Photo Caption : Maj Gen Ishola Williams, PanAfstrag Founder
In this concluding part of Newdawnngr.com Exclusive Interview, Major General Isola Williams contended that provision of Free Education at all levels and Health services remain the only lasting legacy the government can use to banish poverty and move the country to greatness.
As for him, spending money on pilgrimage to Mecca is an act of inconsistency by President Bola Tinubu having said earlier he won’t sponsor pilgrimage.
He reiterated his belief that the Nigeria Labour Congress is not pursuing the right goal in it’s agitation for wage increase.*
He also emphasized his belief that State Governors are the main obstacle when it comes to good governance .
Excerpts:
Question:
What is new about Restructuring and how can it be effective with the govt in power?
Ans.: To me I don’t see any difficulties, because the governors are responsible for this and in this case they don’t want any change because at their own level, they are the Alpha and Omega.
They don’t want to be accountable to anybody, virtually all the arms of govt. are in their pockets including the judiciary.
It’s only at one time during the tenure of the late Gov. of Ondo State, Akeredolu, Ondo State was trying to get some forms of Independence in terms of funding and every other things to deceive judiciary. Everything about Nigeria is money, we are in an era of primitive accumulation of capital.
Therefore, everything about Nigeria is not what is good for our country, but people want to remain in that position of making or controlling money.
So the governors are the main obstacle when it comes to good governance .
Example is the issue of State Police, initially they didn’t want State Police, but now they’ve agreed to have State Police, also the Nigeria Police don’t want to be disbanded because once we have State Police, there is no need for Federal Police .
What we need is the Mobile Police and CID to back up the State Police because State and Local government can take care of policing.
The second thing is the independence of the judiciary
and that of the local govt.
So if the State govs really want to change the mechanism of 1999 Constitution for the betterment of Nigeria, they should discuss with their state houses of Assembly who will get the tall orders needed to change the constitution.
The Governors are the main obstacles to Nigeria’s progress in terms of governance.
Question : Do you agree that we return to the Parliamentary System of Governance because it’s less expensive and how practicable is this in Nigeria of today?
In today, switching from Presidential System of Governance to Parliamentary System is not a big deal, it can be done, it was recently done in Togo though in a crooked manner.
Secondly we can have a mix Parliamentary System like that of South Africa whereby : They just had election in S/A which elected members of the Parliament proportionally with that of members, the Parliament must accept the Presidential candidate by a majority vote.
Maj Ishola Williams rtd.
And as we speak, Ramaphosa has been elected as the President of S/A, this is a mixed Parliamentary System with Presidential System.
And the Parliament can also remove him.
Secondly, every member of the cabinet is a member of Parliament ?
The candidate must have been an elected member of the Parliament, but once he becomes a Minister, you resign your seat.
That is a mixed Parliamentary System.
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In a true Parliamentary System, the advantage is this: In either the Presidential or Mixed Presidential System, there’s no constitutionally recognised opposition party.
In a Parliamentary System, you have that, with a Senate Prime Minister, Senate Ministers and Opposition party, in the Constitution.
And again it is the Parliament with the political parties with their leader to decides the Prime Minister of their choice, they have a vote.
If they have a Parliamentary majority, he becomes the Prime Minister and if not, they have to remain in the Coalition.
What is good about Parliamentary System is the transparency and accountability in which the Prime Minister and his cabinet are forced by members of the Parliament to be accountable to the people represented by the parliamentarians.
And for them to be removed at any time including the Prime Minister by a simple vote majority.
Although people are saying it will not happen in the case of Nigeria as a result of corruption, that could be true, but the accountability and transparency is strictly there which is key and that is what is missing in the Presidential System of Government.
Secondly, we have a check on whoever is the head of State.
In some Countries like Malaysia, they have a King (traditional ruler) who checks the President. The traditional ruler is elected by his peers every five years.
Hence, Nigeria can implement this in which our traditional rulers too can play a role as a check to any person within the Parliamentary system .
Question : How far can the National Student loan Scheme of the Federal govt. go, do you think it is achievable?
Oh forget about it, the military govt. tried it, only less than one percent paid back.
The Americans are still facing the problem, at the end of the day, the President will write -off the loans of the students. What is the need for something that has failed, those who advised him to do it knows that it will fail and it’s going to fail.
The reason is even in U.S where people get jobs, it takes some people 15-20 years to pay back, here you come out of University you’re not sure of a job, then how do you pay back.
To me, Free Education up to university level is what Nigeria needs, rather than govt. spending N90BN to go to pilgrimage.
*Ques : Probably to assuage the religious beliefs of some tribes in the Country. Don’t you believe it is political?*
Let’s not talk about the corruption among the lecturers themselves that is why I asked the question which one do you prefer : Pilgrimage or free Education for your children?
Good enough Christians can’t go to Jerusalem now because of the on going crisis in Israel presently.
Going on a pilgrimage for two weeks and then come back and you cannot pay your children’s school fees, which one do you prefer?
*Someone must have asked the President to do that when he initially said that Go to pilgrimage if you can afford it, then why did he changed it?*
It’s not a priority at all.
Question:
On the issue of the national minimum wage that has led to the shut down of the economy for two days, What do you consider to be the realistic minimum wage that workers should earn in Nigeria with less than 3 Million Nigerians as Federal govt. employees?
To me the issue of minimum wage is not the solution and the NLC is aware of this, they are just playing to the gallery.
They are not asking for the right thing. Firstly, our Parliamentarians are getting too much money even from us. They are not transparent about what they get. The Parliamentarians have assumed a role now that nobody in Nigerian can check them, so they can do whatever they like with public money for themselves.
Sometimes they think it’s for their Constituency and one of the Senators made a comment ‘that Nigerians don’t care because they also share the money with them.
Hence chop I chop ideology in a trickle down economy, how do you change that ideology and that economic system?
The NLC is not addressing the real issue at all.
Also since the time of Udoji, we have a situation whereby wage increase leads to increased in school fees, food prices among others.
So what problem is wage increase solving?
Not even that of affordability in which you’ve enough money in your pocket to cater for your needs
Again free Education Free health with minimum wage is the best way out
And also, second, minimum wage can be promulgated by law but it cannot happen.
This brought us back to the story of the elites and the middles class in this country., they are not serious at all.
Question: *Lastly, to what extent do you think fiscal federalism is the solution to our present predicament?*
The way out is to deal with corruption, impunity .
For instance there is the story of a woman who head a social security agency, she stole so much money, changed the money to dollars, had so many houses both here and abroad, nobody has said anything about the woman, she never went to jail.
So many other cases that investigation is on going.
Also recently the Accountant General took many people to London for a Seminar, which Country will allow all this shenanigans?
The elites and the middle class knows the solutions to the problems of this Country but they don’t want it to be applied because we live in an era of primitive accumulation of capital and they know that those who have gone before them non of them were accused.
*Question: What is your assessment of President Tinubu in the last one year?*
Sincerely, I haven’t seen any progress made by the President because the elites and the middle class want the status quo to remain.
Recently, he was asking the Elders forum in the North and South West to allow the local govt to work, immediately Afenifere came out and said he should leave the federal government out of it and allow the state face the problem.How can that solve the problem.
*Where you have irresponsible elites and middle class no President in the world can make any progress, and in this case leadership by example doesn’t work*.
You don’t need to amend the constitution, the machinery is already there.
People should know that every President or Gov. is a business man, hence they must do their own business maybe Buhari was different because he didn’t know what was going on.
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It is the followers who will effect change in Nigeria and they are the elites and the middle class and not the grassroots as I said earlier.
