Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN) has accused the government of President Muhammadu Buhari of “failing to satisfactorily address the crisis of insecurity in the country, and doing nothing to end the mismanagement of the economy under his watch.”
Falana who stated while delivering a paper titled Good Governance or Misgovernance: The Contract Called Democracy, at the 50th anniversary interactive session held by the Abeokuta Club in Abeokuta, Ogun State, said in spite of the decentralisation of police powers at the centre the Federal Government has continued to kick against the creation of state police service on the ground that it is unconstitutional!”
He also said, “No doubt, based on the virtual collapse of the security architecture of the neocolonial State, the Federal Government has grudgingly allowed the state government to create state or regional security outfits. But they are not allowed to bear arms.”
According to Falana, “the personnel of the regional security outfits who are armed with cutlasses and Dane guns are expected to commit suicide by confronting AK 47 bearing terrorists, bandits, kidnappers, herders and robbers.”
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The paper, read in part: “In view of the fact that the civilian Joint Task Force operatives are given licences to bear arms and ammunition, I have asked state governments to sue the Federal Government for refusing to grant licences to the personnel of regional security outfits for allowing dangerous criminals to breach the constitutional rights of unarmed citizens to life and dignity.”
“Furthermore, it is discriminatory to deny licences to 5,000 state security personnel to bear arms to protect millions of unarmed citizens while a few individuals are granted licences to acquire weapons to protect themselves and their family members.”
He stated that the economic policies of the Government are in conflict with section 16 (3)(d) of the Constitution which provides that the State shall ensure that ‘suitable and adequate shelter, suitable and adequate food, reasonable national minimum living wage, old age care and pensions, and unemployment, sick benefits and welfare of the disabled are provided for all citizens.’”
“To guarantee adequate resources to meet the basic responsibilities of the Government the Constitutional has prohibited the concentration of wealth or the means of production and exchange in the hands of a few people or of a group.”
Falana warned that the country’s economy will soon enter into another recession due to unprecedented importation of fuel and other goods from western countries and China, grand corruption, dollarisation of the economy and implementation of neoliberal economic policies the Nigerian economy.
“The mismanagement of the economy has been confirmed by top officials of the Buhari administration. While the Comptroller-General of Costoms, Colonel Hamid Ali has accused the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and Directorate of Petroleum Resources of involvement in the smuggling of fuel into neighbouring countries the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Emefiele has blamed the NNPC for not remitting dollars into the Federation Account.”
“Whereas the sum of N443 billion was provided for fuel subsidy in the 2022 budget the National Assembly has passed the supplementary budget which increased the fund to N4 trillion. Based on the massive devaluation of the Naira through dollarisation the Minister of Finance, Mrs Zainab Ahmed has disclosed that fuel subsidy may gulp N6.5 trillion this year.”