My name is Chief Dr Alpheaus Paul–Worika the State Commissioner of Public Complaints Commission in charge of Rivers State. I am actually a second term Commissioner, this being my second term.
I was the commissioner of Public Complaints between 2015-2018. It is a three year tenure, in the first instance and subject to renewal for another term; mine was not a straight two term, someone came in after me and as it pleased my appointees and the Almighty God I was called to do it again.
Maybe they found something in what I did before as some people would say but it’s my job to do what needs to be done. I have a Ph.D in Philosophy. I attended the University of Port Harcourt, I attended Baptist High School for my Secondary Education, Primary Education were multiple because my dad was a teacher.
So I’ll be 58 in a few months from now and am a journalist I retired as an Editor of The Tide. I returned voluntarily anyway having gone through various departments and finally retiring as an Editor.
It has always been a passion for me; journalism and so even if I started work as a teacher I desired to be one and when the opening came I abandoned all that and just jumped at it.
I love to teach, even now I wish I can still teach in the University, I’ve made several attempts but they have refused to ask me to come on-board even but whenever I come in there are hitches here and there and I’ve abandoned that to their fate, maybe that’s not my calling even if I love it let me focus on what God has given me to do.
I love to write of course that passion has pushed me to journalism and I also love to serve. Coincidentally perhaps my people say I should come and lead them as a war canoe Chief and that ceremony was just concluded a few weeks back. So I am Dr. Wariso Paul working Chief of the Worika War Canoe House of Ogu Town.
Africa Update: Thank you Sir for the introduction. Let’s come back to your calling. Your commission which is the Public Complaints Commission. We would like to know what exactly the Commission is all about.
Chief Worika: The Public Complaints Commission, PCC, is one of the oldest commissions. It is part of the 1999 Constitution that was amended, it is one of the oldest commission because it is infact the only commission with the Land Use Act, that was handed over to civilian administration when Democracy returned in 1999. Of course you know the Land Use Act that came with Obasanjo with all the ground and cry the government wanted to be sure that the provisions of that Decree were going to be preserved because they didn’t want people to Tinker with the safety net of what they had created for land administration in so far as it favoured them and like the land use act the Public Complaint Commission is also a creation/initiative of Murtala Mohammed Administration and later given life by Obasanjo himself.
It is an Institution set up at the time of Murtala, when he was all over the country trying to enforce anti-corruption. The Public Complaint Commission is was like an institution where people can go to complain as it were, against whoever they think was wrong. Outside the courts where their issues could be redressed. It functioned so well. There were story of the time when for instance the late elder statesman Maitama Sule, who happened to be the first public complaints Commissioner, who performed exceptionally well.
In fact one of the issues he raised to the then Head of State, Murtala himself was the fact that he had to investigate an issue that concerned the Head of State and the man said well if you Federal Commissioner is asking me this, whoever is interfering with this let me know. Everybody must submit to your jurisdiction and it is that strong and After that it became one of the institution that the Military Government considered worthy of protecting, as part of what should be used to strengthen democracy to be sure that people have opportunity to seek redress and etc.
So the Public Complaint Commission it was originally in the presidency later when the National Assembly sat, they felt that this is a people’s commission and since it involved the people it should come under the National Assembly. So you see actually it is one of the two commissions under the direct oversight of the National Assembly the other one being National Assembly service commission.
The Public Complaint Commission is autonomous so to speak and it is a Quasi-judicial commission that is free and has the power to investigate and redress any issue that is brought to the Public Complaint Commission. And also the commissioner has the powers and the mandate to investigate; we call it proactiveness, you can query into any issue that in view of the commissioner is something that is of public interest.
The mandate of the commission is two fold
- It is concerned about public institutions of government at all tiers of administration; LGA, STATE AND FG, the only thing it cannot interfere with are matters that are being examined by the court because they don’t interfere but the commission has the mandate to enquire into the administrative proceedings of court not litigations. That is, these things are they being done according to the procedures of the court for instance if your matter is being delayed, if you’re supposed to be charged to court, who is responsible, who is the judicial staff that is frustrating the process, what judge is not ruling when he ought to because people are suffering unduly. That is why for instance we occasionally go to the prisons to find out why people are there.
I.t does not have Judicial powers to prosecute but as a matter of fact, Presently the national assembly is in the Process of amending the Ac.t Part of the new provisions to give powers of Prosecutions to the Commissions the original Classical Concept of the Commission of course the Public Complaint Commission is an Ombudsman.
It is known globally for, it is made up of operation which is basically to Conciliate, to make sure that our slogan is that you come to us you have a win-win for both the victim and the complainant or the complainant the person being complained against. So we are always on the same page. But you know that most times when people come they come with a lot of anger with a lot of disappointment over how people have treated them.
And most times, Nigerians come with the mindset that they are going to get the kind of justice that will make the next man feel pained for instance you go to court, somebody has done this, so he must go to jail, let him go and suffer in jail. The commissions pattern is not that you should go to jail, so there is always an option of fine, most times the option of fine is not much until recently, for instance even if you disobey.
Our fine is not usually more than Five Hundred Naira, So you can understand Nigerians mentality they will not behave properly, but now with the new amendments to the Acts the fine is not going to be less than Five Hundred Thousand Naira and Sometimes the jail time is also going to be without an option of fine and these are the kind of things most Nigerians fear but that is not the concept of the classical commission. It is to make sure that people gets redressed,
Just the one hour sentence destroys you because you will be recorded as an ex-convict even if you pay a fine but for Nigerians, it doesn’t matter you know. Nigerians typically want to go to a place where the punishment is grave and strict restrictions are given, otherwise the commission is very open because in PCC for example, you don’t need a lawyer.
Our services are free but also has the same weight as when you go to court. But if for instance you bring a matter before PCC and its being addressed if you go to court and you site the PCC intervention, It’s going to influence the judgement one way or the other because the Judge knows that you went to an institution that is empowered to do that.
So all this is to make Nigerians understand that justice is not about punishment, that it is about giving equity you know and sometimes equity is more of a concept of understanding. It’s never enough and PCC tries to make sure that people get justice in such a way that they all feel satisfied that having gone through these process, it went well for all of us.
Not that I must get it all, that is part of what we do recently I have as part of the mandate, to make sure that prisons are decongested. So, I have undertaken a visit to prison service few months back. Very soon we are going to embark on another visitation to the various parts of the state. This is a National mandate to ensure that the issue of prison decongestion is given the attention it deserves. Also as part of my own work, I intend to take the issue of PCC down to the local government areas.
So, this is also is an opportunity. We will have a press/ media round table, so we can see how our people will come to the realization that there is a body that is empowered and setup by the constitution to make sure that issues that can be redressed are redressed.
For instance, a lot of companies employ staff they don’t pay. Some of them deliberately don’t want to give employment letters. That is criminal!. They turn Nigerians into slaves and make them work for free and so on and so forth. So everything that is done legally and people must obey rules. Justice will get to every one but some people deliberately violate those rules and think that nothing will happen. They do that because people don’t take them to appropriate institutions, that have been so set up to deal with them for such issues.
The PUBLIC COMPLAINTS COMMISSION (PCC) is one such establishments. When we receive complaints, we try to resolve them. We may be slow but we do something. My last word is that rivers people should take advantage of PUBLIC COMPLAINTS COMMISSION
It is constitutionally guaranteed it has a mandate to resolve any complaint, the one that is not within its own mandate, can be channelled to the appropriate agency, because we are in collaboration with them. But if you just say wetin go happen? it’s the system that is suffering, All these institutions have been created to help resolve issues. If the public complaint Commissions is properly utilized, the issues of prisons congestion will be drastically reduced, because not every issues require that you keep the person in the cell or ATM.
Some of these are civil cases. These are things that, like I tell some of my complainants when they come I say look at what you are talking about these bank people will come complain that bank have taken their money or they took no wahala loan and bank is charging them.
While they themselves have not read the content of the agreement they signed because they needed money. The bank knows what they have put there, but some of them will not even read it, so when you come the banks will now show you the agreement that you signed. All those things that they will just say you tick, you will tick because you need money when it’s time for repayment, they use it against you but the banks are taking advantage of the public who needs these things.
So they don’t set out to actually properly educate them and these things become an issue and some of them when the money is plenty they go to court. The money you spend in court sometimes is far more above what you have taken as a loan. But if you come to the commission, first thing you are not going to pay because we don’t charge fees, Its free. l was just reading my platform, and my colleague from Nasarawa was just taking about someone’s problem. He was able to retrieve about Fifty Thousand Naira for someone. Though the amount was not much, the person had confidence in the PCC. I want to urge Rivers people to also take advantage of the Public Complaints Commission, it is a very important decision to make.
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