A joint group of civil society organisations under the aegis of Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, CISLAC, has said that transparency is key to the fight against corruption in Nigeria.
This was made known in a pressed statement, jointly signed by various Human Rights organization in Abuja, where the Director of CISLAC, MallamAuwalRafsani, expressed worries over the ongoing tussles between the Executive and Legislative arms of government which he said were constituent threats to democracy. While lamenting the mounting self-centred disposition of the political class, he noted that it was about time for the leaders to redefine issues and work towards the edification of national interest, adding that it was unfortunate to note how most of the crisis between the legislators and executive, since 2015, are caused by intra and inter- party interests rather than legislative priorities. He said:
“The lingering and recurrent leadership crisis that has characterized the upper Legislative Chamber since the return to democracy in 1999 has developed into a threat to the democratic system. We also note that since 2015, there has been crisis between the Executive and the legislator that has affected the effectiveness of both arms of government in performing their statutory functions.”
“We note with deep concern that a lot of the crisis have been caused by narrow intra and inter-party partisan interests rather than legislative priorities aimed at promoting good governance.
“As political tensions grow and the risk of system failure grows, we seek to draw attention to the primary purpose of democratic politics, which is the pursuit of the common good.”
The group further condemned the recent, continuous attacks and intimidations on the legislators by security agencies and called on the presidency for quick response to the assaults by the Department of State Security, DSS, which they decried as abuse of power, mostly when applicable to the legislature, as well as arrests and detention of journalists. They therefore, drew the attention of all Nigerians and government to the challenges facing the entire country which were summed into:
The poor state of the fight against corruption, the damning revelations of irregularities from MDAs as reported by the office of the Auditor General in 2016, the usurpation of the functions of the National Procurement Council, NPC, through the failure of the ruling APC, to inaugurate its National Procurement Council, non-compliance to freedom of information requests where transparency is not being employed by the NASS, failure of the presidency to appoint a board of National Human Rights Commission which has crippled the functions of the commission, even in the face of the endless violation of citizens rights, and the sarcastic drama of supremacy and delay tactics between the Executive and Legislators with regards to the N242 Billion proposed by the executive as INEC’s budget for the 2019 elections.
Hence, the civil society urged both Executive and Legislators to carry out their primary duties of execution of projects and law making, in light of the said areas which are vital areas that must be given immediate priorities for effective governance of the country.
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