The Chairman, Senate Committee on Interior, Senator Atiku Abubakar Bagudu, speaks on the controversy generated by the vote, last week, by some senators on Section 29 (sub-section 4b) of the 1999 Constitution relating to girl-child marriage, among other issues. DAPO FALADE brings excerpts:HOW do you feel in the face of the series of attacks against the Senate by Nigerians, especially in the social media, over its alleged support for child marriage?
Just like you, I have been following events in the press. What saddens me is, how many people that I would ordinarily respect their opinion argued devoid of the facts. The element of the constitution that brought this forward is the renunciation of citizenship and it provides that a Nigerian of full age can renounce his citizenship. Section 29 of the 1999 Constitution goes ahead to explain what it meant by full age. It says (a) 18 years and above and (b) any woman who is married. That is what is in the constitution as of today, and there was an attempt to remove the second element which relates to a woman who is married and being of full age and that failed.
I was one of those who voted against the change. What I read in the media is a total misrepresentation because people now took it to say that the Senate has considered child marriage and that is not correct. That is not true. Marriage in Nigeria is regulated by the Marriage Act, the Matrimonial Clauses Act and the various communities’ laws which are recognised by the constitution, including Islamic laws. The Tiv have their communal laws just like the Idoma. If you go to the Igbo-speaking part of the country, you will see their communal laws.
In all these communal laws, what do you have as definition of marriage?
I don’t want to answer the question because I don’t want to go into the controversy of marriage because that is not what we voted for. We did not vote to lower the standard, if there is one or the threshold for which somebody can marry. But I am just using this opportunity to say that for anybody who is interested in that aspect, you have to look at all the customary laws in Nigeria for guidance, for what the different Nigerian cultures allow as marriageable age. Beyond that, you can also check what is happening around the world. In most places around the world, marriage just below the age of 18 is allowed with parental consent. I am not saying it is right that it is allowed. So, I am worried that the debate on the renunciation of citizenship has been transformed into a debate for a child marriage and people like me who voted on the issue of renunciation have been drawn into a debate, for which we have not been given an opportunity to state our views. If the Senate is debating the issue of child marriage, I would have an opportunity to say what I know and express my view. But that was not what we discussed and that was not what I voted for.
As the chairman, Senate Committee on Interior, what is your committee doing in partnership with the Minister of Interior to ensure that our borders are well secured, given the current security challenges the country is currently facing?
There are two elements in internal security management that are unique in Nigeria and I will say this reflect in poor institutional arrangement. The Ministry of Internal Affairs otherwise known as the Ministry of Interior ordinarily is supposed to be the coordinating agency for internal security. But in Nigeria, agencies like the Police, the Customs Service and the Nigeria Immigration Service play a bigger role in internal security unlike what you have in countries like the United States where you have the Homeland Security. But having said that, the institutions that are still within the Ministry of Internal Affairs are the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Nigeria Prisons Service (NPS), the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and to a larger extent, the Nigeria Fire Service (NFS). They are playing different roles that reflect the national security, particularly, people who are in the NIS. They interact with border communities. The last time we were on oversight, we discovered that in the last three years, the NIS had lost over 400 personnel to the current security challenges. So, I think the casualties figure might rank pari passu with other agencies involved in internal security.
Apart from their increasing roles in addressing the security challenges, NIS is also playing a very big role in pipeline protection, which is a very significant area that is affecting the national economic life. The same situation applies to the NPS. We have had 11 prison outbreaks in the country in recent times and most of them are related to the current security challenges. Again, because of the nature of the prison officers who are poorly armed because of what I have said - the institutional arrangement - they find themselves facing fire from a very armed people. In a nutshell, the agencies in the ministry are playing great roles in internal security. But the policy framework that should make the ministry the coordinating body for domestic security is yet absent and we are working on that.
Most of the agencies in the Ministry of Internal Affairs were said to be engaged in the bribe-for-job scam, a development that made the Senate mandate your committee to set up a probe exercise. How far have you gone on the issue?
I moved the motion to investigate employment practices in many government agencies because we have many men and women out there who feel they are not being given the chance to be employed and the pressures are enormous. The Senate, in its wisdom, set up the Committee on Establishment to investigate and the investigation is going on now. The report is yet to be tabled, but from what one read in the submissions made by different agencies to the public hearing, it went a long way to confirm the suggestion that there might be some irregularities in the way some employments are carried out in most government agencies. Over the years, there have been series of programmes on prison decongestion but at the end of the day, nothing much is being done.
The Senate attempted to solve this problem by voting last week that the prisons should be moved from the Exclusive Legislative List to Concurrent List, but this suffered a setback following insufficient votes. As Chairman, Senate Committee on Interior, don’t you think that was the right step towards solving the problem of prison congestion?
I don’t think so, because the failure of the attempt to amend the constitution reflected the same fear that some people have with the formation of state police. Those who spoke against it noted that the prisons service is an arm-bearing body and by allowing it, state governments will start buying arms just as they will do if state police is allowed. But beyond that, I don’t think it is right to say that Nigeria has not done well with prison decongestion because our prison population, per capital, is low and we have to thank God for that. We just have to pray that crimes do not go up so that we have less people in prisons. The Nigeria prison population is a little bit under 55,000 and about 38,000 or so are awaiting trial detainees. So, the convicts’ population is less than 20,000, which is low. The United States, for instance, have over 20 million people under lock and keys. We don’t want a situation like that here, so let the cumulative efforts reflect the forgiving nature of our institutions. The church, the mosque, religious leaders, individuals well placed in the society should play mediating roles in the society that will not lead to the court system, and imprisonment. The higher number of people in prisons, like I said, is awaiting trial detainees. That is a structural problem, because in Nigeria, when somebody is taken to a court and the court orders that he be detained in prison, if he is unable to meet his bail condition, if the prosecutors are unable to prosecute him on time, he will remain in prison until such a time that it is decided. And then, we have the problem of completion of investigation. Police officers are responsible for investigation in most of the cases, while the EFCC (Economic and Financial Crimes Commission) and ICPC (Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission) have little to do. The bulk of the cases are investigated by the police. Sometimes, the police would tell you that they have their own challenges. Sometimes in the midst of an investigation, the police officer is being transferred. Sometimes, the investigation is lost and sometimes, the police officer is not available. Unfortunately, the poor person who is in detention remains there longer than necessary. But the National Assembly has been addressing this issue and an amendment has been put in place. The Nigeria Prisons Reform Bill that has been passed makes it mandatory for the Comptroller-General of Prisons to provide information on a monthly basis to all the chief judges of the 36 states and the FCT (Federal Capital Territory) on all the awaiting-trial detainees and that all those who have stayed in prisons longer than the sentences for the offences that they would have been jailed are entitled to be released.
How do you think the problems confronting the NPS can be resolved?
First, you address it by giving more arms to the Prisons Service. And two, you recognise the fact that Prisons Service is an essential elements of the security apparatus. It is not secondary to any other institution.
What is the level of negotiation over the transfer of Nigerians serving in foreign prisons?
There is a proposal by the British government where they want us to amend the law on transfer of convicts because prisoners in some commonwealth countries and Nigerians serving in some commonwealth countries under the commonwealth agreement can apply to come back to their home countries to serve their prison sentences. But the British government wants us to remove consent such that if on the other hand, those governments or the British government wants to transfer a Nigerian convict to Nigeria, they should be able to do so with or without its consent and this law is before the National Assembly. Beyond that, we have been considering bilateral negotiation such that Nigerians incarcerated abroad can come back to Nigeria and serve their sentences and it has been happening, even though the number of those coming in are very few. This will be achieved if the laws are amended.
What are you doing to improve the condition of the Fire Service as the facilities in that sector are nothing to write home about and this have always been blamed on poor budgetary allocation?
I think more than budgetary issue, there was a fundamental issue in 2007 where a policy was brought in to say that the Federal Fire Service should be a regulatory agency; that it should regulate the creation of fire services by state and local governments. The separation of power and incidences of fire and emergency services make it very untenable for us to have very dominant federal fire service. So, I think within the framework of the Nigeria Fire Service being a regulator, there is an ample opportunity to help in the creation of fire services across the country by states and local government and that will be more effective for the need of the nation. During our oversight in the last three weeks ago, at the fire service, we challenged the management of the fire service to pay attention to the development of that regulatory agency.
Apart from being a former university lecturer, you were the Chairman, Committee on Education in the last Senate. With your experience in the education sector, what do you think is the way out of the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) over a certain disagreement with the Federal Government?
I think the best thing is for all the parties at all times to be knowledgeable in their approach. About two years ago, President Goodluck Jonathan, I am not holding brief for him, held a presidential summit on education and he was there all the time for about 48 hours. He is an academic and the Minister of Education is also an academic and I am sure that makes it a bit easy for them to support any measure that can reposition the educational sector. The two committees of the National Assembly have been populated with people who were at one time or the other academic or comrades and, therefore, they should be able to relate with ASUU and find the way ASUU feels.
What is happening is that there is a resources constraint and sometimes people who observe national event realise that no sector is going to have as much as it needs from the federal funding. We just have to come to terms with this. Sometimes it is easy for somebody who is involved in appropriation to think that you can provide more money for me or can provide as much money as I want. ASUU is not playing irresponsibly. They are saying that we had an agreement with government and, therefore, the government must respect the agreement. From my interaction with senior government officials, particularly President Jonathan, the Minister of Education and the Secretary to Government of the Federation, I did not see any lack of intention on their part to address the agreement, but there are practical problems and challenges. For example, the president cannot give anybody N100 billion just to come to the National Assembly. It has to be put in the appropriation and the sooner we get our universities to be truly autonomous the better. And ASUU also has to come to terms with that. Some universities should be better than the others. We want universities that can compete with each other so that we can always measure up.
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