Etanabene: Govt Has No Basis Borrowing to Fund 2024 Budget

A member of the House of Representatives, Hon Benedict Etanabene, in this interview with Juliet Akoje speaks on salient national issues including the proposed 2024 Appropriation Bill which he said ordinarily should not be funded through borrowing.

What endeared you into politics of the Fourth Republic?

We have a problem in the political space in Nigeria. We don’t have that in the medical. In the medical space, we have qualified doctors in Nigeria may be the  support is not there for them to do the best. In the legal area, we have very good lawyers in the Nigerian space. But in politics, I am sorry to say, we don’t have the best of people to represent us.

Many of us would not have been interested in politics if we have things working out well. Personally, if I am in a country where there is light, poverty in particular is not as bad as this and things are doing pretty good, probably I would not have bothered going into politics. But I now realise who are the people making laws for us? Politicians. Who are the ones designing our economic programmes? Politicians. Who are the ones that are supposed to be taking care of our safety? Politicians. Who are the ones designing educational policies? Politicians.

They seem to be doing everything so if you don’t have the best of committed people in the political space then we continue to remain the way we are and I bet you if we continue like this, the next 100 years, Nigeria will not be better, not one step forward. So many of us are encouraged that we should not leave the space. You know, not everybody can become lawyer,  doctor, you have to get trained. Not everybody can become an engineer, you have to get trained, even journalist you need to get trained but anybody can become a politician overnight. So, the quality of people that are turning up through the process as it is actually affecting this country and because some of us believe especially in 1999 that politics is a dirty game we should not be interested.

So, people just sat back, we allowed the other group of people who don’t have much to do in their daily lives since 1999 to consolidate themselves with our common patrimony.

They have become so strong, so removing them has become a problem. So, those of us who can find the means to penetrate to see how best we can do to change the narrative and that becomes the desire that is exactly what we are doing here not for anything other than to serve. And I offered to do this job like I promised my constituents, I wasn’t going to receive salary for it and true to the fact, I am donating it to elderly people who need support. I have called that if need be this House, including the Senate should become a unicameral legislature and I am even asking that we can do this job on part time basis and it will reduce the expenses. We are talking about how we can raise money for very important and critical areas in our life. We should thinkof how to cut those expenses and save in the real sense of it. So that is the drive, whether I am going to achieve my vision, I don’t know.

The 10th Assembly unveiled its legislative agenda recently, What is your take on that?

It’s like budget that is presented like a ritual every year. When they present budget did they really do everything that they say they want to do in budget? No. Somebody can unveil the agenda that is good but I doubt if he will be able to do exactly as put in paper. It is a common practice everywhere in Nigeria.

There are speculations out there that the 10th Assembly may likely be a rubber-stamp Assembly because of how the legislatove leadership election went. What is your take on that?

I am part of the tenth assembly, I am not going to be a rubber-stamp, whether others will be a rubber-stamp I dont know but I will not be a rubber-stamp. So if people have that kind of notion they should investigate properly because of the way the principal officers and the whole leadership election went and all that.

You see, it is a system problem, we could not have had any choice available for us when we came in.

The way democracy is in Nigeria is one that the president is supreme, supreme leader who combines both powers in the physical and in the spiritual, and can decide on anybody.

I even suspect that if the President in Nigeria wants to say all men should now become women and all women should become men, I am sure it will be realised. So there is so much influence you can’t take away.

This is not the first time but the options available for us, I think this House took the best option you know in electing Hon Tajudeen Abbas as Speaker, that’s my opinion. You know they took the best option in his character, but if he will detach himself from the influence of the president, that I cannot vouch for, but in truth there is no wrong in cooperation, there is nothing wrong.

As a matter of fact, we are all required to cooperate with the executive on only the things they are doing that are good but if they are doing things that do not mean well, we are expected to say no to it or at least proffer solution different from what they know, the executive cannot be the source of every knowledge.

I really think we are just starting, you know time will tell in measuring their relationship, that relationship is going to produce dividends for Nigerians, but I think for now I will not say that I have 100 percent confidence that it is not going to be a rubber-stamp, for what our people will get you know that we represent but would the system allow it?

Why do you think there is a system problem?

I don’t want to use some very strong words, because people will be saying, so you like a military kind of government, no no, but we have had one kind of government in the past that probably we would have improved on. Take the one that was around 1991,1992, and thereabout, there was a military dictactor in power and we had very brilliant civilian administrators. That kind of person was not elected by the people but I think a more socialist form of government with a very strong leader. A strong leader with a good heart can work in this country because our problems sometimes is not about the laws but about the enforcement of the laws; is the showing of good examples by the leaders.

See Nigeria is held hostage by 37 persons, the president plus the 36 governors. They are the ones holding Nigeria hostage. If they show by their character and they want improvement in this country, they want Nigeria to turn tomorrow to be a developed country, to be recognised within the world, these are the 36 people by their conduct, but where you have a kind of president who with all the governors with all they have, they are still looking for more money every left, right and second to the detriment of the generality of the poor people, then we are not going to see any dividends that we are going to take back.

When we came before swearing in and somebody was coming to teach us, give us lecture on budget preparation, see the grammar of all these economists you know does not make sense to me.

See what makes sense to me when you do budget and like I spoke that day just let the people from their various constituents bring projects and developmental plans to the center, then the ministry of budget and national planning can look and have an aggregate information about it and push it to the national, see the ones we can take now and put the other ones in the future. 

So my solution will be that if you want to do budget, let the 360 representatives members go back to the bridge project done in Abuja put all of them, all of us should be equally represented as federating units, not a situation where one area is loaded with projects from government when another does not have anything to show for it.

Government Project in my consituency is the only road that they said they were going to do for how many years which is Amukpe- Eku-Abraka to Agbo road. That road has been cut off completely by Federal Government but they will pay attention to other places.

Let them tell us industries that are put in place or hospitals they built in my constituency or even in Delta state.

So if you don’t have people at the corridors of power, at certain levels in the ministry then you are off the track. You can come here and shout from morning to night nothing will happen and another four years will pass. These are all the problems so we must have a different view on how we do budget in this country.

What are the major challenges of your constituents and Nigerians at large, your plans and strategies in getting the government to address them?

Thank you, poverty rate is high and I am not going to pretend that we don’t find it in other places. We do but ours can be the kind of poverty inflicted by the government, government is not taking proactive actions that can eradicate poverty in that my federal constituency.

Let me just give you one good example, now the government that established ports activities in Nigeria knew the benefits when they sited the port in Sapele. They put another one in Koko, they put another one in Warri,  then there is one in Burutu. Why is it that those ports are not functioning and it is the only one in Lagos that is functioning? 

The same proximity of Lagos to the Atlantic ocean is even the same with Delta state. The deliberate decision not to allow those ports to operate is not helping commerce in that area.

In that same spot, people who are subsidiary to major ones that are dealing with the port and those who are into providing, even the booking person who has a book shop close to the port benefit economically for such activity. So why are we not opening the port, that is what is creating the poverty.

The second one is that we’re not getting good support from government in terms of developing agriculture. I can tell you that the structure of agricultural support does not favour people in my area at all.  Let government prove me wrong to say that they gave loans, all these agric loans or they said that they brought fertilizer all these other things that are supposed to aid agriculture for the people in my area. So we battle to survive in agriculture in my area but other places in this country; in the North, in the West.

Go and look at BOI, when BOI are doing their programmes every week go and be watching who are the people that they are showcasing.

They have helped, let them come and show us the ones that they helped in my constituency. So it is true that the support is not there, look at the roads, like you know in the last few years to even leave Benin to Warri is a nightmare.

Now for  those of us who are doing farming. Let me say clearly that now in the last three years more than 60% of most of the farms close up, you know why? Maize comes from the North you know when you have birds, laying eggs for those into poultry farming,  you know birds are not human that you can appeal to them that don’t worry you know food has not come let’s wait and see till tomorrow. They will not hear you and if you don’t feed them at the time that you’re supposed to feed them, your production will drop, they will punish you, these birds will punish you with the drop in production.

Now for me to get maize from Kano to Warri is about a month because of bad road. So network of roads is one of the key infrastructure to development of agriculture and from there eradicating poverty.

Some of our areas are riverine. When I was a kid I used to go to the riverside to catch fish and do some other things but pollution has finished those things, pollution has finished everything so the survival of people in the riverine area is nothing to write home about and these are people who don’t know anything else other than catching fish, dry them, sell, come and buy bread in town and so on and so forth like that.

Even some areas around that my axis, pollution has destroyed all the farmland. So the guys are out of farming so what else again, the only means available is now political thuggery. They have now constituted themselves into political thuggery and the female you know, I pray God that we address this ugly trend. They have no other option, the hunger is so much, so they begin to solicit for patronage from men and is not good. The duty of government is to provide welfare for its people, security of lives and property. So, we will continue to complain and we will continue to raise our voices so that those in charge of implementation of policies will do that.

What do you think about the 2024 budget, especially on the issue of borrowing?

Few days ago and we were defending the budget. That is one area that I find very critical – borrowing we are going to borrow about N7 trillion. As a person I borrowed to do election, I also borrowed during Tribunal times, I also borrowed to put into my farm. The first two may not yield me any benefit but the other one will very likely yield me profit.

So, what is our focus when we go to borrow? Borrow to marry more wives, borrow to come and invest with a view to saying yes, I put N10 trillion into this business and after one year I can now summarise that both investment, capital and interest is now N14 trillion, that is okay.

But, I am very skeptical because borrowing has become a ritual in every budget in Nigeria. I am waiting to see the day government will present budget and say no borrowing. We can fund our budget on what we can generate. Now how do we stop things like borrowing? Why are we not opening up trade and commerce? As I said, get the ports and allow people who want to export, import use any port that is convenient for them. You must not gather everybody together in Lagos and kill the economy of other places.

If we expand ports activities in Nigeria both Onne and AkwaIbom to generate revenue, Nigeria will get almost a trillion naira every year. That will not make us to borrow N7 trillion, perhaps, it will be N6 trillion.

If we also block oil theft in this country, the vessels that come in bunkering in this country, they are like one arm of NICON. They are so big.

If Nigeria the benchmark as Mr President said is 1.7 million barrels a day, meanwhile, I understand OPEC gives 2.3 million meaning we are not producing to our capacity.

Imagine a situation where we are able to produce to 2.3 million that is over 500,000 barrels we are short of for OPEC quota. Mr President says $77.8 per barrel, if you multiply 500,000 by $77.8 by one year it might give you the range of almost 1.5 trillion.

So if you get another 1.5 trillion from that we will not be borrowing.

But is like we have conceded to some very powerful individuals to do at will. Nobody in the Niger Delta has the capacity to do bunkering, people that are doing bunkering in Nigeria are people in Abuja here. They are very powerful people, it will take a powerful person to be able to secure his vessels to come visibly with all the Navy warship around, presidential Yatch for surveillance.

With all these big vessels in the rivers, the big ships will come load and go to Asia or Europe. It is not a business for small people, it is for sophisticated people.

If you remember very well, about 15 years ago, David Ejoor former President of UPU shouted in one of the national dailies that four living former presidents in Nigeria are involved in bunkering. Who can stop them, government is not stopping them. They ceded these 500, 000 barrels to them free while the generality of Nigerians are suffering. So, if we have no money, by stopping these people we will not borrow too much. And in any case if you know we can’t stop them, let’s just beg them and pay royalty. Then we will know that they are above the law.

So we just surrender to them, not all those small people who are trying to use crude to do diesel and petrol that we will be burning their small small refinery. That’s not the bunkering people we are talking about.

Go to the market in Asia, Singapore, many of these countries you will see Nigeria’s illegal crude being sold there. Why can’t we do something about solid minerals in Nigeria? Why can’t we just create a State Solid Mineral Commission just the way they focused on Niger Delta, let us also focus on solid minerals.

The oil in the Niger Delta is for all but the solid minerals in some of the states are for them.

Governors, powerful people will be mining gold, now the thing has snowballed into terrorists or bandits taking charge of some areas. We are not earning money from this.

Yet, the oil is for all let’s also make solid minerals same powerful people are taking for themselves for all.

So, if we still do the same focus on solid minerals, perhaps we will earn another N1.5 trillion then we will not be borrowing N5 trillion again, we will probably be borrowing N4 trillion as the case may be. So it is coming down. Now, I have always maintained that corruption is our biggest problem.

I was Chairman of PENGASAN from 1999 to 2003, so it was during the time I was Chairman that this debate of subsidy came up strong that President Obasanjo then attempted and increased fuel that we can not continue to subsidise and all that.

I don’t believe that we are subsidising petroleum. And almost 21 years after I have not changed my opinion and I am just being frank about it because one, government responsibility actually is to subsidise everything for its citizens. That’s why you have some countries where if the economy is going down they pay your rent for you. If you are not doing well, they will give you social security by giving some money until you get a job.

So it’s government responsibility to make sure that we actually have light.  It is your (government) responsibility for us to have PMS (fuel) and worst thing is the fact that we have crude in Nigeria, we have refineries in Nigeria, it is even a shame for anybody to man a microphone to say we are buying PMS from another country.

In fact, if I were Mr President I will not be saying I have removed subsidy on the 29th of May what I will be saying to Nigerians is that in one month those refineries will be working or I will drop every staff and manager in the petroleum sector.

Those people that you are going to buy PMS from their refineries, are those refineries not managed by human beings and are they more intelligent than Nigerians?

We have very trained people, from the Petroleum Training Institute, I can tell you that 70% of workers in the oil industry are trained. Those from the Petroleum Institute I believe in their capacity. The problem is that because there is corruption, for some people it is easier to sustain buying petroleum from outside this country than the ones (refineries) in our country to produce. So we are subsidising anything, we are subsidising corruption.

For me, if we get our refineries working we will not be talking about those things. I thought there will be genuine fuel subsidy. Remember the president clearly said that we are gaining about N1 trillion from the removal of subsidy whether the N1 trillion is going back into the subsidy, we don’t know. But again if we save N1 trillion from the removal of subsidy that will not make us borrow N4 trillion again, we would have removed it to N3 trillion.

Now, if our four refineries are not even producing enough for Nigerians, see all these people you are burning their small refineries in the creeks, you can regularise them and those ones can also contribute to the volume of our local usage. If you train them very well, they will know how to protect the spill out of their products into the environment. You will regularise to the point where they will, is like a small modular refinery, they have the technology already which they have to produce this product in their crude way.

I, living in Warri, Effurun in particular, we use diesel from the creeks. Let nobody deceive you, we use diesel from the creeks and is not knocking any engine at all. That they’re not permitted to do what they are doing makes us call them illegal.

But Nigeria in the shortage of the product can tap into their expertise. These guys can bring 20% of our local consumption. So, in area of subsidy I don’t believe in it and if government says that they can cure this problem with the palliatives, it is a lie.

Do you have any advise for President Bola Tinubu?

The president should be president for every Nigerian. Not a president of APC people or a president of Yoruba. As you can see in the manner of appointment that they are giving out to people, other minorities are not carried along at all. The records are there.

The President should be president of Nigeria to the extent that appointments and decision are taken  in the best interest of Nigeria. You don’t know the party that will be there tomorrow so if you bring INEC Commissioners and they are your party members, positions that are not supposed to have people affiliated to political parties, people who we expected to conduct free and fair elections for Nigerians without party romance. When you appoint such persons, you are not telling us that you are the president of Nigeria.

The president should look at himself as a father for everybody and a father does not eat until the children get food. A father who will be committed will ensure food is made available for all children. He should open up the economy of Nigeria. Don’t say because I am from the West, I am particular about these ports because it is a self inflicted problem to say to let only Lagos have economic activities. People are not encouraged to do importation because if you do, the volume of goods in Lagos you wait about a month before you are cleared. The president should diversify the economy so that the port in Warri become a full force. If government wants to bring big pipes, they bring it in Warri Port. The president should be like the presidents or heads of state when those ports – refineries were built. Don’t be threatening us about privatisation of refineries. Is it not people you are going to sell to?

In most cases they sell it to themselves. Government can not wash its hands away from government properties, they can manage it. 

I like the man no doubt about it, he is an intelligent person. He is doing well. He speaks very well but there is a difference between what you say and what is in your heart.

I want his heart to be good, I want him to look at the Supreme Court and do what is right in the kind of people appointed into the apex court that will give justice to the ordinary man.

They say judiciary is the last hope of the common man but today now, people are still complaining to God. They don’t get justice from the judiciary.

The mess of 2023 election, ask any politician who won his election in court will tell you what it cost him. Those who lost in court will tell you how they cannot surpass their opponents.

I can, however, boast I am the one who did not spend a dime in the Tribunal and at the appeal court. I told everybody that was concerned that the case I have against my opponent, I don’t see any reason why I should influence any person. The result is clear, my opponents were not talking about result but how I resigned from office which is in line with the provision of the law.

In one of the cases, the Judge was even a classmate of mine but I didn’t bother to introduce myself and there was no contact, the law took its cause but I am just an exception.

So we must find a way to clear this mess. I don’t like the Appeal Court decision that all cases in the North should be done in Abuja, all cases in the west/east should be done in Lagos. You are just vibrating the story of corruption. You are making it obvious, that is why you are doing what you are doing if not all the appeal courts in their jurisdiction if you want to tame corruption put proper monitoring on them and you can investigate that.

Even DSS, what are they doing? What is happening in their bank accounts? Those are the ways we can go to bring confidence back in the electoral process and Mr President should not allow himself to interfere in the other organs of government like the legislature, the judiciary and even government institutions.

You may recall that in recent time, the EFCC Chairman was accusing a civilian that you are a thief we must recover the money, the civilian looked at the EFCC chairman and said you are a thief too, you will see what will happen to you. After some few months the EFCC chairman was in detention. Then the person he was accusing is a minister. He should not do like Donald Trump. Remember the American election, as election was going on, he called one electoral officer in Georgia asking the man that he should look for a certain number of votes, the man recorded and I think that’s why he is facing prosecution in Georgia. The man was telling him no Mr President, we can’t find vote anywhere, he said look for the votes and I will be declared president, nothing will happen and the man said no. If it was in Nigeria, the electoral officer will say Mr president is just 17, 000 votes you are looking for, I will give you 30, 000, consider it done but remember I am loyal. That’s what you are going to see.

So Mr president should deviate from that. Our conduct is what people will respect outside. When we were giant of Africa, it was the conduct of some people in this country, the TafawaBalewas, the AhmaduBellos, the Azikiwes, theAwolwos. Those were the people that gave us respect from outside because the way they conducted themselves. If we have skeletons in our cupboards then we can not confidently be talking to outside nations.

When they look at us, they say look at these Nigerians. Why are they harassing us in all the airports.

So, Mr President should just set the example and ensure local government autonomy, that is the only way we can develop. Governors should not sit and collect their allocations and make local governments look like inferior ditto with the judiciary.

If the judiciary are independent, the judges are well paid, taken care of especially at the magistrate level where greater work of judiciary is done.