MR Najeem Salaam is Speaker of the Osun State House of Assembly. Salam, in this interview, he faults the insinuation in some quarters that the Osun Assembly is a mere rubber stamp of Governor Rauf Aregbesola. He also bares his mind on governance in the state among other issues. Excerpts:
By Dapo Akinrefon
How do you assess Governor Rauf Aregbesola’s fifth year in office
The whole country is on vacation. Nobody will say he or she is not aware of the present economic situation in the country. What people should know is that anything that happens at the centre affects the state and even the local government.
Najeem Folasayo Salaam.
Najeem Folasayo Salaam.
The dwindling oil income makes it practically impossible for any state to embark on any project, in fact, most of the states are unable to pay their workers’ salaries. When you are unable to pay salaries, nothing will move forward in that state. So, if they say governance in Osun State is on vacation, then, the country is on vacation.
Why has the state government been unable to complete some of its projects
When you have a projection of what you want to do in office and you have an idea of your income, you plan based on your income. But when the income begins to dwindle, you will find it hard to fulfil your promise.
But the opposition attributes it to misappropriation of funds
We have investigated such allegations. We are aware of what the executive has been doing all along. It is unfortunate that we have been chewing more than what we have. When the income is not coming in as expected, there is no way they can continue with the projects.
Without investigation, we know their limitations because all the projects were based on the sale of crude oil. My office is being briefed on how far the contractors have gone in completing some of the projects. It is not about setting up a panel to investigate the executive because we have had cause to re-investigate the process of doing things by the executive.
The notion is that your Assembly is a rubber stamp of the governor
Any House of Assembly that is made up of mature minds, where chairs are not being thrown at each other on the floor of the Assembly, people tend to believe that it is a rubber stamp Assembly. What some people want is when the House engages the executive in physical combat.
Physicalcombat
Most of the crisis that generate from the House may not necessarily be what the government has for the people, it may be what the government will do for the Assembly members. We are more concerned about the people rather than our own interests.
Some people felt that because we are not fighting with the executive, we are a rubber stamp of the governor. We do not always pray for crisis between the executive and the legislature. When there is understanding between the two arms of government, there is no need for crisis; there have been so many times that we had to call the executive to order.
It may not be known to everybody but we have our own means of doing things. Don’t forget that we come from the same political party. Whenever we go to the governor and we have superior argument, the lawmakers usually have their way.
How do you plan to alleviate the plight of people of the state through legislation
All that we have being doing is to the benefit of the people. We have passed a procurement bill into law and what that means is that the government has to be transparent in the award of contracts.
Was the governor not transparent before now
The transparency should be more than before because he must abide by the provision of the law. There are punishments set out by the law and the aim is to manage the resources of the state. There are laws that have to do with health, domestic violence, child rights and urban development. Those are the things the house is doing to improve the lot of the people. Let me quickly add that there is nothing the executive will do without the approval of the house.
Why the delay in the conduct of council polls
The elections had been delayed because it became impracticable to embark on it. If you must conduct an election, a lot of money goes into it and when you cannot pay salaries of workers, there is no way people will appreciate it. You cannot campaign for elections when people are hungry. Strategically, it will go against the government of the day, it will work against us.
Also, it is not a good strategy to conduct an election when people are clamouring for their salaries. The elections are important but for now one has to take precedence, feed your people first before you organise any election. The House of Assembly in conjunction with the executive will have an agreement as to what will follow and from January 2016, there will be a new leaf in the local government. We have a plan and by God’s grace, nothing will change it.
What about the delay in the composition of the state executive council
As a politician, there is no way he or she will be happy, but as an administrator, you will be happy when you go into thorough analysis and see why such a step is taken. There is no commissioner that will come to office without aides and that will be additional burden on the government. It is when the workers’ salaries are being sorted out, before the issue of commissioners can be delved into.
It is in the constitution that there must be a state cabinet in place, but the constitution does not compel any executive as to when the cabinet must be formed. As an assembly, there is no way you can force it on the governor to form a cabinet. It is proper to take care of the workers first, then all other things will follow.
Expectations from your leadership as speaker
In the last four years, the house has been one of the most peaceful, if not the only state assembly that was peaceful in the country. The experience that we gathered in the last four years, will be put to good use in the next four years. Experience counts and experience will lead us to a better society.VANGUARD
