A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Stephen Ajiya, has spoken on the need for the Federal Capital Territory to have its own State Assembly and indigenous representatives. He spoke to Daily Sun on this and other issues.
With the federal government’s new tax reform, where do you think the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) belongs in terms of Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) generation?
I know that the FCT is third after Lagos and Rivers in terms of IGR. This does not mean we should rest on our oars. If I were the President or the FCT Minister, I would have made an effort to bring back companies that left this country in the past owing to a lack of an enabling environment. I will create the enabling environment to make them stay and give them a 10-year tax break. I’ll connect them directly to the national grid and go ahead to ban the importation of what we locally produce.
People may not like Donald Trump but today, people are forced to come back to the USA, thereby enhancing the supply chain in whatever they produce, which will have a positive effect on the economy in the long run. This is what we need to have in the FCT. Why are we not having Hyundai Nigeria, Nissan Nigeria, Toyota Nigeria, and so on? It’s because we have refused to invest and make our economy grow. So if such is stabilized, we can start exporting to other African nations. Do you know that Innoson Motors can take over the African car market with a good policy in encouraging local manufacturing and with affordable prices since it does not require distant transportation? Africa has the market and the Federal Government should also make sure that the private sector drives the economy because government alone does not create a nation’s economy. They should see entrepreneurs as part of the government because the economy should be in the hands of the private sector.
The president should be able to travel to foreign countries with a team of Nigerian entrepreneurs to learn from their foreign counterparts so that they can influence those foreigners to come to Nigeria and produce here. The reason the naira is falling in value every day is that Nigeria is import-dependent. Because importers must not struggle with the dollar exchange rate before they import vehicles. This has made the price of those imported products so high that they are unaffordable. So you can see the ripple effect of a dependent economy. So, in the FCT, we need much to be done to attract IGR. Policy changes stifle our sense of reasoning sometimes and now that the tax law is coming into play, the FCTA and all the area councils should be business-oriented.
As an indigene of the FCT, does it worry you that up till now it cannot make its laws that govern the indigenous people?
This is what we have been agitating for a very long time, that we will have a State Assembly where we make our laws and I think the current House of Representatives member, Obika, is working on it. We had a robust discussion and alluded to the fact that FCT should have its legislative arm. He also agrees with the fact that each area council should have a representative to such a house. Such people can serve as commissioners instead of appointing ignorant people who know nothing about the indigent people as mandated secretaries. That is where we started rubbing minds. Everybody working in FCT has been appointed, and none of them have been chosen by the people; they have always been politicians from other states. We should know where these people are chosen by the people to represent them. It doesn’t make sense for any Minister to handpick people from other states and make them mandate secretaries the equivalent of state commissioners. Even the current House of Representatives member and Senator representing FCT are non-indigenous people, but the House of Representatives is doing everything possible to see that it works because he has lived in FCT all his life. So such a person can still be elected because the constitution is clear on indigene. So I don’t see why people are scared about FCT indigenes deciding for themselves.
As a member of PDP, how do you see the outcome of the by-elections?
In my view, the outcome is a reflection of what the state governors are doing. The APC won about 12 states, and it was because the places were APC controlled states and local governments. Where PDP was won was PDP-controlled, and where NNPP won, it was in control. It means that when you are a good leader, your people allow you to control the structure from council wards to the state. It would look stupid for any governor to allow other parties to come and win off-season elections, and such would amount to him or her not being in control. General elections are a different terrain because it is wider and monitored both nationally and internationally, and at that level, the governor may not be able to control the structure like the off-season elections.
In terms of empowerment and capacity building, what do you think the future of the FCT youth?
The problem in FCT is very peculiar. There are youth empowerment programs ongoing, but the problem we have here is that the empowerment does not benefit the FCT or its area councils. The record is there that whenever they got the empowerment, they remember their states, and before you know it, such people are called back to contribute to developing their states. Take into account all those who have won elections in the FCT. Once they finish their tenure, they flee to their various states to invest the money. We have experiences when such individuals, as soon as they make their name and money, don’t stay back to inject into the economy of FCT. The only people whom we can call indigenous are the Gbagyis and Gwandaras or other minor tribes. So we had it recorded that once a child from another state is helped through sports or anything, he grows to abandon the FCT entirely, and such a person stops claiming FCT, but the state where his father came from and it is because of the way the constitution made it to be.
For instance, an FCT child is not made to be a governor in his lifetime because such does not arise in the constitution. You will even find it impossible to become a Senator or a House Representative.
By Idu Jude @TheSUN
