A former officer of the Nigerian Navy, Commodore Omatseye Nesiama (retd.) on Monday in Warri, Delta State challenged Nigerians to take critical look into the activities of the National Assembly.
Nesiama, who is the candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party for the Delta South Senatorial district said NASS activities contributed partly to the present socioeconomic woes in the country.
The retired Naval officer declared pointedly at an interactive session with journalists that “if the Executive is not performing, it is foolhardy for the legislators to say that the government s bad”.
“The government can be bad only when the legislature is truly bad”, he added.
According to him, “if the legislators fail to perform their functions effectively and checkmate the executive, where necessary, “then we give the executive a free rein to do whatever they want to do”.
He spoke further, “So when we say we have bad government, let us start with how is the legislature constituted.
“If we have a legislature that is a rubber stamp, for any bill that comes they just endorse it, then we will find ourselves where we are today. Probably worse off tomorrow.
“This is the criticality of a legislature and that is why I chose to answer the call to go into the National Assembly for the position of Senate in the Delta Puth Senatorial District”.
Nesiama lamented that Nigerians have not been paying due attention to the role of lawmakers in the national polity.
“We have not paid much attention o that area of our national political development thinking that just anybody can go to the parliament, and that is our greatest undoing”, he stated.
According to him, “The Delta South Senatorial District again is one of the most important senatorial districts in this country. It is a very viable senatorial district where things are supposed to work better. But because we have gone to sleep we allowed things to go the way they were.
“But thank God today, that it is possible or all these negatives to change and that possibility can only happen when we believe, first and foremost that it is possible”.
He explained that candidates for the National Assembly should be those that have the quality to be able to articulate their views, and present their positions and the requests of their people convincingly in such a manner that other lawmakers would be able to buy in because it is a game of skill and wit at the National Assembly”.
Commenting on the recurring crisis in the Niger Delta region, the retired Naval officer blamed the authorities for their “poor strategic thinking and developmental plans”.
He said “”If we have strategic thinkers, and they put themselves into work, we won’t find ourselves where we are. And our lawmakers would be different legislators that will legislate in the best interest of the people”.
On the Petroleum Industry Act, he canvassed for a further review to ensure allocation of licenses for modular refineries to communities that have oil bearing and compel such communities to take responsibility of protecting any pipeline that crisscrosses their territory.
“If that is done, incidences of breakages of pipeline and destruction will drop considerably”, he said.
Nesiama however told newsmen that the problem of crude oil safety in Nigeria goes beyond pipeline surveillance just as he dropped a bombshell that “some of the declarations that were made about crude oil theft are lies”.
He declared, “I have operated and I can tell you. If the amount of crude oil theft that has been declared in this country every day is actually going out of this country, you come and show me the number of vessels that come into our territorial waters daily. It means we are talking of very large crude carriers.
“And in the whole of our coastal areas, the Navy has surveillance raiders that can detect any vessel coming into Nigerian territorial clean.
“So, what I will tell you for free is that most of those companies are not producing as much as they are declaring. In order to cover up their inadequacies, they shift it to crude oil theft.”
