-Senator MbellaMoki Charles
Good day senator Mbella Moki
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| Senator Mbella Moki |
Thank you for this opportunity and I hope
that your readers will have the opportunity to be informed about the changes
that have taken place in parliament.
I must congratulate you on your brilliant
election as the vice president of the constitutional laws committee of the
senate. How did you take that election?
Thank you very much once again. To begin
with, I think this is one of the most important committees in the house; it is
the committee that has to do with the laws and regulations that govern the
state. Because this committee has to do with constitutional matters it is
considered to be the chief cornerstone of the house. I think i was privilege to
have been handed this position by my colleague’s senators. I thank them for
this mark of confidence and count on the wisdom of other members of this
committee, who are by far older than me, to perform the duties that I have been
assigned to perform. I must also note that I have a very trusted president,
former Governor and Minister, EtameMassoma, who is going to guide the committee
as president. I must say that my election was one of the topical changes that
we had during the elective session on Tuesday and you may want to know that as
soon as my name was pronounced sit was greeted with a big ovation in the house.
So what is your immediate plan of action
after this brilliant election?
It is that I should be able to perform the
duties that go with this office and to do so with a lot of serenity, honesty
and loyalty this, so as to merit the confidence that my colleagues have
extended to me. I hope that by the grace of God a lot of revelations and inspiration
are going to come through me to benefit this committee and the senate as a
whole.
Another major change is that Senator
Tabetando also now becomes the Chief Whip of the CPDM Group of Senators, in
replacement of Senator MafanyMusonge. How did you receive that change?
I think it was good news for us. Chief
Tabetando was proposed for the position and there was no opposition to that and
the house went ahead to unanimously endorse the candidature, though a lone
candidature it was. You should know that senator MafanyMusonge had become the
president of the National Bilingualism & Multiculturalism Commission that
was recently created by the Head of State. And because of the incompatibility
of his position in the senate as group leader with the new position as chairman
of the Commission, members of the senate had to replace him with someone else.
No doubt Chief Tabetando is a legal and political guru; he is also somebody who
is versed with the workings of the house. I have no doubt in my mind that he is
going to live up to the expectation.
These changes took place at a time when the
Anglophone problem is almost causing an earthquake in the country. Did this
factor in the elections?
We are yet to begin intense debates in the
house. We expect that when the debates begin the issue will emerge and will be
brought to the fore. Those of us who are versed with the issue; who have lived
through this difficult and trying moment in our various constituencies are
certainly going to come up and situate the arguments in a manner that should
reflect what obtains on the ground. I am one of those who have been at the
epicenter of the problem; I have been with those who are greatly affected; I
have travelled the length and breadth of the SW and NW regions to examine the
way things are going. I think if given the opportunity I will pour out these
experiences on the floor of the senate and even in my commission and the
executive of the senate. I think together we are going to see how we can
fashion and factor in the appropriate messages to the decision makers so that
this problem should have a lasting solution and come to a glorious conclusion.
Senator we have seen people moving from
village to village, from church to church and from house to house trying to
talk the people to suspend the strike, yet we are not seeing a solution to this
problem. For someone like you who also wears the shoe, where do you think it is
really pinching?
I think what you have observed only shows
the validity and the far-reaching extent of the arguments that have been put
forward by those who are agitating. At the beginning many people must have
under-estimated and undermined the problem. But I am aware and I am sure that
as we are different quarters as it has been at the beginning. Normally when you
face a situation like the one we are facing, you do an evaluation and assess
your performance as you try to find a solution to the problem. If you realize
that your solutions are inadequate, you have to reconstitute the entire
equation and seek other solutions and other ways and means of approaching the
problem. We have seen a situation where we have tested our strengths and our
weaknesses; we have seen the opportunities and the treats. In this case, what
do we do? It now requires that genuine dialogue is engaged and proper proposals
made. We should stop the practice of forwarding to the leadership of this
country information that are not precise and most often are not true. I am a
living witness to what has taken place in the NW and SW and I have a full and graphic
picture of what obtains on the ground. Unfortunately I have hardly been
consulted by those who have put themselves where important decisions are made
as far as this problem is concerned. We have to be realistic; we have to be
frank. We have to help the head of state of this country. He is the only
president of this country. There are no two heads of state in this country.
There are no two persons who were elected to pilot the affairs of this country;
there are no two persons who incarnate the institutions of this country. It
behooves every one of us therefore to provide the President with suggestions
and proposals that can help him find solutions to the problems that we
encounter as a polity. Take for instance, some people tell the president that schools
have stated. But you and I know that schools have not started. If you have a
hundred children who are going to school and you find out that because of the
breakdown just 10 or twenty are going to school, are you going to be happy that
80 are not going to school? Let us give the real picture to the head of state
and he will use the information we give to him to proffer real solutions to
these problems.
You are a member of the political class of
the country and you are the ones who are supposed to give the head of state the
right information. When you say some people are deceiving the head of state,
who are these people you are talking about?
Let me be frank here. There are people who
by virtue of the positions they hold are empowered and have the avenues to give
information to the head of state. But unfortunately some of these people chose
to redesign and fashion information that should go to the head of state just in
a bid to seek personal favours. So, there is misinformation, disinformation and
of course obstruction in the flow of information to the head of state.
Fortunately enough the head of state is aware of this, and that is why if you look
at the decisions that he has been taking lately, they are indicative of the
mood in which he is; it shows that he is not happy with what is happening.
There have been repeated and sustained
calls for the president to release those who have been arrested in connection
to this problem. Many believe this could help to douse the growing tension. But
he has thrown a deaf ear to this request?
The head of state always takes his time to
do things and do them the right way. I am one of those who have spent time to
study his methodology of governance. I have the hope and belief that he is
going to respond adequately and aptly to the problem that is at hand that is,
the Anglophone problem, as it is commonly called today.
Before we leave you, you say people are not
giving good information to the president. If you had that opportunity to talk
with the president, what would you tell him about this problem?
What I should tell the president should not
be discussed in public before I meet him. I should be able to conserve it; make
sure I do a lot of consultation, bring in a lot of wisdom from the ground and
give him the true feelings of the people that I represent. And if that has to
be done I have to provide myself an atmosphere which will be pregnant with a
lot of respect for the head of state. I most respect him as the president, the
head of state and as the sole leader of this country, who is the only trusted
authority to take decisions that are vital for the life of this country, so
that happiness and satisfaction should be derived from my dialogue with him.
And I believe that is going to happen.
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