ADVERT RATE

Human rights lawyer, Mr Jiti Ogunye, shares his thoughts on the move by the Senate to spend about N5.5bn to acquire Sport Utility Vehicles for chairmen and vice chairmen of committees, in this interview with TUNDE AJAJA

The Senate wants to spend about N5.5bn on buying vehicles for the chairmen and vice chairmen of committees. How do feel that we have to go through this almost every four years?

What this signifies is that our democracy is growing but not advancing, and this is not a matter of semantics. In biology, you know you can have growth without development, and that is the situation on this issue. This is the 20th year of this civil rule and this is called the ninth Assembly but we have not recorded much progress in terms of legislative morality, conscience, ethics and responsibility. A representative government is not representative only because persons are elected by constituents; it is so-called because of its reflection of the aspirations, desires and expectations of the people. But what they do in periodic elections is that through bribery, violence, vote-buying, chicanery and manipulation of the will of the people, they secure the mandate and then they think they have the licence to do as they like, believing that it is only after four years that they can be held accountable.

Do you think they are taking the people for granted?

If they are not, you can’t have a National Assembly of seemingly nonchalant men and women like this as regards this issue of procurement of vehicles and other wastages. It was so during (former Senate President) Bukola Saraki’s tenure and David Mark’s, and it is the same thing happening again. It means they don’t take us for anything and they are even very cynical of public opinion. They just believe that one calamity would occur and that would keep us busy. So, this is gross irresponsibility.

Advertisement

The lawmakers often say people in the executive arm do worse things, what do you make of that justification?

It can’t be a valid excuse that those in the executive branch of government are worse. What they do sometimes is that in a very annoying manner they throw up their budget for comparison. They also say that the executive has a security vote for which they are not accountable to anybody. But shouldn’t they (lawmakers) as part of their oversight function legislate against that security vote? Is that not part of the reasons why they are there? So, it cannot be an excuse for them to do what they are doing. As a matter of fact, their reference to it adds to the irresponsibility that we are talking about. But they tolerate it so that they can also be given a free pass when they are engaging in their own irresponsible behaviour. People come into the office and throw up all the mantra; they talk about leaner and more efficient government, but they don’t do any of them. Overall, what we need to do as a people is not to keep quiet about it.

What is the way out of this?

People who are impervious to correction and are more or less like recidivist (habitual offenders) keep doing what they do because they feel people would get tired and they would then accept it as a norm. Therefore, we have a duty each time this thing raises its ugly head to call attention to it, declaim it and denounce them. Interestingly, when they are perpetrating this criminality, you won’t see any division among them, not even along party lines. The one during Saraki’s leadership was even more dramatic. The APC members there were pretending that they were fighting him because they said he stole their mandate until the issue of vehicles came up and everybody came together, united. Even some of them, like former first ladies and former governors, who had those vehicles already, still went after the SUVs because of greed and lack of political decency. It is when they want to enlist the support of people in their brinkmanship that they would be emphasising their division without substance, because they are not divided anyway. There is nothing progressive about this plan; it is just irresponsibility. People talk about our country being rich and having great potential, but in terms of money, Nigeria is not a rich country. How can you be spending money like this when for the past three to four years Nigeria has been running deficit budget? And these lawmakers are aware. We borrow money to finance the budget, yet you are borrowing money to buy ostentatious goods. Since the government is one; the same government says the Central Bank of Nigeria shouldn’t release forex to buy certain foreign goods anymore. If that is the plan, are the sport utility vehicles being bought Nigerian-made or assembled? You see, we must continue to denounce that action because once we keep quiet, they like it and then go away believing that they have overwhelmed us. It’s condemnable and totally unacceptable. Nigerian people must not surrender on this issue.

Nigerians have always condemned this move but that is where it ends. Do you think this thing would correct itself someday?

Civil societies and public interest lawyers and litigants can also go to court to challenge some of these things, but I know it’s tough because public interest litigations are taking a bad shape. Somebody goes to court and a court of law would award N5m cost against him for bringing the case. Even if a case is frivolous, there is access to justice, so shouldn’t the cost be minimal and nominal? But now, you see N10m cost being awarded by the court against a litigant. But, regardless of that, it’s our country and if we abandon it to them, they would run it further aground because the country is aground anyway.

To Advertise or Publish a Story on NaijaLiveTv:
Kindly contact us @ Naijalivetv@gmail.com
Call or Whatsapp: 07035262029, 07016666694, 08129340000

Comments

comments