The representative of Plateau South Senatorial District, Senator Jeremiah Useni, has said President Muhammadu Buhari has been too lenient in dealing with alleged treasury looters. Useni spoke with newsmen over the weekend. Moses Gbande was there for The Eagle Online. Excerpts:
Recently, President Muhammad Buhari while responding to the feeling of some Nigerians that he is tough in handling the anti-corruption war rather asked Nigerians to be patient with him and that he will not disappoint them. What is your take in this?
Those who say Buhari is tough, I don’t know what they actually mean. But in my own opinion, Buhari should be tougher. We heard one individual returned about N3 billion. I think that person should be dealt with severely. So Buhari has been too kind for allowing those kind of people to be roaming the streets. It shouldn’t happen at all. We should pray for this man, for God to give him tougher mind, not softer one. We have been doing so many silly things for years and we can’t continue like that.
Do you support people returning stolen public funds secretly or would you suggest they should be tried publicly and jailed?
I think they will be tried though they have not been tried yet. I think what the government is trying to do is to say is if you know you have stolen money or if you are given a contract and paid for and the contract is not executed, return the money before we investigate you, making sure you have committed an offence anyway. Some of them have returned it, some complete amount, maybe the level of charge will be different, but if after investigating government finds out that what you have returned is not up to half of what you have collected, then it is going to be a more serious case. So those who have returned money shouldn’t think that everything is over yet.
Some people say Buhari’s government is too slow. What do you have to tell them?
Too slow in what? Too slow in not executing people? You see when you are talking about so many problems, it takes time to try and put it right, especially in Nigeria when you are trying to put things right new ones are coming up. Late Chief Obafemi Awolowo once said as a Commissioner under former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon and there was going to be a probe having so many governments back, he said no, new logs have fallen on top of old ones, to get to the old one, you have to remove the new ones first. So the new ones are (former President Goodluck) Jonathan’s people. When we finish with that one, then we will look at former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’adua and the rest of them. But new logs have fallen on to of old ones, we cannot get to the old ones until we remove the new logs. So, the problems are so much. Buhari is not God. You don’t expect him to come and finish the programme in one week or even one year. I think he has done a lot so far. If you look at ordinary budget, you know about 184 officials have been removed, whether redeployed or removed completely because they caused the mess up in this budget and some of the things these staff put in were unnecessary. That is why the National Assembly knock off about N17 billion from the budget. So when we start operating the budget you will see wonders. You can see that we budgeted for $38 per barrel, now it is about $40. Maybe by the end of this year it may go up. You wait and see.
What should Nigerians expect from the Senate having passed the budget last week?
Once the President signs it into law, we will start operating it. What we will be doing as Senate is making sure that the budget is properly used as posited so that we will not be accused of any money at all. That will be our function. To supervise those process.
Your support for Buhari is so clear. As a member of the Peoples Democratic Party, do you think your party members will be comfortable with this?
You see, this is what people don’t understand: if you are in one party or in another party then you become enemies with the other, no. The only thing is we think in different ways but we try to get to the same place. Right? Even in the same party, I can refuse to vote for my candidate if I don’t believe in him. You have been hearing of anti-party, sometimes it’s not anti-party but just protest. What happened in Plateau was a protest because the governor then just decided to bring a candidate whom people don’t want because he was from the northern zone as the governor and we didn’t want that. So it was a protest vote. Otherwise, Barrister Simon Lalong wouldn’t become the governor because there is no All Progressives Congress in Plateau. So just because I belong to one party I should continue to see something bad about somebody who is doing well for Nigeria in another party? No, I don’t play my politics like that. If the president is doing well, I will commend him.
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