned, there is no iota of truth that N14 million was used to repair generator. This is just a cheap blackmail. In essence, there is nothing like that. The last repair costs only N56,000 to enable the House to sit. It was just to repair minor thing, but unfortunately it developed another fault.
You talked about what worked for you during the election, but your party lost the first election .Why is it those things did not work during the first election?
Yes, we lost a senatorial seat, but it is not as if we did not try our best. The first election was full of fluxes, especially during collation, although the case is already in the court.