Senator Ajayi Boroffice is the federal lawmaker representing Ondo North senatorial district at the National Assembly.
In this interview with the Assistant News Editor, Sundiata Post,Chibuike Nwabuko, Senator Boroffice talked about the all-important planned security summit by the senate; the administration of criminal justice system in Nigeria and his legislative agenda among others for his people as their representative in the 9th senate.
Excerpts:
Question: Nigeria is confronted with insecurity today and the senate is proposing a summit, what do you think should be the main focus of the summit.
There can’t be any other focus of the summit than finding a lasting solution to the insecurity issue of the nation. And all those that are stakeholders of the nation would be invited to make suggestions and based on those suggestions, we will be able find lasting solution because everybody is concerned. So that would be the main focus and there can’t be any other focus.
Question: what would you say is the remote and immediate cause of the spate of insecurity in the country?
I won’t be fair to myself and to your readers to say that I know the remote and immediate causes. That would be left for the security agencies because you can’t say you know what is going on more than the security agencies who are trained to catty out investigations. So I am not in a position to tell you what the cause is. What we are experiencing is the manifestations and I believe that government is doing its best to solve the problem.
Question: Looking at the administration of criminal justice, it is only in Nigeria that an armed robber is arrested and he will beg you to take him to the police and from the police to the court because eventually he would be granted bail. Don’t you think that there is need to strengthen the administration of criminal justice system to give the judiciary more bite to confront some of these problems?
Well, we confirmed the Chief Justice of Nigeria yesterday and we raised a number of issues and how to improve the system of justice in Nigeria and he has indicated desire to improve on what he met on ground. We hope that all these things would be taking into consideration.
Question: As an experienced lawmaker, it would also not be strange to ask you what your legislative agenda for your people for the next four years would be.
Senator has three major mandates namely; to appropriate projects, carry out oversight functions and to legislate. Those are the three main functions of senators and you cannot do anything outside them. And you have to also fix that into the legislative agenda of the senate itself which, I’m sure by tomorrow, it would be unfolded.
Question: What do you say is the dare need of your people despite the fact that you don’t award contract but you can also influence what your people needs intervention most?
What my people need is not different from what is needed in any other community in the country. They need infrastructure, good road, good water, constant supply of electricity, good school not only in terms of good building but instructional materials like teachers, good hospitals. Those are the things they need and if they are farmers, they need road to carry produce from the farms to the market, so that is majorly what they need and that is what most of the communities in Nigeria need. And once you have all that you will be happy.
Question: This is also an opportunity to correct this misconception. You were recently quoted to have said that you cannot go to your village because of activities of kidnappers.
Well, some of you are toxic journalists. I have corrected it and some of you journalists are politician and one does not know what is behind your actions sometimes. Don’t forget that apart from being a politician, I am the Asiwaju of Akokoland. Which means, I have to be in constant touch with my people? So how can I say I cannot go home. We have reacted to it. I am going home this weekend with my colleagues in the south west caucus, the following week is Zaka-day, the day my town people come home from all parts of the world to celebrate our own new year, so I have to be there. Then I haven’t done the thanksgiving for my election that will come by late August or early September and that will be done in six local governments. At least I can say that I don’t have any fear going home. We are not saying there are no concerns, there are concerns everywhere whether in the northern part, southern and eastern parts, there are concerns the main thing is that one has to be careful, that what we are saying.
Question: Distinguished still on insecurity, do you think the centrally controlled Police Force can solve the issue of insecurity in the country.
Well, we should ask them whether they have any problem but what you should know is that we are a country of about 200 million people with a police force of 300,000.So when you look at it, you will see that they have a very heavy burden and challenge.
For 300,000 policemen to police a population of 200 million people. You can see that they are trying their best because the issue of armed robbery or kidnapping- you are fighting a war without frontier, you are facing warlords that are independent. The group operating in ‘A’ has no business with group operating in ‘B’. So there is no central command that you can negotiate with. When you have insecurity in the Niger Delta, we know that they had a sort of organization. Government was able to negotiate with them and then Amnesty programme was done and it solved the problem of kidnapping and bombing in the Niger Delta. But here, we are confronted with people that you cannot define their territory, you cannot define their organization so there is no central command that you can negotiate with, so you just have war lords, it is like guerilla warfare.