The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) has demanded a date for the proposed debate between former Vice President (Africa) World Bank, Obi Ezekwesili and the Nigerian National Assembly.
The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) has demanded a date for the proposed debate between former Vice President (Africa) World Bank, Obi Ezekwesili and the Nigerian National Assembly.
Prof. Ishaq Akintola, executive director of MURIC, declared in a press statement issued today that the debate has become imperative in view of the challenges associated with the mismanagement of monetary resources in Nigeria.
MURIC recalled that at an event hosted by the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre on August 19, Mrs. Ezekwesili, a former Minister of Solid Minerals and later Minister of Education, alleged that the National Assembly (NASS) gulped N1 trillion between 2005 and now. She followed up the allegation on August 21 by challenging the federal lawmakers to a public debate on the issue.
“We of the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) believe that this matter should not be trivialized through mudslinging and the use of abusive language,” the statement said. “Coming from a woman who has been twice a federal minister and a former executive of the prestigious World Bank, the issue should not be treated with a wave of the hand. Any matter that bothers on probity and accountability should be taken seriously in a decent society. Transparency is one of the major hallmarks of democracy.”
It stressed that in view of the furore generated by the allegation as well as the attendant public interest, Nigeria’s federal lawmakers owe the taxpayers the inalienable obligation to organize, within the shortest possible time, an open debate on the matter, as requested by the former minister. Any undue delay, MURIC pointed out, will be interpreted as an attempt to sweep the matter under the carpet.
“MURIC reminds members of the NASS that the general public is waiting for the debate. Our organization has also partnered with other members of the civil society to work out modalities for compelling the actualization of the debate. In particular, we are interested in knowing the rationale behind the idea of the federal lawmakers fixing their own salaries according to their own whims and caprices moreso since there is an agency charged with the responsibility of fixing all salaries. NASS must be able to convince the toiling Nigerian jamaaheer (masses) that they are not being taken for a ride.”
It challenged the leaders of the NASS to announce a date for the debate in the next few days, “failing which the Nigerian people will accept Ezekwesili’s claim as the truth, the only truth, and nothing but the truth.”
It would be recalled that last January Mrs. Ezekwesili accused Nigeria’s governments since 2007 of squandering $45 billion in the Foreign Reserve Account and another $22 billion in the Excess Crude Account. She challenged the government to a debate, demanding “full disclosure and accountability by the Federal Government on the issues of poor management of oil revenues,” but the government dodged out of the challenge, instead sending a plethora of spokesmen to abuse the former Minister.
Prior to that, in December 2011, former president, Olusegun Obasanjo also accused the Goodluck Jonathan government, which has an international reputation for corruption, of squandering over $35 billion of Nigeria’s foreign reserves since May 2007, saying the money may have been “shared.”
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