By: Mnena Iyorkegh, Abuja
Open Africa Foundation, a non-governmental organization, says Nigeria’s challenges are manmade and surmountable if the leaders and citizens are patriotic and respect the rule of law.
The Chairman Open Africa Foundation, Mr. Tunji Aworinde, who stated this at the ninth Annual Conference on Financial Crime, Cross-Border Crime and good governance Integrity, in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, also said that the economic, security, humanitarian and political challenges can easily be addressed with the corporation of citizen.
According to Mr. Aworinde, Nigeria, faced with economic, security, humanitarian and political challenges, its citizens continue to seek ways of solving the issues mitigating its economic growth and development.
“Our nation professes democratic and constitutional governance, but functions contrarily to its tenets, politicians as public servants, rule of law, transparency and accountability. And the question again is, could good governance come out of bad citizenship? But the good news is that our problems are solvable because they are not made. But only if we abide by core constitutional principles of democratic norms, then and only then will our country become peaceful and prosperous for all. General elections, the next one is 2027. It’s about 30 months away, and politicians are regrouping and campaigning, of coming back to seek our votes. But this is a word of advice, for us. Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethoughts”, he said
The Chairman Open Africa Foundation, added that the conference is aimed at contributing to critical conversations and debates on nation building and empowerment.
Our conference is a campaign against Financial Crime and for transparency and accountability in governance in Nigeria and Africa, aimed at at identifying common crimes and deviant behaviors besetting Nigeria. We demand accountability from those who looted the nation’s treasuries and thus brought us the ignominy of poverty. We demand transparency on assets declaration”, he added
In a presentation on the Director, Litigation and Prosecution Department Independent Electoral Commission INEC, Tanimu Inuwa, explained that Nigeria’s elections has its foundation on a register with integrity.
“You know the foundation of election is the register. If you don’t have a register that has integrity, in other words, we ascertain the number of persons that will vote, then the foundation of election is shaking. It’s not on solid foundation. Because my position is that before we go to election, we must ascertain the number of persons that will vote in that particular election. If you don’t know the number of persons that will vote in an election, then that election is fraud right from the beginning, before it even commenced. The issue of vote buying and electoral violence. You know, the menace of vote buying is that, to me, the politicians, who don’t have anything to offer us with respect to development, are the ones using money to buy the conscience of voters. So, the law prohibits that”, Inuwa explained
According Mr. Inuwa, the commission is working with other stakeholders to ensure election challenges addressed.
“The commission is working assiduously to stamp out those kind of bad practices, engaging with, stakeholders like Nigerian Bar Association, collaborating with ICPC, EFCC, and the police is good to go”, he added
The conference which brought together stakeholders in the Security sector, Economy, judiciary and the independent Electoral Commission to chart a course for government to citizen engagement in addressing national challenges, was organised by Open Africa Foundation and Forensic Insight International.
