BANYO TEMITAYO
AS a possible measure to end political unrest in Nigeria, a non-governmental organisation, The Initiative for Transformative Policy and Inclusive Development (INTRAPID, Africa), has called for the reformation of Nigeria’s political process to meet the developmental needs of the country against what it called the current culture of predatory leadership.
In a press statement signed by the Executive Director of the organisation, Mike Omilusi, in Abuja, on Wednesday, titled, ‘Governance Failure and Youth Protest in Nigeria’, the organisation called for political reformation to meet the developmental needs of Nigerians.
INTRAPID also identified with those calling for national inquiry of all those affected by police brutality and by the events surrounding the killings and destructions of livelihoods and properties in the #ENDSARS protest.
The statement said, “While the democratic space has been expanded to accommodate more divergent groups/voices in the last two decades, we are of the view that political processes should be reformed to meet the developmental needs of the country against the current culture of predatory leadership.
“We believe that the prospects for economic development in the country are primarily dependent on genuine diversification of the resource-base and reduced cost of governance – where administrative wastage and redundancies gulp the bulk of the country’s annual budgets.”
It further pointed out that lip service had long been paid to these thematic areas of public administration, hence the need for immediate ratification of the Presidential Committee on Restructuring and Rationalisation of Federal Government Parastatals, Commissions and Agencies (a.k.a Stephen Oransaye report), adding that the National Assembly should do the needful by legalising the recommendations.
Meanwhile, INTRAPID also joined the rest of the world in condemning police brutality and bad governance in Nigeria and called for the immediate arrest and prosecution of all those involved in extrajudicial killings while the protest lasted.
It said, “We recommend a national inquiry and exhaustive compilation of all people affected by police brutality and by the events of the killings and destructions of livelihoods and properties in the #ENDSARS protest. Adequate compensations should be paid to victims.
“In furtherance of the above, we call for the immediate arrest, prosecution, and commensurate sanctions for all those involved in extrajudicial killings either as security agents, as authorising military officers, or thug mobilising political actors, as it relates to the ongoing youth campaign for good governance and end to the oppression of Nigerians in their own country.”
The organisation also observed with regret the entrenched culture of impunity that pervaded every stratum of the society and advised Nigerian leaders to frontally address the situation through the instrumentality of the existing laws.
It added that the sacred cow mentality or ‘bigmanism’ in the socio-political space should, therefore, be seen as a deadly menace that deserved emergency declaration.
“The gross inefficiency and grand corruption in governance business, which appear to be the baseline for other endemic problems in the country, should be fundamentally addressed through the enforcement of the laws on corruption, right from the investigation, prosecution and adjudication.
“Given this, we recommend capital punishment for established cases of grand corruption in the country in a non-partisan approach,” the statement added
