Ibrahim Shehu Gusau is a member of the House of Representatives, representing Gusau/Tsafe federal constituency. He speaks with Muhammad Sabiu about his experience, the leadership of the house, as well as the attempt by the excecutive arm to remove fuel subsidy. Excerpts:

Being a new member in the House of Representatives, what are the experiences you have learnt?
Yes, I am indeed a new member in the National Assembly and it has been six months now since the new members of the National Assembly were inaugurated, and again we thank God that for the first time the National Assembly was able to choose its own leadership successfully. We were able to produce the new leadership. I mean a leadership that I would say was ‘home-made.’  It wasn’t a leadership that was influenced or imposed on us from outside. Instead, it was the making of the National Assembly that produced the new leadership with popular majority.

Since your assumption as a member of the National Assembly, what has been the focus of the House?
Well, as the legislative arm all I would say is that the journey has been fruitful. Since the inauguration of the House, we did not have any cause to complain because the leadership has been carrying members along. Everything has been transparent and openly discussed. The new Assembly has many promising young men and women who have the interest of the country at heart.  I believe we have done well but it is not enough because the time frame is very small to measure our performance. I am optimistic that in the nearest future, our country men and women will have causes to be happy with our performance. Nigerians are people that appreciate results. So, we are aware of these challenges and these are the reasons we do not wish to fail in our assignment.

What can you say about the move by the executive arm to remove the subsidy on fuel?
Well, I came from a locality that most of the people are battling with poverty. I am trying to see how I will put in my best to empower these people and yet government wants to remove fuel subsidy. Then, what are you trying to justify? The reality at stake is that most of the people are not empowered. So, for me, I will not succumb to that and I do not think is a favourable idea because it is not yet time for subsidy to be removed in the country. I think we still have a long way to go to empower our people. Until people have enough purchasing power, you cannot start talking of removing oil subsidy, but if they are not empowered enough, what subsidy are you removing?

What do you think is the way out?
I think the best thing for government is to look for other avenues through which it will generate money.  Also, government should think of how to stem out corruption in the country. Corruption is the major problem of our country, if we can tackle it we will save a lot to move ahead. But unfortunately, we are not honest with ourselves. The tragedy of our country today is that we don’t have the love of our country.  If we will re-orient the psyche of our children that are growing up, may be we can tackle the problem of corruption. We are working on the document that government presented and looking into the aspect that it would provide relief to the people between now and 2015. However, government has to source for funds and one way through which it said it would do that is through the removal of subsidy. Anyway, the House has told the executive that we are going to study the document again and where there are loopholes, we will try to look at the loopholes. But with regard to the money it wants to source from subsidy removal, we advised the government to go and look at other avenues where they can raise the funds. And I want you to understand that it is not the duty of the Federal Government to carry us along on the removal of this subsidy, it can decide to do that but we said that as members of the National Assembly we are representatives  of Nigerians. There are 360 of us in the House and each member is representing its own constituency and we are the closest to the people. We told the Federal Government that the removal of fuel subsidy is not a popular idea and it will not be a welcome idea and as such it should rather stop the idea.

But the National Assembly has the power to stop the presidency and state governors from removing the subsidy?
Yes we can only advice, but we don’t have the power when it comes to that. It is not like a budget where we have absolute power.  Whatever we decide to do, they can veto it.

At the National Assembly, are you working towards a bill?
Yes, I have couple of bills in the offing and I have presented couple of motions. You see, I am not a kind of person that goes and keeps quiet at the National Assembly. If you are following the performances of the National Assembly, you will find out that I am one of the very active participants.

What are your plans for your constituents?
Well, my constituency is what I considered most as number one priority. I am sure you are aware of the activities I have been handling. Before we were sworn in, the people of Mareri area in Gusau Local Government were the first beneficiaries of my plans for my constituency. During my campaign, they complained that they had water problem and I fulfilled the promise made to them. Not only Mareri will enjoy from what I have promised, but the entire people under my constituency. On education, I have a programme in which I am trying to empower students in getting into tertiary institutions. The idea came to me when I discovered that most of our youths cannot go beyond secondary schools because they do not have the means not because they are not interested in continuing their education. Right now, I have the first set of about fifty beneficiaries, 25 students from Tsafe Local Government and 25 from Gusau Local Government areas respectively. Most of them are now running their programmes at the Federal Polytechnic, Kaura Namoda, Abdu Gusau Polytechnic, and College of Education, Maru, among others. By God’s grace, constituency projects will go down across my constituency.

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