Senator Dino Melaye (APC, Kogi West) Wednesday aimed a
salvo at some of the appointments made by President Muhammadu Buhari, lamenting
that such appointments have done harm than good to Nigerians. Dino Melaye
The lawmaker stated this while giving his remarks at the
2017 Nigeria Democracy Day Lecture organized by the Save Democracy Group Africa
(SDG-Africa) in Abuja.
The lecture which attracted eminent personalities drawn
from politics, academia, civil society organizations and women advocacy groups,
focused on the ills bedeviling the Nigerian state and strategies for tackling
them to entrench a culture of patriotism and nationalism.
Melaye lamented the appointment into government of people
without the requisite experience, noting that the development is largely to
blame for some of the ills recorded in the first two years of Buhari
administration.
“Democracy is defined as a government of the people, by the
people and for the people but what we had in the time of Jonathan was
greedocracy, which is the government of the greedy, by the greedy and for the
greedy.
Today, we have criminocracy-a government of the criminals,
by the criminals and for the criminals. Wrong appointment led to the emergence
of the former (suspended) Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF
who became a grasscutter,” he said, adding that “when you appoint a man who has
no experience in civil administration as SGF, he is bound to misbehave.”
To sustain the nation’s democracy, Melaye urged Nigerians
to note that a legitimate clash of interest exists between the legislature and
the executive arm and as such, the National Assembly should be allowed the
liberty to carry on with its statutory duty without hindrance.
“There is no where an auditor and the man who runs an
organization are friends. There’s something wrong when the two are seen taking
tea together,” he argued. He further noted that those calling for the
restructuring of the Nigerian state are right, adding that “we must discuss and
agree to be Nigerians. We have not discussed and we have not agreed.”
The only way in the opinion of the lawmaker to curtail
agitation for secession is for Nigerians to trust their leaders, saying for
this happen, leaders must lead by examples. “Generators should only been used
at emergency centres like hospitals and mortuaries so that when there is no
light in Karmo (a suburb of Abuja), there will be no light also at the villa,”
he said.
Melaye summed up his contribution by advocating for the
removal of immunity clause from the nation’s constitution while urging
government to take care of hunger and unemployment to put a stop to agitation
for the break-up of the nations by some marginalized ethnic nationalities.
Earlier in his keynote address titled, “Sustainable
Democracy and the National Question,” Barrister Mike Ozekhome, SAN urged
leaders not to take the unity of the country for granted even as he argued that
agitation for secession is a right recognized by international law and the
United Nations.
He said, “To sustain democracy, we must not take Nigeria
unity for granted. Let us go back to fiscal federalism through devolution of
power to the federating units.”
On his part, guest lecturer and former Vice Chancellor,
University of Abuja, Professor Nuhu Yaqub condemned the nation’s variant of
democracy, lamenting that close to two decades after the military relinquished
power, democracy is yet to take root in the land.
“There’s no democracy in Nigeria but civil rule. The
political parties are mere electoral machines, existing for the sole purpose of
conducting elections,” he said, adding that a return to regionalism is the way
out of the economic squeeze most states are grappling with today.
Present at the lecture were Senator Babafemi Ojudu who
represented the Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo, Senator Femi Kila, Chief
Chukwuemeka Eziefe (ex-Anambra State governor), Muhammed Abba Gana (former
Minister, Federal Capital Territory), and a former Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Hon. Ghali Umar Na’aba.
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