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Compel Politicians To Sign Affidavit On Campaign Promises, OurMumuDonDo Movt Tells Nigerians

February 11, 2019

Amadi asked Nigerians to confront politicians who come to solicit for votes with the document, and ask them to declare on honour and even sign an affidavit, that they would do those things they have promised.

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Nigerians have been charged to compel politicians to sign affidavits on their electoral promises with the view to holding them accountable.

 

Sam Amadi, a human rights lawyer and former Chairman of the National Electricity Regulation Commission (NERC), said this in Abuja on Monday, at the public presentation of a document tagged: 'The Nigerian Social Contract', organised by OurMumuDonDo Movement, a civil society organisation.

He said the document is aimed at refocusing governance towards dealing with issues that would commit Nigerian leaders to fulfilling their promises to the electorate, who voted them into office.

He noted that the project would help to create a consensus around key drivers of peace, stability, economic and social development of Nigerians.

Amadi asked Nigerians to confront politicians who come to solicit for votes with the document, and ask them to declare on honour and even sign an affidavit, that they would do those things they have promised. He added that social contract will help to monitor and identify those that do not perform in office.

His words: "The missing point here is that governance is not oriented toward the Section 2 of the Constitution that talks about the welfare of Nigerians. This document will help to monitor, advocate and evaluate governance at the grassroots, state and national level.

“We are giving tools to the people to know what government does, to know what the government is not doing and to know what should be done to make government do them. These documents create for them clarity on what they ought to do.”

On his part, Raphael Adebayo, National Secretary of OurMumuDonDo Movement, said the social contract is the real ‘next level’ that Nigerians need, noting that “Nigeria is not on any level, but on the level of poverty, recession and bad governance.

He explained further that the social contract would focus more on women and youth, adding that when women and youth are empowered, Nigerians would be liberated from the shackles of poverty.

Adebayo noted that the electorate and voting population must be able to understand and reconstruct their engagement with the democratic process as the “real owners” of government and the Nigerian project, people’s participation and commitment to the electoral and political processes would continue to depreciate.

“As an organisation advocating for social change, we believe that for there to be a stable and progressive society, there must be some established norms guiding the relationship between the people and the government of the state. These established norms will define mutual obligations between the people and their leaders at the national and subnational levels of government. These mutual obligations will form the nucleus of the agreement that we call the Social Contract,” he said.

Also speaking at the event, Moses Paul, Convener of MADConnect, said the project would help Nigerians hold their leaders accountable for transparency and accountability.