Adetokunbo Mumuni is the executive director, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP). In this interview with OWEDE AGBAJILEKE, he speaks on the leaked letter by Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, the bill that seeks to regulate activities of NGOs/CSOs, his organisation’s meeting with Senate President Bukola Saraki over jumbo pay of Nigerian lawmakers, among others. Excerpt:
What do you make of the declaration by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo that civil society organisations are not doing enough in the crusade against corruption?
Let me just say it is a matter of the Vice President’s personal opinion and the way he thinks he has seen it. But the truth of the matter is that remember that he mentioned SERAP is doing some work. But I think he is talking about the fact that there has to be specific outrage in the larger society against those who steal money, against those who live beyond their means. It doesn’t mean in essence that the CSOs are not doing enough about the fight against corruption. Remember that civil society organisations will always act within the limit of the resources available to them to work and a lot of things that they should do because of the capacity and the level of what they have, they cannot really meet it. But I believe that CSOs are working within the capacity imposed by availability of resources.
What do you make of the moves by the National Assembly to pass the anti-NGOs/CSOs bill?
The purpose of that legislation, even from the preamble to it, is to circumscribe the civic space. It’s to encroach on our rights to freedom of expression, freedom of association, freedom to exchange ideas. And be able to criticise government when we see that government is doing what is wrong. It is not criticism for criticism sake; it is criticism so that things will be better in Nigeria. And that bill will not support the work of CSOs. The truth of the matter is that the Nigerian constitution has given the Press the duty to hold government at all levels accountable to the Nigerian people. Now when you introduce that type of law, you circumscribe that constitutional right. The constitution has said Nigerians have rights to freedom of expression, to impart ideas.
Again, Nigeria is a member of certain international organisations. Nigeria has ratified the African Charter on Human and Peoples Right, which are visibly entrenched in those provisions. Nigeria has ratified the United Nations Convention against Corruption. It says citizens shall have the right to hold government accountable to the people in general.
So, once you contextualise from where these honourable members are coming from; you remember not too long ago, they were playing with an idea that they want to be excluded from prosecution from corruption. The government is also talking about monitoring Nigerians on social media. In other words, if an organisation has accountability at its major platform, it would want to hold the government accountable, it is simply for them to say they proscribe them or refuse to register them.
Again, you don’t introduce legislation to over-regulate a system that is already regulated. Non-governmental organisations are already registered, they have their legal identities under the Corporate and Allied Matters Act (CAMA), Part C. So, there are a lot of things that should concern members of the National Assembly but they are not interested in that. There are matters that will make the economic and social life of Nigerians improve, they are not looking into that. All they are interested in is to introduce a bill that will circumscribe and limit the civic space which the framers of the constitution have given Nigerians. And let’s look at it seriously, if this bill is passed, it will have dangerous, negative effect on the way Nigerians enjoy their rights as guaranteed by the constitution and international conventions.
But the lawmakers have said some of the NGOs and CSOs are being used for terrorism-related activities…
The cutting off of the head is not the solution to the problem of headache. When you identify the CSOs there are security agencies all around. Let them investigate them and bring them to justice; it is as simple as that. Terrorism is an illegal activity. So, let those laws take their normal cause. You cannot say because somebody is doing a thing, you now bring a law to regulate that thing. What about the enforcement of the law that is already in existence to take care of those things? You don’t bring a law to over-regulate the system. Are we saying because of that the function of the EFCC relating to terrorism should be taken off the anti-graft agency? Are we saying the function of the ICPC concerning such issues will be taken off? That will not be the best way to go.
What they are saying now is different from the preamble to the bill. It has already given them a way. So, this idea that some NGOs are used for sponsoring terrorism that is not their real intention. In any case, when matters come to adjudication in the court, the court will not be calling National Assembly members. Their intention is contained in the face of the legislation that they are introducing. What you have expressed in the legislation is what will determine what your intention is. Their intention is not to curb terrorism; they didn’t say so in the preamble to the legislation.
Are you not worried that since the report on the suspended SGF and DG NIA were submitted to the President since August 23, nothing has been done about it?
We should appreciate the fact that the President just came back. And the Acting President was acting as the President. I don’t think it was submitted to the Acting President, it was submitted to the President and it is the President that should act on it. I will just call on the President to look into this matter and decide it one way or the other in the interest of probity and accountability that he had said would be the watch-word of his administration. Anything to the contrary will make nonsense of his agenda. Nobody can be complaining about somebody as high up there in the administration. The facts are clear. And the President will say ‘I don’t care’. He should care. Because Nigerians voted for him on the basis of his probity and integrity that we have known. So, he should not either by deliberate act or default, let us start having doubts about that thing that we know about him, which is probity and accountability.
Are you satisfied with how the Presidency has handled the leaked letter to the President by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu against NNPC GMD, Makanti Baru?
I think the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources is entitled to complain, he is entitled to bring challenges to his job from whatever source to the attention of the President. But what we have heard so far in the news is that the letter was leaked. But leakage or no leakage, substantial issues have been raised. The NNPC boss was said to have done something contrary to due process, probity and accountability. All the allegations raised by Kachikwu should be investigated. And once they are found to be true, it is for the President to take decisive, clear and convincing decision so that people in Nigeria will know that he stands for what he said he stands for: probity and accountability.
The Federal Government has reiterated that the 2018 Budget will be submitted in October with the hope that it will be passed before December 31st. Do you see the National Assembly keying into the vision of January to December budget timeline by passing the appropriation bill on time?
The Executive will work according to their own expected vision. You know in Nigeria, the departments of government are divided into three: the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary. In matters of budget making, the business of the Executive is to lay it before the National Assembly. It is now left for the legislature to work assiduously and seriously to ensure that it is passed on time. So, if the budget is laid in October as assured by the Vice President, it is no longer the business of the Executive. The National Assembly will now have to do its own work. But it is important that the National Assembly should also bear in mind the feelings, opinions and aspirations of Nigerian people that we want this budget to start running in January. And when it is submitted in October, three months is enough, if they are really serious about what they will do, to make sure that we have it to start in January. But the Executive will not have anything to force them to do their work. They should be up and doing in what they intend to do.
Recently, SERAP met with the Senate President Bukola Saraki over jumbo pay of senators. What is the outcome of that meeting?
(Laughs). Let me tell you. Our organisation sent the Deputy Executive Director of SERAP to the meeting. Professor Itse Sagay raised the issues that we highlighted. He made a line-by-line submission of various allowances. And you know what happened at the meeting? The Senate President said all the information that we were asking for is on their website. We got to the website; we didn’t see anything (laughs). And somebody raised allegations, those things have to be answered pointedly. He said there is Furniture Allowance, Wardrobe Allowance and so on, you answer it point-by-point. Otherwise Nigerians will be left with no further thing to assume and conclude with than to say Sagay is saying the correct thing.
So, the meeting never gave us specific points on the allegations of Sagay. That was what we hoped to achieve by attending the meeting when he invited us. But what transpired at the meeting was that a lot of these things are contained in their website. But when we got to their website, we only saw budget. We didn’t see specifics of what Professor Sagay talked about.
So, to us, the meeting never satisfied us. And the outcome cannot satisfy Nigerians because we never got specific answers to the allegations of Professor Sagay.
