Nigeria's National Assembly (NAAS), which has been roiled by controversy over the selection of its leadership, resumed work this week with members saying they were ready to deliver the change for which Nigerians voted by electing President Muhammadu Buhari. While media coverage focused on political rivalries, Senator Bukola Saraki told AllAfrica on 9 July how he planned to support the president's ambitious change agenda, as the Nigerian leader prepared to visit Washington, DC. Saraki pledged to lead the Senate and to cooperate with the House of Representatives in crafting and passing legislation that would transform Nigeria's security, its economy and its culture of corruption. Excerpts from the conversation
Why the March election mattered
This last election was different from previous ones. A lot of sacrifices were made by all Nigerians to participate in and monitor the entire process. What has come out very loud and clear is that Nigerians want change. They want an improvement in governance and to see the effect of this on their lives. They want security, jobs and power [electricity].
We appreciate the fact that Nigerians are expecting a lot very soon. We are going to put in a road map, and we are already doing a lot of oversight: meeting with the Central Bank and the anti-corruption agencies. We plan on having the ministry of finance and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to address areas that we believe will help to increase the revenues of the country.
Security
One major issue that came out during the campaign was security - Boko Haram as well as insurgencies in other parts of the country. There was a sense that our institutions should have been able to address this insecurity.
Our job in the Senate is to provide every possible support in improving the capacity of our institutions, our military and our intelligence and to collaborate with countries that have had experience in terrorism to see how we can work together globally to find an everlasting solution to this. We are going to carry a lot of oversight functions to provide what is needed for military training and funding, and to look at how we begin to rebuild and rehabilitate the affected areas. A lot of people have been displaced, their communities destroyed. We need a comprehensive plan, including building schools and bringing life back to the most-affected states.
Corruption
The fact is that government must work more efficiently, and a key to that is addressing corruption. We are in an environment where our main source of revenue is crude oil, whose price has dropped significantly. We have to be more efficient. We have to block off a lot of leakages.
This is where the president will provide leadership from the top. A lot of these leakages have been due to the lack of political will to fight corruption properly. We can't afford that anymore, and we have to all do our best to ensure that corruption and the losses it brings are fought at every level.
So we've met with many of the agencies in the petroleum sector to ensure that all revenues are going into the central public account – and to try to ensure that agencies are not keeping some of those funds and ensuring we see all the revenues.
We also try to focus on the area of taxation, because our non-oil revenue is very low. Our taxation is only 4% of GDP, very low compared to other countries. We've met with the Inland Revenue at the Senate already to let them know that we need to see improvement – more transparency and accountability on their side. We have met with other official and non-official organizations to secure their cooperation. We are doing a lot of advocacy and prevention; that's an area that's important also.
The economy
The focus will be on growth, but the key issue as we talk about growth is unemployment. We must talk about the issue of getting a lot of people out of the poverty.
A key thing is the issue of jobs for the youth. We will look at how we can support diversifying the economy to provide more employment. Agriculture is central, and we will look at the potential in mining. Government will address the issue of power.
If we can succeed, we will see growth that will improve our youth's prospects and transform our rural areas.
We in the Senate will draw up a legislative agenda to focus on priority bills that will make Nigeria more attractive for foreign direct investment. Sectors like textiles used to have strong industries. We've lost that; we need to look recovering manufacturing capacity. Rice, tomatoes, a lot of things we continue to import can grow locally and provide jobs for the youth.
The Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) has been a jinx for many years. The long-delayed legislation aims to create a transparent regulatory regime for the corruption-plagued oil sector.] We are looking to that to see how we can finally break that jinx. We believe that investments in the oil and gas sector can be used in the short term to improve our economy and get things going.
We want to really get to work on that, because of the belief that a lot of the investments are being held back because of the lack of PIB. Let us start with the parts that are less controversial that everybody has a buy-in on, so that we can begin to make progress.
Still on the oil and gas sector – the NNPC and government cannot fund their participation in joint-venture funding. That has held back a lot of investment in the sector because the international oil companies can fund their own shares, but unfortunately NNPC can't fund its own shares. And if NNPC can't fund its own shares, it won't spark the level of investment on the scale needed. We are trying to see what we can do in the legislature, through laws or policies that can allow better funding of joint ventures. We have to try and find an innovative way that can be done.
Moral authority for better governance
To do all this, those of us in the National Assembly must set examples ourselves. So we are doing some housekeeping on our own side. We've set up a committee on financing to look at our own finances.
The NAAS gets a lot of criticism on salaries and expenses and operations, and we want to be transparent there. We believe if we show accountability on our own side, it gives us the moral authority to be able to carry out the other side.
For the first time we are going to have a more open national assembly budget, unlike before where the national assembly budget was just a one-line item. We are considering how to break down expenditures so our constituencies will have a better understanding of where the costs are coming from.
We're also reviewing public finances. The report of the committee should be out [soon].
We're trying to increase the efficiency of the work we are doing. We plan to have a better working relationship with the House of Representatives. We are going to ensure that bills passed in either of the two chambers do not take so long before we get concurrence from both sides.
Doing more with less
President Buhari has an ambitious agenda, but I am hopeful we can achieve it, even with falling oil prices. I think it is possible to grow the economy in areas that will generate more employment. We are going to review a lot of laws that are outdated - that don't encourage significant foreign investment. We will push through those policies and, where necessary, have them backed by law.
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Yes, we used to have an economy based on oil prices of more than $100 per barrel. But due to corruption, due to lack of transparency, due to a lot of theft and waste, at the end of day we were earning the equivalent of $60 [per barrel] because 40 per cent of the value has been taken off the top.
The positive thing here is that we now have a government that is committed to transparency. You can survive at $60 per barrel because you are going to close the loopholes and you are going operate more efficiently.
An analysis published in May by PWC – What next for Nigeria's economy? Navigating the rocky road ahead – endorses the view that Nigeria's economy, already Africa's largest, can continue to grow, even if oil prices drop to as low as $34 a barrel this year.
In economic diversification to increase jobs and non-oil revenues, in tax reform, in providing security, in reforming the petroleum sector – to do all this will take time, but the commitment is there. With the Senate and House working with the Executive, I am confident that we will see improvement in the next two quarters.
On the security side, we still have a lot of work to do. We will have meetings and briefings from the security arm, and we will see what we will need to do to support immediate progress in that area.
Political Will
The difference this time round is that, one, the political will is stronger, and two, the National Assembly will play a greater role in supporting what is very close to the executive. We will create an enabling environment, and I think, if we do that, it will lead to more inclusive growth than we've had in the past.
