News Obiaks News

When he was called up for the exercise and grilled especially over his stint as governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi challenged anyone to produce an invoice of 50 million naira bed he was accused of buying in the state house during his tenure.”I challenge anyone to bring an invoice of a bed in the state house that is worth N50m. I did not spend irresponsibly on it. It is probably one of the cheapest state houses in Nigeria. I used my relationship to raise a lot of funds with institutions like the World bank, DFID etc. There is no country that does not borrow. I did not borrow to pay salaries.”

On national issues, he said that national educational system should be reviewed and made attractive for the citizen, adding that the nation’s domestic agenda does not drive the country’s foreign policy. According to him, there was much gap between the rich and the poor, adding, “there is too much concentration of power at the centre. Therefore, there is need for devolution of power in Nigeria.

“Corruption must be tackled headlong. The amount of leakages in our revenues is unacceptable, and must be promptly addressed. We have to reduce our recurrent expenditures and increase our capital expenditures in this country, otherwise we won’t be able to develop meaningfully. We have to diversify our economy, and it is achievable.’’

When it was his time, former Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen Abdulrahman Dambazzau, who called for constant review of the nation’s defence policy, said: “Defence policy of Nigeria needs constant review because it should centre on the best way to use the military to tackle challenges and come up with order of battle.

On the Boko Haram insurgency, he said: “The soldiers are at risk and if care is not taken some could lose their lives, if a new soldier loses his life, there is death gratuity for him apart from other benefits derivable by his family. But these could be reviewed upward. We have not been taken  advantage of the United Nations reimbursement system, other countries used it to maintain their armed forces but Nigeria relies on annual budget. “We can use the UN reimbursement to procure critical equipment while greater percentage of the annual budget could be channeled towards welfare to boost the morale of the personnel.

On clashes between the Fulani herdsmen and farmers, he said the development was unfortunate and affecting production, adding that the climate change was causing desertification.

For Ibrahim Usman Jibril, unless the issue of compensation and resettlement was addressed in the Federal Capital Territory, the haphazard development in the nation’s capital will not be addressed.

In his presentation, former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Chief Audu Ogbeh, who noted that he was not looking for anything new, said that the president and governors should no longer be given the status of the leader of the party. “The major problem facing the nation’s political system is the lack of internal democracy in the political parties. Another problem is the tendency for the party in power to surrender its authority to the President or the state governors.’’