Lawmakers and constituency projects

BudgIT, a civic organisation which promotes transparency and accountability in public finances, has raised an alarm that Nigerian lawmakers have diverted N100 billion naira annually from the country’s budget through constituency projects. This is worrisome and should not be swept under the carpet.

To begin with, it is an aberration for lawmakers to carry out constituency projects as the primary duty of a lawmaker is to make laws for the benefit of the people that he/she represents. The constitution also grants them the power of appropriation, investigation and confirmation or rejection of nominees to occupy appointive offices. But the peculiar nature of Nigerian politics and the desire by the Obasanjo administration to spread development to all the nooks and crannies of the nation after 29 years of infrastructural decay under military rulers with locust tendencies, led to the birth of constituency projects for lawmakers.

I am not against constituency projects nor am I against the gargantuan sums voted in their favour. However, I believe that if the monies allocated for constituency projects every year in the annual budget is properly utilised rather than embezzled, misappropriated or diverted, Nigeria would have made meaningful progress in terms of infrastructural development.

It is time we all wake up and demand accountability from our lawmakers as regards the implementation of constituency projects. Let us demand that the monies be used for capital projects like construction of schools, primary healthcare centres, public toilets, roads, street lights, repair of classrooms, and so on.

• Peter Ovie Akus writes from New Jersey, USA

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