Hon. Dr. Eddie I. Mbadiwe representing Ideato North and South Federal Constituency of Imo State in the House of Representatives, urges Nigerians to embrace western education as the key for development. He also spoke with CHIBUZO UKAIBE on other topical issues
Your position on education has been consistent; throw more light on it please?
Education is so crucial that it is not something that can be play with. I strongly believe that education is the key to solving many of our problems. For example, many years ago my father was elected a member of the Federal House of Representatives; he ran that election in Enugu State where he resides, now I have being elected into the same House of Representatives. I have to go back to my home town Arondizuogu in Imo State to contest. I think we are taking very retrogressive steps in this country; there is no reason why you should not run an election from where you reside. There is no reason why you should be asked of your state of origin to get a job.
There is no reason why you should not express yourselves and defend where you reside. I think; it is ignorance that is causing all this, that is why I believe in free compulsory education for every child up to the level of SS 3 or its equivalent. I believe that when people are educated properly, they will see life differently. It is only when people are educated they will not see Nigeria as a property to be shared. Nobody will ask you for money to vote for you in an election; I believe that education is the key in solving most of our problems in this country.?????????
You are currently on recess. The assumption is that this is time for play for the lawmakers. Right or wrong; and what are the expectations of your constituents?
Recess period is actually a period for work; that is the time when you have to do a lot of reading and research in terms of legislations you intend to put forward for the next session. So recess is not really a holiday as such. Although people go away for a period of one or two weeks but if you go round the National Assembly you will see that a number of members are in their offices working. Unfortunately many people don’t know that there is a lot of work involved in being a member of the House. On the question you asked about my constituents – on a daily basis we treat about six to seven requests from my people who are requesting for jobs, pre-condition and so on.
During the period of recess we try to open our doors for people who have one problem or the other to see how we can help. During this period also we still try to look at what inputs we can make in the budget as regards our own constituency and Nigeria in general. In Ideato for instance, erosion is the major problem. You need to take a tour to that place and see the amount of devastation erosion have caused to the people of that area. So we have to go round and take photographs of this erosion sites so that we will be able to convince government to put them in the budget for next year.
We are also looking at what we can do for the youths during the period of recess to make sure that they employ themselves gainfully rather than getting into crime, drugs and so many bad behaviours. We have a constituency office at Ama Edward in Arondizuogu and this office is managed by competent persons who in their own way try to look into the local people’s problem and see how they can solve them.
State police is now being proposed by some states in the country in the face of mounting insecurity. What is your position on this?
Well, I am aware that people have being expressing their views on the desirability of state police. Clearly, there is a need to review the security system in the country. There is no doubt that we need to decentralize police from the top as it is now. But then there are problems facing this issue. You can not give too much power to the states. I will definitely oppose states having their own police. I will suggest that more autonomy should be given to the states in respect of that, but for the interest of Nigeria as a nation the full power should depend on the federal government. There was a time we had state police in the past; some governors used it against their opponent to victimise them; it is not good and we have not yet reached to that level of sophistication and understanding. Rather I will suggest that more autonomy should be given to various police commands to enhance professionalism and equip them more to better deal with the issue of kidnapping and other crimes.
What measures you can suggest to the Federal Government on how to tackle the issue of kidnapping??
Well to me I feel that the best way to go about it is for the security agencies in the country to seat down and gather information from the people because these kidnappers are not leaving outside the country; they are actually leaving within us and they are part of us. On the other hand the Federal Government should make sure that the level of employment is increased so that people will be gainfully employed. There is need for various autonomous communities to be able to police themselves and find out people with questionable characters and report them to the police for investigation. These are things that should be done in order to cut down the rate of kidnapping and other anti-social vices in the country.
Many geo-political zones in the country are clamoring for additional states to bring dividends of democracy to their door-steps. Do you agree with that?
Well, it is more complex than that. The whole idea of creating states is for the development of Nigeria. But let us be honest to ourselves the states we already have, have they been able to produce that development? The answer may not be yes. So we have to look at the cost of running states, the bureaucracy of running a state is too much. Can this country afford to run many states? There is a need for a national debate; let us agree whether we actually need more states or not. If we need more states people from my area need more states. People from Orlu in Imo State really want a state but what we should be looking at as at now is things that will promote Nigeria as a nation not something that will distract the peace and development of this country.
How can the South-east economy be developed?
Well, the South-east economy is not in isolation; it is tied to Nigerian economy. So one cannot talk about developing the South-east alone without talking of the nation’s economy. The people in the South-east as you know are very hard working people. Many of them are businessmen and women – so we have to create an enabling environment for them to thrive. The people in the South-east don’t really want to see themselves as beggars but they want the freedom to express themselves in terms of business, farming, etc. Any government that comes in must provide infrastructural facilities such as roads.
We don’t have a good road network; with good roads people can move their products round the country. Secondly, there are lots of manufacturing going on in the South-east cities. Nnewi as you know has a lot of industries some of them small scales, medium scale and large scales industries going on there. So they need power in order to function well. Power as it is now is inadequate; they need power to develop their business. Most of them go on diesel to provide power; you can imagine what they are spending to keep their business functioning. You can imagine running a factory on diesel, you know what it takes. The whole profit goes in there. So if people can be provided with power, security from robbers, from hoodlums; if all these can be provided which I have enumerated, it will lead to a very healthy environment for the people of South-east.
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