Corruption As An Effective Tool Of Rights Denial: A Case Of 419 Governance
The rate at which corruption is proliferating in the country is alarming. This should make every right thinking person advocate a solemn assembly to address issues germane to the menace as it has become a real threat to the rights of every Nigerian. The country is currently buckling under the weight of pervasive corruption and the political propensity for the absurd. Allegations are flying everywhere about the unprecedented level of government ineptitude in tackling corruption. Many cases of corruption remain unsolved; by the present administration just like its predecessors; Nigeria has thus become a laughing stock among the comity of nations. Our leaders – past and present – have been discovered to have embezzled billions of dollars from our common patrimony and diverted opportunities and benefit every Nigerian should enjoy to their friends and cronies. Each of the successive leaders used power and position to amass huge amounts of wealth they don’t need and, in turn denying other Nigerian citizens access to development funds and the benefits of private investments in their respective tenures.
Nigeria is a country known to have a preponderance of citizens living below one dollar per day or 30 dollars per month. Conversely, its elected representatives legislate emoluments of 1.7million dollars for a member of its upper house and 1.45million dollars per member of its lower house. This, coupled with citizens’ inability to resist the ‘lootocracy’, makes things turned awry for our sense of morality in this country. Meanwhile these same lawmakers, who smile to the bank every month with their bloated pockets, are reluctant to legislate a minimum wage of N18, 000 for career officers who oil the machinery of their operations whereas they smile to the bank every month. Ironically, they cleverly legislated a minimum wage of N32, 084 for workers of the National Assembly, maybe as bribe to cover the tracks of the ‘legislooting’ and prevent spilling of the devilish beans of their bosses. For the avoidance of doubt, the Clerk of the House of Representatives earns N1.2 million per month while the Senate President earns as much as N83million naira per month!
It is a global fact that the country has for long, been going through a very trying period, which is yet to abate. Most Nigerians are worried about the unnatural but gargantuan challenges current confronting the Nigerian state. Revelations of humongous corruption and fraud at the many probes initiated by the state actors have sent shock waves down Nigerians’ spines and beyond our borders. Consequently, the ineptitude and insensitivity of the Nigeria leadership to the plights of the common man are becoming clearer by the day.
However, for Nigerians to fully appreciate the extent of damage that this evil has done to our collective development as a nation and to us as individual citizens, diligent analysis of budgetary implementation becomes imperative with a view to exposing the official deception that has become governmental policies at various levels of government. This is because participatory governance, probity and accountability, transparency and openness have no meaning to them. Barefaced lies and propaganda have taken the place of governmental responsibility and political integrity. Instead of participatory governance, our leaders prefer occultic governance where information about the budget are usually shrouded in secrecy and jealously guided like personal estate even when they are ordinarily expected to be in public domain.
It is the drive to engender openness and accountability in government that drove the Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL) to put in place, for the benefit of Lagosians, what it called the Lagos Open Parliament (LOP), wherein Lagosians were made to examine the effectiveness of budgetary implementation in Lagos. The outcome revealed dismal governmental failure especially in the area of the execution of the capital side of the budget and that Lagos State has been governed by false pretences otherwise known as 419 governance.
It is no gainsaying that Lagos has been running a government of grandstanding imbued by propaganda and bare-faced deception. The government only tells the people what projects they have executed instead of showing them. They read budgets to us just as annual rituals but often under execute the capital side of such while the recurrent side are over executed. Same item of the budget hops up annually in our budgets without us asking questions where the fund voted for such in previous budget went. Projects are executed just to last enough for exhibition to the media at commissioning but most often collapse before they are put into proper use. They tell the people perpetual lies on the import of their governance and executed projects and many believe them even when the opposite is starring at us in face and many are groaning under the weight of collapse or absence of such issues and projects.
Through this study, we found out that most primary and secondary schools are decrepit. Those supposedly decorated school buildings, especially those along major roads, are mere façade just to cover up the stinking rots that are harboured inside. They deceive the populace that they are implementing projects for which grants have been obtained from International Communities especially the Eko Projects, only to subject pupils to harrowing experience within their classrooms and school premises. Most basic facilities, equipment as well as materials required for effective teaching and learning, are grossly inadequate or totally lacking. Some of these decrepit schools exist across the state; worse hit are rural and riverine areas and could be even be found in urban centres like Ikeja, Oshodi, Igando, Agege, Alimosho and several other places in the state.
It is a known secret that huge sums of money are always appropriated for the maintenance and supplies for these schools in every of the state’s annual budgets. However, it becomes disturbing to discover that the funds did not reflect on what they are meant for. A good number of these schools could only parade decorated structures with grossly inadequate furniture or none at all in many other cases, forcing pupils to make do with sitting on windows and bare floors during lessons. Many do not have toilets, no potable water despite the 90 (ninety) million dollars granted Lagos State by World Bank to execute Eko Project. What is found on ground does not show that up to 9 (nine) million dollars has been utilized on the institutions.
As a matter of fact, a few of such schools have been publicly exposed by some print and electronic media as recent as December 2013 (copies attached). They are: Ikeja Grammar School, Oshodi, Ewutuntun Grammar School as well as Iloro Grammar School, Agege. Anybody that visits these schools would think he could judge the content of a book by its cover, but a peep into the classroom would turn a shocker for the observer. These discoveries accentuate the high level of corruption being perpetrated and perpetuated by this administration. Hence, our conclusion that Lagos State is being governed under false pretences, which is 419.
It is also important to know that the situation of Lagos roads is terrible. Most of the roads are either bumpy or riddled with potholes. Most drainage channels are either too shallow or too narrow to accommodate the volume of flood expected to flow though them, and everywhere in Lagos, without exception is affected. But worse affected are some areas in the outskirts like Ikorodu, Badagry, Epe axis and within the mainland, Alimosho especially Aboru, Ikotun, Ayobo, Ipaja axis. These areas are like jungle within the metropolis. The Ayobo-Igando road has been under perpetual construction for about four (4) year and it is not likely this regime is prepared to finish the project. That is why perennial flood has put lives and properties of people in jeopardy, and instead of the state to take step to remedy the situation, they take delight in sending people out of places they have ever knew as their homes without providing alternatives. The experience of the inhabitants of Makoko and Ijora-Badia are examples of government inhumanity to its citizens.
The Admiralty Cable Bridge was constructed at N39bn when the expected cost could have been put at N6bn; the Ramp constructed between Ozumba Mbadiwe Road to Falomo Bridge, even when it is not on water and less than 200metres, was said to have been constructed at N2.5bn. The Ramp was estimated to cost less than N50m, if frugality has been the watchword or the directive principle of the state’s policy. These are just to mention few instances where the present Lagos State Government has engaged in over bloated pricing for the few social and developmental services it renders.
While this ostentatious bridge was built at N39bn just to decorate a high brow area where it is not required, even at a cost that could have constructed more than six of such bridges, a whole village was completed cut off by lack of bridge and the inhabitants of this village have to put their creativity at work by constructing a makeshift bridge with planks which is more or less like a deathtrap and a disgrace to a place that is called the Centre of Excellence.
Even when government manages to execute some developmental projects, it does so at a great cost for the rightful beneficiaries. e.g. when a portion of Lekki-Ajah roads was constructed, several tollgates were erected. This means that those who have the misfortune of living in those areas have to pay through their noses when they move from their homes to other parts of their state. The Cable Bridge is not exempted as the beneficiaries are being exploited and forced to pay toll on the bridge that was said to have been constructed from the taxpayers’ money.
This is also applicable to markets and housing estates, even tertiary education, which the government takes beyond the reach of the masses. When they take interest in a property, they create calamity on it, confiscate it, develop it and sell it to their cronies. To be sure, Tejuosho, Oyingbo markets and a few others got burnt mysteriously only to be reconstructed and the rent taken beyond the reach of the original owners. These are ordinary services to be rendered at no extra cost, to the people.
Recently, a former participant in Lagos State Government, Dr. Muiz Banire condemned in totality, the use that the private army of Lagos State as typified by KAI and LASTMA, have been turned to. He asserted that they have deviated entirely from the original principles on which those paramilitary outfits were set up. The two outfits have practically become armies of terror.
Though, it is gratifying that a competent court of law has put paid to the arbitrariness with which these militarized civilians have been operating in the state whereby they impose unimaginable fines on those they perceive as traffic and environmental offenders. We only hope that their arrogant regime will not be taken beyond moral rectitude by flagrantly violating the rule of law because long after they have been told not to chase motor bikes away from major roads to ancillary roads, the oppressive tendencies continue unabated everywhere in the state.
Corruption in any form or style must be seen and considered a deprivation of the right/rights of the people. It is the annihilation of the rights of the innocent to enjoy the deserved good things of, and that sustain life, and this is an offence worse than murder. This is because murder puts paid to life, it is a direct crime whose perpetrators are easier to punish unlike corruption that indirectly renders its victims poor, incapable and abandoned as living dead. Corruption is therefore the worst form of human rights abuse any one can think of. Corruption is waging war on the rights of the innocent. Corruption is tyrannical; bringing home poverty, deprivation, want, fear and even death to the innocents.
With this realization, the Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL), on this day set aside for the world to address issues of corruption, urges President Goodluck Jonathan, to put his feet down to frontally combat the endemic corruption ravaging the country. Security Agencies as well as Anti-Corruption Agencies should be strengthened with funds, equipment, facilities, protection, moral and technical capacity as well as motivation to carry out their patriotic but highly risky national assignment placed on their shoulders.
We also urge all the Anti-graft Agencies to be up and doing in detecting, investigating and prosecuting corruption cases in the country. We are equally urging the agencies to expedite actions on the allegations of official corruption leveled against many state actors be it at federal, state and local government level. We ask that due diligent investigations be done, reports be made public, and whoever is indicted be prosecuted and punished appropriately, no matter how highly placed, influential or crafty.
CACOL further sees the need for our collective will and resolve to rid corruption off our society. This can be done in so many ways as dictated by our individual circumstances; through information dissemination, refusal to be used for corrupt purposes and of course, openly shun, despise and disgrace corrupt elements in our society.
Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has said that “The order banning 50 alleged high-profile corrupt Nigerians from travelling abroad without any legal basis and a judicial authorisation is clearly arbitrary, repressive and illegal, as it breaches constitutional rights and the country’s international obligations, which protect the rights to freedom…
