The Senator representing the Ondo North Senatorial District of Ondo State, Jide Ipinsagba, a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress, speaks with PETER DADA in this interview on the political and economic issues in the country. Excerpts:
How has it been as a member of the Red Chamber of the National Assembly?
It has so far been good carrying out our legislative duties in the Senate. I belong to several committees. I am the Chairman, Senate Committee on Niger Delta, and I am also the Vice Chairman, Senate Committee on Petroleum Downstream. We carry out our oversight functions for the betterment of the country. Also, at home, I have impacted my senatorial district, that is, the Ondo North Senatorial District.
What is the Senate doing to alleviate the suffering of the people, following the rise in the cost of food and commodities, following the inflation that occasioned the removal of the petrol subsidy by President Bola Tinubu?
Nigerians should be patient with this administration. Things will soon be alright. If you are watching things, you will be observing my responses in some of the committees that I belong to as a member, in terms of so many things we need to do here and there. I support making Nigeria move forward and the Renewed Hope agenda of our President. Many things are going on, but if you’re not there, you won’t understand. I’m saying this because I’m also the Vice Chairman, Senate Committee on Petroleum Downstream. Efforts are in top gear to ensure that all the refineries are functioning before the end of the year, we have carried out oversight for all the refineries, and we have good promises from them, based on what we saw there, that these refineries will pick up at the time promised. This is part of our ongoing efforts to better Nigeria, so we are not sleeping.
Mr President is working. He’s doing his best to ensure that every other thing in Nigeria is working well. For example, Yoruba would say, somebody is sick, you have to feed that person gradually before he/she becomes fat. Nigeria was sick, now, what we are doing now is a recovery plan. We are trying to do damage control.
How soon will the damage control alleviate the suffering of the people?
You don’t do it in a day. President Tinubu is actually doing all he can to ensure that the country stabilises. Before, we were living in a world of fantasy; we were not getting ourselves that period. Some people were saying when Tinubu came on board, the dollar was this amount, and today it is around N1,500. Yes, it is, because we want to live our real life. The issue is we cannot continue to borrow money to service other areas of interest. Why can’t we come up and say this is the exact situation of Nigeria and, by the time all these things stabilise, we will find out that the country will move fine and we will be used to how we can bring ourselves on board? So we have not missed anything. Immediate interventions are coming up in different areas. Looking at the agricultural sector, fertilisers are being distributed to various local government areas. I can assure people from the Ondo North Senatorial District that before this month runs out, they will see some fertilisers will be distributed. This is in the bid to contribute to agriculture in Nigeria by the President. So, I will encourage us to be a little bit patient and see how we are going to perform. It’s not too long, it’s just one year in the administration, and all these things are coming up.
Are you saying the Senate has no blame in all these?
No, we don’t. I don’t know why people keep blaming us every time. They will blame senators, something we didn’t even do, and people will say we did it. Look at one media propaganda some time ago that said we wanted to use the money to buy aircraft for Mr President, a reason we are trying to appropriate bill. No. There was nothing like that. We only extended the tenure of that particular budget to be able to take care of any abandoned project, which we don’t want, so the extension will allow for the time to do it. That is the essence, we have not appropriated anything, and it’s just a mere budget extension for a particular duration. Those are things that are happening.
You said all the refineries would be functional before the end of the year. Is it not the same old story and mere paperwork?
It is not. As I am speaking with you, the Port Harcourt Refinery is about 90 to 95 per cent optimisation, in terms of retrofitting, and Warri is almost 80 per cent. Kaduna is about 70 per cent now. Dangote Refinery is ready to operate any moment from now. With all these, internal consumption of fuel will not be a problem and we also find out that we have the opportunity to also export our refined fuel, which will address our foreign exchange that is not stable. We are expecting the refinery to operate before the year runs out. So, it is not just mere paperwork. I, alongside other committee members, had gone on an oversight there, it was demonstrated, and I saw it with my own eyes. We didn’t just sit in the office and look at it. We were in Kaduna, Port Harcourt, Lagos and Warri. We went to Dangote too. We saw those things they are telling us are real.
Nigerians complain that many federal legislators don’t perform to the expectation or satisfaction of their respective constituencies, while some abandon projects of their predecessors. What is your take on this?
I made people realise that projects should not be abandoned based on tenure in the office. A newly-elected senator should not ignore what other senators that came before him had done or what the predecessor had started. We must complete it. This is because it is nobody’s property; it is the property of the Federal Government. Based on that, they should make sure they complete it for the betterment of society and the people they represent at the National Assembly. Such facilities must not be allowed to decay.
How much have you done in this regard in the last year?
We have done much. If you go to Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko, we have activated solar to light up the place. In some areas in Owo, Ose, Ikare and even North-West LGA, we have asked them to start boreholes, the engineers are there, digging some boreholes in those areas. The immediate response to our community in a period of emergency, we are not very far from that. If you noticed what happened in the Afin area with certain insects when we heard about it, my team immediately went into action, and I think we were able to rescue that situation. So, among other things that we were doing, we distributed palliative items to people, and we distributed rice, and fertiliser too for the farmers through the farmer association, to encourage farming, among others. We have also paid bursaries to about 1,000 students.
At the Senate, we have put in some bills, one of them is the bill to establish a university of information and communication technology in Ikare Akoko. It would be the first of its kind in Africa, if I’m not mistaken. That bill has got to the second reading, and by the time we resume properly now, we will go into the second reading and third reading simultaneously, so that we can have that in place. So many other things, you know, but I will say a few ones. We will continue to do our best to ensure that we all enjoy the dividends of democracy in our respective local governments and the senatorial district as a whole. So on this, we want to appeal to you, the media people too, that when all these efforts come up, help us to propagate them, to let our people know what we are doing in the National Assembly.
