Funmi Olaitan, Ibadan
National Association of Public Affairs Analysts (NAPAA), has called on Nigerians and all those who have genuine interest in the country to rise and take decisive steps to prevent the hard-won democracy from collapsing.
The association made the call in a release signed by its Chairman, Seun Adelore and Secretary-General, Jare Ajayi, respectively, and made available to journalists in Ibadan.
The release which took cognizance of the recent happenings in the political arena of the country, maintained that the actions of political players are putting the country’s democracy under serious danger.
The association hinged it's apprehension on the embarrassing actions of some political office holders and some security agencies that are making nonsense of the federal nature of the country’s political structure.
It cited the way the police are being used against some state governments as well as the recent freezing of accounts of Benue and Akwa Ibom States’ governments, while also deploring the invasion of the National Assembly by men of the Department of State Security Services (DSS).
It said, “Other than in the early days of the country’s independence, at no other time was the essence of the Nigerian nation under so much threat. Unfortunately, the threat is being wrought by politicians as well as some security agencies - the very people who are supposed to ensure that the nation is secure and safe for everybody”.
According to the public affairs analysts, actions and utterances of political players these days are posing dangers to the survival of civil rule because they put personal ambition over the interest of the people, noting that this is reflected in the impunity they display and their lack of patience to build institutions including political parties.
“At no time in the history of this country have politicians turned cross-carpeting into a fad as they now do. The rate at which this is done and the manner in which it is done portray those involved as lacking in moral anchor and show them as being committed only to their own personal self interest”, it stated.
The association further submitted that top politicians who change political parties claimed that they do so because their desire could not be met within the political party that they were leaving, frowning at the reasons for the politicians’ action, it argued that the content of the said ‘desire’ are juicy positions they crave or preferential treatment with which they wanted to be treated as none of them crossed on the basis of their erstwhile political party’s failure to better the lot of the people.
The NAPAA members conceded that party members have a right to move from one party to another, but maintained that certain conditions have to be met by those holding political offices before they could legitimately do so.
These conditions, according to the 1999 Constitution, include the fact that their original party must be in crisis before they could legitimately leave the party; otherwise they should vacate the offices they occupy through the instrumentality of the original party.
Apart from joining their voices with those calling for a prompt restructuring of the country, the association also advocated for the return to the parliamentary system of government “because the present presidential system is not only expensive but prone to corruption.”
It would be recalled that within the past few weeks, a number of highly placed political office holders defected from political parties under whose platform they were elected into offices.
The defectors included the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki and the Minority Leader in the same Upper Chamber, Godswill Akpabio.
Also, on Wednesday, August 8, 2018, reports filtered out that the Economics and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) froze the accounts of Benue and Akwa Ibom States’ governments, the basis of the freezing was allegedly on the misuse of the states’ funds by the state governors.
However the association said if this were the case, the constitutional thing to do is not to block the accounts of the states concerned but to charge the culprits to court – if there is any evidence to do so.
It said, “The institution that has the immediate responsibility to deal with a state government on any infraction is the state’s legislature. On what did the EFCC base the step it took? Was it on the basis of a petition or petitions? Was it on the basis of invitation by the respective Houses of Assembly? These are some of the questions begin for answers”.
