Action Aids to FG: Go after other looters, don’t focus only on Abacha loot

Country Director, Action Aids Nigeria, Ene Obi has called on the Federal Government not to focus only on Abacha loot but to also go after other looters of public funds previously and now and recover the stolen money from them.

She said there were many of them within the country as of today and that government should go after them without sparing any.

She said even as important as the recovery of the stolen money is to the country, it is more important that the government is transparent and accountable on its spending even to the last penny  from the recovered loot and other public funds.

Ene made this call in an exclusive interview with Sunday Tribune when her reaction was sought on the Federal Government’s plan to spend the  $23.4 million Abacha loot that the US government had agreed  to repatriate to Nigeria’s government on the road projects.

She said even though Abacha loot can never be a solution to fix the economy nor the university education problem, that government has huriedly concluded plan to use the money on road infrastructures means it had no concrete plan on ground for the completion of those projects.

She said the issue of public university teachers, who have been on industrial action for more than six months and still counting is about an agreement that is not honoured by the Federal Government.

She said it was obvious that the Federal Government does not pay deserved attention to public university education apparently because most of them in the corridor of powers have  their children schooling abroad  and therefore not need to worry about what happens to the children of the poor at home.

She said should  sufficient attention had been given to public education by successive governments, Nigerians would not have been going enmasse abroad to study.

She said it was disturbing that citizens only pay all form of taxes without enjoying corresponding dividends of doing so from  the government.

She said what a shame that many Nigerians are now sending their children to Ghana, Ivory Coast, Togo and even Benin Republic to study and nobody from other country is interested to study in Nigerian schools.

She said the development shows that the political leaders at all tiers of government are actually not focusing in the right direction.

According to her, the University of Nairobi Kenya for example, has regular students who attend classes from morning time till 2.00 pm and another set under a private arrangement in the same university will come in the evening for those who can afford the fees and they are both exposed to the same level of quality education.

“So government should invest sufficiently on public university education in the country as that is the way to genuine progress for us as a country.

“It can arrange the system to accommodate students from both the poor and the rich homes as the practice in the developed world.

“There, children of the poor are charged differently from their peers from the rich homes and both of them have access to equal opportunities to quality education.

“Nigeria’s government can do similar arrangement in a faithful manner using parents’ earnings to charge their children on fees to pay in school,” she stressed.

Mrs Ene said Nigerains have  had enough of government claiming to be pumping money into the 2nd Niger Bridge and the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. 

She asked rhetorically how many times would the government  award the contracts snd where was the money claimed to have spent on them gone to?  

She said government could make promises and do what it wants to do with the public money in the space of about nine months that is left for this administration, people must be held accountable for their actions.

For example, she said “People must be held accountable  for the Ecological Fund to dredge River Nigeria and River Benue,  the money for power sector, the governor’s security votes and so forth.

“So, we don’t need to focus only on Abacha loot but also the loot within the system internally must be lookef into. 

She said Nigeria had enough money in the system that if judiciously used would solve substantially most of the country’s  major problems.

Speaking further, Action Aids boss said even though having good roads all over the place in the country is important, Nigerians should look at other tiers of government and not only the Federal Government. 

This is because some roads  are supposed to be built by the state government and likewise the local government but what are the status of those roads and what are those tiers of government  responsible to do them are doing with their money?

“That is why for me, lack of  transparency and accountability  is the biggest problem confronting us as a country. 

“But we must have to do things right starting with our political leaders to use public money for the benefit of every Nigerian as we don’t have another  country we can call ours,” she stressed.