Bankole and N52b travel bill

The public is entitled to details and would want to ascertain whether it was the duty of the Legislature or that of the Executive to go scouting for such investments. This matter requires proper and full investigation to ascertain whether the Speaker really expended the amount as said. One could not remember him travelling that […]

The public is entitled to details and would want to ascertain whether it was the duty of the Legislature or that of the Executive to go scouting for such investments. This matter requires proper and full investigation to ascertain whether the Speaker really expended the amount as said. One could not remember him travelling that much and how he must have spent such huge amount looks dubious.

One is at a loss over how this nation is being managed. It is a situation where the Executive is extravagant and indolent; where the Judiciary most times compromises in matters before it for adjudication; where the Legislature that’s supposed to be making laws has its leadership singly spending N52 billion in two years (average of about N2 billion per month) on foreign trips ‘that attracted N1 trillion for the country.’ This should also suggest an inquest into how much the Senate President has spent under the same sub-head. With such information, one would have been well-educated on how our money is being spent – judiciously or recklessly.

The Legislature at the federal and states levels continue to fail in their duties. One read about how the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly Speaker was to be impeached by the House members but the state governor intervened by allegedly doling out about N500 million to cover the alleged misappropriation that involved the Speaker and thereby turning the Legislature into a rubber stamp. One also read how in Anambra State, Governor Peter Obi allegedly allowed N255 million cash to be hauled in his official vehicle from Awka to his private office in Lagos in this modern day e-banking? A compromised kangaroo committee was later inaugurated by the state House of Assembly to grant Obi ‘clean bill’ for the wrong done to public funds.

All these frauds are still happening despite the fact that many Nigerians know that an ordinary member of the House of Representatives in Nigeria earns more money as salary than the President of United States of America.

Katherine Eno Akpan, Plot 1348, Gwarinpa Estate, Abuja, FCT, [email protected].