1St Year Performance Report of Sen. Enyinnaya Abaribe, Member, Senate
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1st Year Performance Report of Sen. Enyinnaya Abaribe, Member, Senate Name: Enyinnaya Harcourt Abaribe Senatorial District: Abia South Party: Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Position: Chairman, Senate Committee on Power and Solid Minerals Brief Profile: Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe is a third term member of the Upper Legislative Chamber having been first elected in April 2007. Certainly a consummate politician, he has been involved in the politics of the Fourth Republic since 1999 when he was elected as Deputy Governor of Abia State. He is known to be vocal, articulate, calculating and knowledgeable in both the politics of the Senate and legislative affairs. During the first quarter of this political dispensation, Abaribe’s principled stand on issues of governance soon pitched him with his principal at the time, Gov. Orji Uzor Kalu; a development which led him through two impeachment attempts by the State Assembly at the time. By 2003, he decided to throw in the towel by resigning from office to circumvent a third attempt to remove him by the state’s lawmakers. That crunchy experience only served to toughen Abaribe who found space in the then opposition All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) to contest the governorship of Abia State against Mr. Kalu. Although he lost the contest, Abaribe proved the point that he was a man of steel and character who would not be intimidated to abandon his will and convictions on how to govern Abia State. In his own words, “the first task of governance is to restore confidence in government and make people believe in government, that government can be responsive to their needs. This will show that you are committed to the people’s welfare. Then, the basic thing that an Abia man needs is the common infrastructure.” Thus 2007 came and he had a chance to prove his mettle and convictions through the federal legislature. During his first tenure in the Senate, he served as Vice Chairman of the Committee on Inter-Parliamentary Affairs, a position that gave him a good window of global exposure on parliamentary practices in many parts of the world. He also served as member of Committees on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Senate Services, and Works during that dispensation. Sen. Abaribe became the chief image maker of the Senate in 2011 with his appointment as Chairman, Senate Committee on Information, Media and Public Affairs. This position tasked his political sagacity and public service experience especially in those heady days when the Red Chamber made history with the famous Doctrine of Necessity that resolved the transitional impasse following the illness and eventual death of former President Musa Yar’Adua. He successfully served out that testy portfolio and got re-elected into the Senate in 2015, again as in previous cases, on the platform of the PDP. Until the reshufflement of Committees by the Senate leadership, Abaribe served as Chairman of the Committee on Information and National Orientation. He is now Chairman, Senate Committee on Power and Solid Minerals Development. However, Sen. Abaribe’s footprints in the legislature have often been on the political sphere where he does not shy away from his convictions no matter what. For instance, he was the first opposition senator in the 8th Senate to have openly queried the 2016 budget of President Muhammadu Buhari. But his stints of activism and political fearlessness in the Senate had been demonstrated much earlier. In October 2007, for example, he mobilized other Senators from the South East to protest the treason trial of leader of Igbo separatist movement (MASSOB), Chief Ralph Uwazurike at the Federal High Court in Lagos and to demand his release. Abaribe was born on March 3, 1955. His official profile lists the University of Benin as the institution where he graduated from with both Bachelors and Master degrees in Economics and concluded his Ph.D course work in the same school. For work experience, he lectured at the then Bendel State University now Edo State University, Ekpoma, before branching off to the corporate world and finally berthing in politics. Abaribe has been conferred with several revered titles in Igboland including Nwadiohanma Ngwa, Ugo Ngwa 2, among others in recognition of his numerous services to humanity, especially community development. Abaribe’s Accomplishments in 8th Senate: Senator Abaribe’s major accomplishment in the current senate is his sponsorship of the Public Procurement Act (Amendment) Bill, 2015 which is a culmination of efforts to promote Made-in-Nigeria products in the country. According to his Lead Debate, the Bill “seeks to propose am amendment of the public procurement act Cap, LFN 2004. The Public Procurement Act to mandate all sectors of government in prioritizing made in Nigeria goods to ensure that Nigeria businesses get ‘first dibs’ over their foreign counterparts in the procurement processes for agencies and departments of the Federal government.” The Abia South Senator further told his colleagues that: “The Bill seeks to amend Section 34 of the Public Procurement Act CAP P44 2004 dealing on Domestic preferences. The passage of the revised Law which will change the key word from “may” to “shall” will make it mandatory for government agencies to patronize Made in Nigeria products when available. “The amendment will also drastically increase the percentage of domestic suppliers for domestically produced goods from its present 15% to above 50% and bids for works by domestic contractors from its present 71/2% to over 25%. This alteration, once signed into law, will have ripple effects on the manufacturing industry, as it will assure local manufacturers of a ready and sure market for their products. “Nigerian products must have comparative advantage. Made in Nigeria goods should no longer produce adulterated or substandard versions of foreign alternatives because the market is available. Also, it is high time we pumped the very best into our markets to ensure overall consumer satisfaction and building confidence in the Nigerian brands.” The Bill has been passed by the Senate and when signed by the President after concurrence with the House of Representatives will be a major credit to Senator Abaribe’s stewardship in the 8th Senate. My Colleagues Call Me Made-in-Aba Senator- Abaribe As part of the #NASSReportCard series on the accomplishments of lawmakers, Sen. Enyinnaya Abaribe (PDP, Abia South) spoke with the ORDERPAPER Team on his first 365 days in the 8th Senate, focusing on his legislative contributions and constituency relations. Excerpts: How do you compare the current 8th Senate with the previous ones especially given your background as ranking Senator? Comparisons are done like for like to get it right. The circumstances between the two (7th and 8th Senate) are quite different. In the 7th Senate, PDP was the dominant party and had enough members to get the leadership. So we had a seamless transition from the 6th Senate -of which I was a member too- to the 7th Senate and we didn’t see the need for any change. So you could see there was only a change regarding the rest of the principal officers and not the presiding officers. But the 8th Senate started on a very troubled note and ended up producing what the French call co-habitation. In other words, the two parties (APC and PDP) produced the Senate President and Deputy Senate President respectively; meaning they had to work together to do that. That meant ultimately that the turbulence that was engendered by these two parties cohabiting has continually dogged the Senate up till this moment. This instability has made it difficult for us to make a very valid comparison between the two. But I will say that the 8th Senate despite the instability has also tried to live up to its job and its job essentially is to make laws and put Nigeria on a proper path by doing a budget in the interest of the public and also looking at the economic conditions and helping the Executive to mitigate the problems that the people face. I will say that it has not been easy but some milestones have been made- Ministers were screened and none was dropped; for the very first time you could see an increase in the capital side of the budget and a reduction of the recurrent side. And also for the first time we also have a legislative agenda that the Senate has taken on; for the very first time too, the Senate engaged with the productive sector of the economy through the National Assembly Business Roundtable. It could have been better of course but as much as I know politics is the art of being able to cobble solutions when there are disparate interests involved and I think that going forward, we would probably be able to do that. To whom would you credit the continuance of this cohabitation in the leadership of the senate so far- the leadership or the experience of senators? Well, I will credit it to everybody in the sense that everybody worked together to see how we can take this going forward. One thing that we know out of necessity is that you cannot make progress in an atmosphere of instability so everybody has been working very much together to see how we can resolve issues and do the things we were sent here to do by our various constituencies. It is because it is something new that is why we are having the trial that we are having today and it’s is affecting every side- it affects the APC as a party because it feels it has an interloper in their midst in the person of the Deputy Senate President and it also affects the PDP because we also see one of our own there; so the trenchant type of criticisms that we would have done has to be toned down because our people are also part of the leadership of the Senate.