Director of Communication and National Orientation of the 2024 Edo State All Progressives Congress (APC) Governorship Campaign Council, Prince Kelly Udebhulu, in this interview with IDAHOSA MOSES, talks about the potential gains of oil subsidy removal against the backdrop of the recent nationwide protest against economic hardship.
For about a week, Nigerians were held bound by street protests that disrupted social and economic activities, with incalculable losses. What is your take on it?
The hunger and economic hardships in Nigeria, which ignited the unrest for days, are not peculiar to the country alone. You too will readily agree with me that every country of the world is also experiencing same difficulties.
But, governors, especially the ones in the opposition parties, including media handlers, accused President Bola Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), as the cause of the protests?
In Edo, Governor Godwin Obaseki is the main cause of the hunger protests carried out mostly by the youth. So also the other governors, who could not utilise the oil subsidy’s windfalls to the benefit of their people, were also responsible for the protest. At the inauguration of Baba Tinubu as president, he had told Nigerians that the oil subsidy had since been removed. Note that the president had not resumed duty when he informed Nigerians about this. His new government had to put in place periodic disbursements of the subsidy’s gains and palliatives to states and local government, to cushion the economic hardships that people now protest about. But, most governors had nothing on the ground to show for it, leaving acute sufferings and bitter complains for the Edo people.
Still, the Edo state government had some time ago labelled the federal administration as inept and corrupt?
The much we hear from the residents of the state, who incessantly accused the governor and his government of high corruption and misuse of the state coffer, could give you more insights into what I have said. The governor has some allegations levelled against him based on petitions written by individuals and organizations in the state.
How much do you think the state government has so far received as part of the oil subsidy saving?
I can’t calculate that right now. But the various tranches of huge monies as allocations from the Federation Account to Edo and other states are there in the public information domain for all to see. So also are the ones to the local government councils, which they states have been hijacking. In the month of June, 2024 alone, Governor Obaseki received a whooping N11.1 billion, in addition to other grants. There are states that received two, three and four times as much as Edo. What did they do with the huge money?
The variation of the protest is that the Federal Government is responsible for the plagues, hence the nationwide street protesters directed their aggression at his administration as the cause of the protests. What is your take on this?
Ordinarily, as the most senior of a threesome government in a federation, the federal government should be called to question on such issues. But, the 36 state governments, including the federal capital territory (FCT), should also be held responsible for the poverty – hunger, runaway inflation and economic hardships in the country.
What informed your position?
It is not just my position alone, but there is empirical evidence to buttress it. Two years before the nationwide protest actions, the 2022 Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) report, had categorised the state governments and FCT as the ones that are collectively most blameworthy for the acute poverty in the country, than the federal government, who many people wrongly accuse as the main cause.
How do you mean?
That damning 2022 MPI independent study and report was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Statistics and the counterparts Bureau of Statistics of the 36 states and FCT, including the United Nations and some other global bodies. No one can fault the authenticity of this significant report which vehemently indicted the states. To imagine state bodies conducting a study whose report faulted the states and FCT they serve!
Why and in what specific areas of poverty did the report find the 36 states and FCT as culpable?
Firstly, the 36 state governments and FCT, altogether, get the largest share of funds accrued to the country. And they are the same, who in addition to their subventions and grants, that hijack the direct fund allocations to the local government councils (LGC) that are under them. The 2022 MPI study and report were based on three dimensional areas of poverty, namely, monetary, educational and infrastructural development. Mind you that the same report also revealed that 133 million Nigerians are acutely poor.
Your mention of local government councils’ funds being hijacked by the state governors. How would you react to the recent Supreme Court’s judgement, in which local government councils were granted financial autonomy from state governments, as some critics say it is unconstitutional and unknown in a federal system which the country operates?
What is unlawful or unconstitutional about a matter that had been determined by the apex court of a country? And who says that there are no variant items in the constitution of a Federal Government? I think the Supreme Court’s judgment is one of the catalysts for national development, which President Tinubu had brought out. Nigerians should be grateful to him for this great feat, because the Local government will now have to concentrate on the needed widespread grassroots development in the country.
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