Many close observers of politics in Benue State may be tempted to believe that opposition in the state has been submerged ahead of the 2011 general elections. But in this interview with Correspondent, TERNA DOKI in Makurdi, the state scribe of the opposition All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Clement Uhondo, says the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state would certainly be challenged and defeated at the next polls, positing that election rigging is terrorism and would be resisted henceforth.

Excerpts.

Soon, Nigeria would face another general election. Politicians wishing to seek electoral mandates have already indicated interest in Benue State. But unfortunately, all intending aspirants are coming out for the ticket of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party. Is it not right, therefore, to say that the PDP has finally overwhelmed the opposition in the state, including the ANPP?

The PDP has not overwhelmed the ANPP, which is the main opposition party in the state. What we are doing is waiting for the year 2010, so that we know exactly what we are going to do. We are preparing towards our congresses, which will take place between now and March. So when we finish our ward congresses up to the national level, it is then we shall know exactly what we are going to do. On the issue of people indicating their interest to contest the governorship, it is not too late yet. A powerful candidate may come even within three months into election and still win election. So, in ANPP, so many people have indicated interest to contest elections, except that they have not made it public yet.

Definitely, ANPP is going to present a candidate that is going to challenge Suswam or whoever emerges. I don't think Suswam is going to emerge, because Suswam too is going to face challenges. People are going to challenge him in PDP. So, let him not sleep. People are coming in PDP. In ANPP, there is no doubt we are going to present a candidate and that candidate is going to be strong enough to win the elections. After all, we have been winning. Never a time did ANPP lose elections in Benue State. Except that when we win, INEC will connive with PDP to rig us out. But this time around, we shall make sure that nobody rigs us out.

In other words, you are not discouraged by the political 'Tsunami' or suppression the PDP foist on you during every election?

Yes! We are not discouraged and we shall never, ever be discouraged, because we have people on the ground more than the PDP. If you go to the rural areas, it is ANPP. If you like put a ballot box there today and ask them to line up and vote political parties, when the votes are counted, the ANPP will win. So, we have more people than PDP. People, who are now claiming to be moving into the PDP, are people who are hungry. They are going to look for food. But some of them, after eating, they do usually tell me that honourable, we are coming back, because there is nothing in PDP. So we are never scared at all, because we know PDP is not sufficiently on the ground to win us in a credible election.

But some PDP chieftains in the state have dismissed claims to the existence of opposition parties. In particular, they claim the ANPP does not exist, and that it does not even have traces of a functional office. Is this true?

But you can see our office, which is flying with our flags. Recently, I made a report to the Police because they went in the night and removed our flags. So if they say ANPP has no functional office, why did they go to remove our flags? It tells you that they are intimidated by the mere flags in our office. They even told me that honourable why? Honourable Secretary, your office is intimidating. The flags you put here are intimidating. So, right now, the PDP is afraid of us! They are afraid! We have a functional office. I am the State Secretary of the party. We have the State Chairman. We have the exco. We have the state working committee. We have the zonal chairmen and we have chairmen in all the local governments in the state. So, how can any right thinking person claim ANPP has no office. We have an office and it is very conspicuously located on Atom Kpera Road in Makurdi and you see it and you (referring to the reporter) know it. So, we have an office and a functional one for that matter.

Is the ANPP as a party thinking that the implementation of Electoral Reforms as presently being discussed will soften grounds for a better outing in the next general elections?

Of course, it will, and it is not only our party that it will help. The electoral reforms will bring about a neat and credible election. In a situation where votes are not counted, this time around, votes will be counted. And once peoples' votes are counted, the people they vote will be their true and proper representatives. So the electoral reforms will help a lot of things. I think those who have decided to engage themselves in rigging, will think twice, because the law is going to make provisions for election riggers to be punished. And you know that rigging is terrorism, when you stop somebody from expressing his electoral right, you have terrorised him.

So, I think with this development in the country now, things are going to change. Anybody who rigs election now is a terrorist and these are some of the things that have compelled the United States of America to accuse Nigeria of terrorism. Election rigging is one of them. A situation where you carry all ballot boxes and papers, you go and hide somewhere, and then recruit Police and soldiers with guns, to shoot anybody who comes around, is it not an act of terrorism? So, we are not going to tolerate that this time around. We shall check our votes very well. We will make sure our votes count. We will make sure!

You seem to place so much emphasis on the workability of the electoral reforms, which will enable the electorate express their franchise through the ballot box. But assuming it fails to work out before the next general election, what hope does the ANPP think there is for credible elections in the country, or what other strategies are being contemplated to overcome the PDP exercising the machinery of government?

There will be no hope for the whole country, and not just ANPP. There is going to be chaos. If people know now that election is war, they will prepare for war. They will not stand and fold their arms like this and say, come and rig me out! So, it will not be good for the whole country. It will be a very bad signal for the whole country, because there would be chaos everywhere. It is what I am predicting. It will surely happen, if Nigeria fails to give us electoral reforms that will enthrone credible elections and allow the masses elect their leaders.

Since coming on board nearly three years ago, Governor Gabriel Suswam has bagged several governance awards, particularly on his strides of providing infrastructures in the state. In the perception of the opposition ANPP, are these awards justified?

Well, on awards in Nigeria, you know what happens. People use money to buy awards. You want to give somebody an award, which you are convinced, the man merits, why not wait until he finishes his tenure in office, and then you give him an award based on his overall performance? But what happens? All the awards people get here are bought. They buy them. I will give the example of this woman with Oceanic Bank, Mrs. Cecilia Ibru. She was bagging a merit award every year and what happened? It was discovered that the bank on whose platform she bagged the awards had problems. Now, she is accused of financial sleaze in that bank. She is in jail now! So, you don't talk of achievements based on awards. If I have N1 million now, I will go and give people to come and give me award. So all the awards they are parading are being bought. So, I don't count them as basis of achievements.

In the year 2009, the Benue state government budgeted over N63 billion for the fiscal year. In appraising the performance of the budget recently, Governor Suswam announced a shortfall of over N14 billion. Today, the same government is proposing a budget of over N84 billion. Is this budgeting realistic for the state?

The budget is very unrealistic because it is not premised on correct indices. If it were based on correct indices, they wouldn't have upped the budget. So, it is very unrealistic. Again, the budget is fake, fake because if you look at what the state government says it will generate, N80 billion, and when you add up the various sources from which they claim to raise this money, it is just N63 billion. So, if you deduct N63 billion from N80 billion, you will have a shortfall of N 17 billion. But if you go further, the same budget puts total expenditure for the year at N89 billion. And if you deduct N63 billion from N89 billion, you will have a shortfall of N23 billion. Where are you going to generate money to make up the shortfall? Even the excess crude, we are not told anything about it. The budget is silent about it. No mention has been made of excess crude; no mention has been made of ecological fund. So the budget is unrealistic; it is fake! From the figure of the entire budget and considering the Governor's admittance that he couldn't meet the target of last year, you will get a grasp of what I am saying. Look, the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of 2009 was N1.7 billion and about N1.5 billion of this amount was from Pay As You Earn (PAYE). By implication, the whole state was only able to generate only N300 million as IGR in 2009. It means the whole lot of the IGR came from civil servants. So, when a government does not put anything on ground to strengthen its revenue base, how are you going to generate this money? You won't get anything. It is unrealistic.

We want to believe that the state government too is not oblivious of this reality and that's why a yearly budget retreat is held at the Obudu Mountain Resort to tighten loopholes. Are you saying the experience acquired there these past years has not assisted in anyway?

No! They have only gone there to junket with public money. What have they gone there to do? Is it not the same thing they did in 2008 and 2009? When they came back in 2008, there was no difference in the implementation of the 2009 budget and no one should expect something different in 2010. So, they have only decided to go and spend our money at Obudu. I cannot see any possibility of a change. May be they have only gone there to warn Assembly members that "please don't touch this budget thing". That's what they have gone there to do. But we are going to challenge it. Already, I am preparing a letter to the House of assembly in respect of this budget. Very soon, I will serve them the letter. In it, I have highlighted all these things, pointed out the deficiencies and inconsistencies in the budget and the rest of them. But we must not keep quiet. I must send it to them.

Look at the issue of bonds. They raised bonds of N20 billion. How are we going to repay that money? The only way we are going to pay that money is through our statutory allocation. And when the loan matures and they start deducting this money from statutory allocation, it will have serious effects on the state government. Besides that, if you talk of Commission on Turnover (COT) on N20 billion is N100 million. That money is reasonable enough to be invested in another area that can bring succour to the people. Even in 2009, government didn't experience any dwindling resources, so what was the basis for the bond? Funnily enough, even the legislators were not told the interest accruing on that amount and they didn't ask. We were not told how it is going to be serviced and so many other things. So, that's why I am saying that going to Obudu will not make any difference because they have merely gone there to use our money to make merriment.

You have painted a very disturbing picture of a state which cannot handle basic issues such as realistic budgeting. But assuming the executive arm of government has failed, don't you have confidence in the capacity of the State Assembly to make some difference?

I don't trust the State Assembly to salvage the state, because the crop of people we have in the Assembly are people that do not have the guts to do that. In the first place, the Speaker (Terseer Tsumba) was the Director General of Campaigns to the Governor and he was made the speaker, thereafter. So, how can he confront his master? He cannot do it. There is no hope for us. That's why I believe that they cannot do anything. There are several other issues that are pending in Benue State and they cannot even say anything about it, because the speaker is afraid of the governor. He is his (Suswam's) boy and so many others, who didn't win elections. And today they are being promised that if you do Suswam's bidding, you are going to come back to the Assembly for a second term. They have forgotten completely that it is the people who are responsible for giving them second term. They believe that Suswam can give them and they believe that without Suswam, they cannot succeed. So this crop of Assembly men gives no one any hope. In fact, there is no opposition in the House again, unlike in our days, when we raised issues on the floor of the House on policies that were unfocused or anti-people. But today, there is nothing. It is just PDP and that's all.

Many stakeholders in Benue are still wondering what informed the wisdom of government in the state in securing bonds with interest from the capital market for development of non-profit yielding investments like infrastructure. In your perception, is there wisdom in this?

That's what I have been saying. What type of investment? Would they invest this huge money? Any investment that is not regenerative, how are you going to repay it? You have gone to the capital market to borrow money to go and do construction of on-going projects and most of these projects, you saw me with this (pointing at a document in his hand), it was two days ago that I got it. And if you look at it as I open, you will discover that 50 percent of the projects here are not budgeted and I am going to point this out to members of the State Assembly and for posterity as well, lest tomorrow a legislator would claim he didn't know. This document is printed by Ashi-Tech. The governor's brother and most of the projects are not contained in either 2008 or 2009 budgets. So, I think it's very unwise to go to the capital market to borrow money only to come and invest on projects that are not regenerative.

The Suswam's administration from the onset introduced local government reforms to enhance performance of councils and the delivery of democracy dividends at the grassroots. It is almost three years now. And so, what is your appraisal of these reforms?

As far as I am concerned, there are no local government reforms in Benue State at all. What reforms have they done? The only reform they have done is that they have perfected a way of taking local government money. In order to have a firm grip on local governments' resources, through the instrumentality of the Assembly, the governor has made a law which stipulates that all funds from Value Added Tax (VAT) and Excess Crude proceeds should be channeled into one account. And when you calculate this money from June 2007 to December 2009, it is more than N26 billion. But how much did Sam Ode release to them, it was N1.9 billion. Out of the N26 billion that came to councils from VAT and excess crude, only N1.9 billion was given to them. And the VAT is meant to improve the internally generated revenue of councils, while excess crude is specifically meant for capital projects in councils and now you are taking this money and strangulating local governments.

And you say you are doing reforms in councils. No one should deceive himself, there are no reforms. They have only perfected a way of quietly taking council funds and that's all. As I talk to you, some local governments cannot even pay salaries. In Kwande local government for example, the council chairman, Terlumun Akputu owes more than four months salaries, but ironically, he was called and given an award by the National Assembly. Someone who owes staff salaries for four to five months, you call him and reward him with an award. I am just going back to tell you the type of awards that people receive in this country. So, I cannot see any reform that is going on or has taken place in local governments in Benue. What I even want to raise is that I want to ask the State Assembly to tell Benue people whether Ode, who is the Special Adviser to the Governor on Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, has powers to oversee the affairs of councils. He has no constitutional powers at all.

The organ that has the constitutional power to oversee the affairs of the councils in the state is the State Assembly. And this is contained in Section 128 of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria. Ode is under the Assembly and he cannot go out and monitor the expenditures in local governments. He cannot go out and dish out directives to local governments.. It is the duty of the State Assembly. So, I think it is high time the State Assembly drew the attention of Ode to the fact that he has no powers under the Constitution to oversee the affairs of local governments. So there are no reforms in local governments. They have only succeeded all this while in strangulating councils to the extent that council chairmen cannot even build a culvert.

For three years now, no single local government can boast of constructing a culvert. Renovation is not a project and so when you go and repaint an old building and say you have done a project, it is foolery of yourself. Don't think it is the people you are fooling because they know. All this while, it is just renovations that local government chairmen have been doing, because all the monies that come to them - you know they have three allocations: State allocation, VAT and excess crude proceeds - they are not getting this money. Other states of the federation, which are releasing these monies to the councils, if you go there, you see a difference. So, I am saying without fear of contradiction that there is no reform in local governments at all, as far as this regime is concerned.