Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba, SAN, is the outgoing leader of the Senate spoke to Vanguard on the lot that recently befell his party Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, the internal schism in the local chapter of the party in his native Cross River State and life after the Senate. Excerpts:
There are rumours that you’ll be defecting to the APC any moment from now. Is it true?
If I were defecting, I would have come out openly to declare it. Anything you hear about my purported defection remains a rumour. One thing I found very amusing in Cross River is that anybody who leaves PDP to any other party is Ndoma Egba’s supporter. Whereas the story before now was that I have no supporter. So, where are those ‘supporters’ coming from?
There is an oversimplification of dynamics of politics in Cross River. We are no longer thinking deeply, we are no more analyzing issues the way it should be.
We are becoming mentally lazy, when mental laziness comes in, it breeds impunity, and impunity breeds arrogance. That is where we are, and we are paying a very high price for impunity which has now become a culture in our party.
But is there pressure from your friends and supporters to defect due to level of that impunity which you just spoke about?
The pressure, actually, is not only from my supporters but from every quarter but it is now left for me to reflect on it.
I will like to make this point. After the so-called primaries of last year nationwide, there was a lot of movement, but that movement was in one direction, and that was where we were supposed to listen to alarm bell which was ringing.
The situation was that people moved from PDP to other parties, but we did not see corresponding traffic of people moving from other parties into PDP.
Furthermore, the crisis in the PDP over the primaries were more pronounced in states that were ordinarily PDP strongholds. The crises were more pronounced in Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Ebonyi, Benue, Nasarawa, Adamawa. With this, the party was weakened long before the elections and with our own complicity.
I will advise that for us to move forward, political parties should be owned by members of the parties and not individuals no matter how powerful they are.
What advice do you have for your party men who are defecting en mass to other political parties?
The party that is coming into power at the federal level survived as opposition for 16 years. Even though what has happened to PDP is a self-inflicted situation, we should see what has happened as a God-sent avenue to recreate the PDP to be owned by members of the party and not by barons.
Mental laziness breeds impunity and impunity breeds arrogance and every situation reinforces itself. If you have small impunity today if you don’t do anything about it, the impunity would grow and if you have small arrogance today and you don’t do anything about it, it would re-enforce itself by growing so the PDP is paying a price for our own conduct and this is a God sent opportunity for us to wake up and think and I also hope that the APC will learn from what has befallen PDP.
What next after your exit from the Senate in the next few weeks. Outside politics my profession is still there and as a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and I have not earned a kobo with that rank because I have not gone to court and the rank was given to me while I was in the Senate so the options are many but I still remain to serve- that much I can guarantee you.
The President last week refused to assent amended constitutions. Is there any friction between the National Assembly and the Presidency over this?
Let us look at the history of constitutional amendment in Nigeria. From 1960 to the sixth Senate, we never actually succeeded in any constitutional amendment in a democratic setting. The only time we succeeded was in 1963 when there was an amendment to the then constitution to allow for the creation of the then Mid-west region, but beyond that we never succeeded. That jinx was broken in the sixth senate when we passed the 1st, 2nd and the 3rd amendment to the constitution.
Constitutional amendment is not an easy process. It is a very tedious and elaborate process which requires not only the normal procedures on the floor of the senate but requires the involvement of the State Assemblies but also public hearings at the national, zonal, state up to the federal constituency level.
The essence of public hearing is to allow the public make their own inputs and the public at large include governments, Governments also send representatives to each stage of these public hearings.
How come these issues were not raised at that point. How come that after we had gone through these tedious processes, these issues suddenly popped up?
It is a rather unfortunate development. When you withhold assent to a bill, the practice is to return the original copy of the bill but what we got was not the original copy but a photocopy, and from that photocopy, the President’s signature was not there.
We can only be categorical when we receive the original copy and that was why, by resolution, we demanded that the original copy be sent back to us.
I can tell you that the National Assembly is not happy about that development, and I will not be surprised if they resort to the other constitutional solution to situations like this.
The constitution is very clear that within 30 days of the bills being sent to the president for assent, if the president withholds his assent, the National Assembly can override his veto by subjecting the bill again to the normal process of lawmaking.
These scenarios had happened before when former President Olusegun Obasanjo refused to give his assent to the bill creating the Niger Delta Development Commission. That bill was passed into law without the presidential assent.
What would be your role at both the State and federal levels after your tenure expires?
My role would depend on the PDP in the State. For almost three years, I have not been invited to any PDP meeting in Cross River. If I am shut out, I will play my role from outside and if the doors are opened, that would define the role I play too. But, the body language I see is that they prefer me outside the house than inside.
During the campaign, they ran their campaign throughout that period and I was not consulted or contacted. Anybody who was suspected of having any sympathy for me was excluded. I am waiting, watching, hoping and praying.
this interview was published in Vanguard
