Honourable Chukwuemeka Nwogbo is a first timer in the House of Representatives where he represents Awka North/Awka South Federal Constituency of Anambra State on the platform of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). In this interview with Kolawole Daniel, he explains why he joined politics and speaks on the challenges facing the country, among other issues. Excerpts:

AS a key player in the private sector, what informed your decision to join politics?
Well, believe me, I have been a bedroom critic of everything that the government does; everything that is out there and I have done this for quite a while until a friend of mine told me something that got stuck in me. He told me that America was not built on complaints. It was not built by people who complained about the ills of the society. It was built by people who got up and had the consciousness and presence of mind of instituting changes. Those who complain are actually part of the populace who sit down and do nothing in the face of the challenges of their society.

So, I became determined to take the bull by the horn and that was how I veered into politics. I was under no illusion that it was going to be an easy ride. It was as tough as I anticipated, but thank God, I triumphed. I say triumphed with all sense of humility because I know that winning the parliamentary election is not all there is to politics. It is making a difference.

You are deputy chairman of the House Committee on Justice. What key issues have come before the committee and how have these issues been handled?
The Committee on Justice is a very busy committee, although not one of the preferred committees of the House of Representatives. It is a very interesting committee. We have had a lot of issues referred to us. The first case we dealt with was the manhandling of some journalists by the police. We dealt with the case appropriately and presented our report to the House.

The second issue was the very controversial gang rape said to have taken place in a university campus in Abia State. We have also interacted with members of the international community on a number of issues, but particularly over the same sex marriage bill.

At the moment, we are working on the preliminaries of the 2012 Appropriation Bill.

What is your view about the utilisation of the Ecological Fund by the Federal Government and the devastating gully erosion in Anambra State among other parts of the South-East geopolitical zone?
For some years now, and even as, we speak, we have experienced the menace of gully erosion in my home state and other parts of the zone. I would say that I haven’t seen a lot of changes or the desired impact of the Ecological Fund, but I am sure that   with the current leadership of the House Committee on Environment, we would be able to push for better   utilisation of the Ecological Fund to arrest ecological disasters in the country.

Justice delivery system in Nigeria appears to have reached its lowest ebb and many Nigerians no longer trust judgments emanating from our courts because of allegations of corruption levelled against judicial officers. Is there any hope left for the common man within the current system?
I don’t think that the justice system is completely broken down. I believe it is just as the various arms of government have their own share of this thing called corruption.

So, if we expect one arm to be canonised while the others are vilified, that would be unfortunate. We are all products of the same system. The Justice Uwais-led Committee on Reform of the Judiciary has come up with a lot of beautiful recommendations   and I think that the implementation is now left for the government. If we apply the recommendations well, the system would change for the better, but if we abandon the report to gather dust on the shelves, we would also reap the rewards of our inaction. Nigeria is getting to a situation where everybody is getting tired of the whole system. But I can tell you that there are still some very upright judges in our court system. We have had some very ugly situations where money bags compromised the system and had their way, but it would be very unfair to write off everybody. I am a diehard optimist and I believe that we are not finished yet.

As a member of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and  part of the opposition in the House of Representatives, would you say that the opposition camp is living up to expectations in the polity?
Well, in Nigeria, unlike most other countries that operate presidential democracy, we haven’t yet come to terms with what the opposition should really be. We have the face of opposition seemingly in the House of Representatives, but we have a lot of common problems and issues of common interest to our people that die hard opposition would make you a pariah to the populace. Yes, we are trying to keep alive the face of opposition, but if you expect it to be like what you find in the Western world, then, you are going to be comparing apple and orange.

Our level of underdevelopment as a country does not make for a virile opposition. It is also part of the reasons we spend so much to run for political offices; it is part of the reasons we don’t have very well defined political ideology and strong democratic institutions. But we would get there very soon.

How soon can we get out of the problem of scarcity of water, light, food and house?
It is unfortunate that we do not have a strong political structure; if we did, we would have been able to achieve more than we have done. Today, everything rests with the man at the apex of governance at the various tiers of government. He does what he wants to do. He faces a sector that he chooses to face. We will now be trying to check him here and there with very little results. There is no reason we as a people should still be in the present economic condition. We should actually look at the faces of our children and tell ourselves the truth. We should all resolve to make things better for us and for future generations, but till we make that resolve, things would remain the way they are.

It is amazing that this country is so rich and we have continuously and collectively raped it without any mercy. Right now, we don’r have a decent road. If we calculate what we have spent on roads, you would discover that a lot of other African countries have spent far less on roads and achieved excellence in their road system. We walk around as if nothing is wrong. Look at the power situation. We budget so much money to NEPA and watched NEPA die. Look at our water system. It has collapsed long ago. We have watched this country collapse, while we stand aside and pay lip service to what should be done.

The National Assembly is preparing for another constitution review. What issues would you be canvassing before the Committee on Review of the Constitution?
The first problem is the structure of this country. We need a proper population census. We keep lying to ourselves and this falsehood only makes a mess of the concept of unity in our country. You cannot bury the truth because as much as you try to bury it, it rears its head from another direction. We were almost at the crossroads of history recently when the nationwide strike nearly snowballed into a replica of the Arab Spring. It is the result of falsehood buried over time. The man does not trust his neighbour; the neighbour does not trust the man and we live the lie. Until we address the little lies we have told ourselves over the years, Nigeria will not grow. The biggest problems that we have are the problems that we created for ourselves.

We threw open our borders and allowed our neighbours to infiltrate our country. We cannot say with certainty the population of Nigeria. We know that what we have as demography is a farce, but we are still riding on it and promoting the falsehood for selfish interests. Look at how local government creation has been handled and some sections of the country still feel marginalised.