Deceitful budgets and accounts

Many are of the opinion that the problem commonly associated with third world countries is accountability. Some say it is so because of the large number of uneducated folks in third world nations. The elite then capitalises on the ignorance of the large chunk of the citizens to put up falsified figures and accounts, which cannot be traced or questioned. With the emergence of technology and awareness in some quarters, the story is changing gradually.

Before the discovery of oil in Nigeria, things like cocoa, groundnut and palm oil used to be major income earners for the country. Our economy depended on these items. We did our projections and budgeting based on the proceeds from these items. We used the non-oil resources to even develop oil exploration. It is no longer news that the non-oil resources we used to develop oil exploration now contribute less than 10 percent of the nation’s foreign earnings. It is not news that oil has put the nation’s resources in few hands and equally unable to generate widespread employment for the employable hands in the country.

All our budgets and expenditure are based on oil earnings. Despite its major problems of civil unrest, political instability, border disputes, corruption and poor governance, oil companies have always seen Nigeria as an attractive area for upstream investment. The nation’s state of infrastructure has not improved even with the continuous rise in the price of oil .

Many of us were not too shocked about the discovery of secret accounts by the government, supposedly owned not by the government but by some evil geniuses.Many were not too moved also when the legislators returned unused funds in the last fiscal year. These developments are just showing that we may have had deceitful budgets and accounts all these years, since the presidency had been directly in charge of the petroleum ministry.
It was alleged that huge funds were expended on electricity with nothing to show for the huge figures on ground.

I wish to use this piece to ask the legislators at the state and national levels to be very serious with their oversight functions. Let them get down to real business and forget intra and inter party politics. We just heard secret accounts were discovered. What is being done to uncover the people who own these accounts? I believe we have many great minds who are not bereft of ideas as legislators.

They should, therefore, tackle serious issues bordering on corruption because what we have always had are deceitful budgets and accounts.

- Arinze Alinnor A.,
P. O. Box 17985,
Ikeja, Lagos.

Iwu and the lessons from Kogi

The judiciary has, once again, gladdened the hearts of Nigerians by proving itself to be an embodiment of justice, fair play and the rule of law.

This time around, the Court of Appeal upheld the nullification of the election of former Governor Alhaji Ibrahim Idris of the Peoples Democratic Party as the elected governor of Kogi State.

To have a brief re-cap of events, the Election Petitions Tribunal headed by Justice Ibrahim Bako on October 10, 2007 nullified Ibrahim Idris’ victory at the April 14, 2007 gubernatorial election in the state over the exclusion of Prince Abubakar Audu from the poll by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Following the landmark judgment, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua directed the state Chief Judge, Justice Umari Eri to swear in Chief Clarence Olafemi as the acting governor of the state. The presidential order was in accordance with Sub-Section 2 of Section 191 of the 1999 Constitution.

The April 14 and 21, 2007 general elections conducted by INEC have been seriously criticised by all and sundry as being riddled with fraud and massive rigging. This allegation was further buttressed by the indictment of the commission by reputable international observers.

As a result of the fraudulent and shoddy manner with which the elections were conducted, many eminent Nigerians, groups and organisations have either called for cancellation of results or the removal of the INEC boss, Professor Iwu.

Iwu has earned himself a terrible place in the history of Nigeria by ruining a historic election through gross incompetence, unbridled partisanship and lack of strong moral fibre.

The way and manner Professor Iwu has continued to run INEC calls for serious attention especially with the anti-corruption stance of the present administration of President Yar’Adua. The president once admitted that the election that brought him into office was “riddled with irregularities”.

The president should not let Nigerians feel that the INEC boss is indispensable.

President Yar’Adua must prove to us that he is not in power to sustain or promote ex-president Obasanjo’s unholy legacies that have hindered the nation’s strive towards a corrupt-free country.

And for Professor Iwu, he should appreciate the popular saying that the “star quits the stage when ovation is loudest”.

All these, however, bring to the fore, the dire need to amend the 1999 Constitution to strictly ensure that the composition of INEC and other sensitive administrative bodies are thoroughly done.

- Adewale Kupoluyi,
Federal University of Technology,
Akure.