₦airaland Forum

efisher:
Until the day a governor, minister, senator etc is killed, the government will not do what they should have done ages ago. If something like that happens, I can bet that in one year, Boko Haram will be erased from Nigeria. After such, you will begin to wonder what took them so long. Why wait till the cancer affects the whole body before you deal with the lump?

‘Nigerians must be ready to pay for democracy’
By Jide Jegede
May 23, 2011 02:00AM
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The chairperson of the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriation, Ayo Adeseun, has said that Nigerians should be ready to bear the cost if they truly desire a working democracy.

Mr Adeseun, who defended the jumbo pay of the members of the national assembly, encouraged Nigerians to look at the fruit of democracy rather than the financial input.

“Democracy is not cheap. Democracy is very expensive. But the product of the expense is what the people should focus on,” he said. We have not been doing that. People malign us in the assembly, that we are stealing the money. Well, I think we must have a whipping boy. Somebody must be at the receiving end. But if Nigerians want democracy they must be willing to pay for it.”

The lawmaker, who was elected on the platform of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) during the last election to represent Oyo Central in the senate, also hinted that the house would settle the N10 billion loan crisis before it winds up its parliamentary sessions this week.

Last week, the lower chamber of the nation’s legislature almost sacked the speaker, Dimeji Bankole, over the allegation of taking a N10 billion loan in the name of the house, a development that has affected the allowances of members.

However, Mr Adeseun told journalists last weekend that the lapses arose from an error made in the 2010 budget of the national assembly, adding that the hope of accommodating the effect of the error in the 2011 appropriation bill was dashed by the alarm raised by Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) over the allegation that the legislature gulps the chunk of the nation’s overhead.

According to him, were it not for the refusal of President Goodluck Jonathan to sign the recently passed supplementary budget, the issue would not have blown open to the public.

‘Jumbo pay is necessary’

According to Mr Adeseun, the leadership of the house was making necessary efforts to see that the issues are resolved “in a matter of days” and to ensure that the house does not close on a rancourous note.

“It is most unfortunate that the event came about because it takes away from the very quality work that the house had done in the last four years and it is a disservice to the members and the institution itself. But that is life. We can’t always determine how events unfold. We are very much on top of the situation and we will soon resolve the matter,” Mr Adeseun said. “I am confident that in the next few days we would have resolved the crisis in the house. All efforts are underway to ensure that members are paid their entitlements and that the house closes on a very positive note.”

Speaking in defence of the humongous constituency allowances accruable to the federal lawmakers, Mr Adeseun said they were provided for to ensure that each of them effectively performed their oversight function.

He disclosed that there are many expenses the lawmakers incur while carrying out such oversight functions that could not be recorded for public record.

The lawmaker however agreed that many of his colleagues simply convert the allowances to personal use, while the jobs they are meant for are left undone.

Mr Adeseun also spoke against the manner in which projects were being abandoned or badly executed across the country. Insisting that the nation did not lack the laws to address these anomalies, he said the implementation of those laws was the problem.