‘Nigerians should be patient with Tinubu over subsidy removal’

Senator Opeyemi Bamidele represents Ekiti Central Senatorial District in the upper legislative chamber of the National Assembly. In this interview with RASAQ IBRAHIM, he speaks on several issues, including the disagreement over the election of principal officers for the incoming 10th National Assembly, the decision to remove the subsidies on premium motor spirit, otherwise known as petrol, among other issues
Ahead of next week’s inauguration of the 10th National Assembly, the zoning arrangement announced by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) for the election of principal officers of the parliament is yet to be accepted by some lawmakers elect and are speculations that the 2015 scenario might repeat itself. What is your comment on this development?

It may surprise many Nigerians but the 10th National Assembly would be a much more organized set-up than previous ones. Our party, the APC has taken a decision on the issue you raised but this has not gone down well with all the stakeholders involved. As it is often said, in every democracy, the minority will always have their say, while the majority will have their way. So, what is playing out is a form of protest by some interest groups who believe that they have been shortchanged or carried along in arriving at that decision and this is normal. Protestation is an integral aspect of democracy itself.

But, based on the principle of separation of powers, it is right for the executive arm to meddle in the leadership of the National Assembly, which is an independent arm of government…

What the APC leadership has done by zoning the positions to different geopolitical zones is not an exclusive preserve of the party. It’s not anything unusual; it’s not anything unheard of; It’s consistent with global best practices in advanced democracies. As a matter of fact, in the US, the executive is always interested in who leads the Senate. Under the US system, the Vice President is by law the president of the Senate; this is to let you know the extent to which even though the constitution emphasized the need for separation of powers, the same constitution emphasizes the need for checks and balances among the three arms of government. Back home in Nigeria, even the minority parties will still do their zoning because principal offices also exist for minority parties. Out of the 10 principal positions, four of them will go to the minority; which is the Minority Leader, Deputy Minority Leader, Minority Whip and Deputy Minority Whip.

As for me, the fact that our party came up with a zoning formula and some people are not happy about it is still part of the game. What is most important is the ability and sincerity of the leadership of the party and the President and as the leader of the party to ensure proper dialogue among different stakeholders. He is expected to negotiate where it is necessary to ensure that no geo-political zone is left behind and that no strong or relevant stakeholder is left behind. There have been several meetings and I know more meetings will still hold before the inauguration. The whole essence of this is to bring all stakeholders to a round table and to further review this situation and explain things to ourselves. Nobody is going to take chances when it comes to having the right leadership for the National Assembly, but it’s a process and I think the zoning itself, the protest and everything going on are all part of the process. But, we will arrive somewhere.

Tinubu’s presidency is just a few days in the saddle but Nigerians are grumbling over the removal of fuel subsidies. What is your take on this and, in your opinion, how can the government quickly address the pains Nigerians are passing through at the moment?

To begin with, I congratulate Bola Ahmed Tinubu that this decision was taken ahead of his resumption of office. Tinubu as the new president did not take this decision. The 9th Assembly working with former President Muhammadu Buhari passed the 2023 budget, and in that budget, provisions were only made for oil or fuel subsidies until June of 2023. In other words, whether Tinubu talked about it or not, in our budget, they would have been no money, not one naira to fund fuel subsidy beyond June of 2023. So, all the president has done was to bring this issue to the fore by letting Nigerians know not just that fuel subsidy will be removed, but by sincerely telling people the arrangement for fuel subsidy is no longer in place because that’s the truth. What is left for our president and his administration is to be able to show capacity, and show a scientific understanding of what is to be done as a way forward; there must be some crucial approach to this.

But, that decision has brought so much hardship on Nigerians with the hike in the price of fuel as well as goods and services…