Lawyers were unanimous yesterday that the newly sworn-in Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari should be able to tackle the perennial infrastructural deficiency, unemployment, security, pervasive corruption, revenue leakages and the unending scarcity of petroleum problems bedeviling the nation within 100 days in office. Also, they cautioned him to be wary of sycophants who were ready to frustrate his good intention for the country while they specifically asked for the need to reform the nation’s obsolete laws if the much touted change must be actualized. According to them, Buhari and his deputy, Professor Yemi Osinbajo must ensure that their agenda in the first 100 days in office is to tackle the problems of infrastructural deficiency, unemployment, insecurity, pervasive corruption, revenue leakages and persistent scarcityb of Petroleum products, urging the new administration to ensure that its policies were backed up by law if it must put the nation on the path of economic recovery.
They said this yesterday while joining other Nigerians to set agenda for the Buhari/Osinbajo administration. For instance, the lawyers’ umbrella body-the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) through its President, Mr. Augustine Alegeh, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria said the new administration must ensure that its policies must be backed up by law with a view to actualizing the desired change agenda. This, according to it the desired change would only come if obsolete laws were reformed so as to give legal backings to the ‘change agenda’. NBA said: “The agenda of the new administration in the first 100 days in office would be to tackle the problems of infrastructural deficiency, unemployment, insecurity, pervasive corruption, revenue leakages and persistent scarcity of Petroleum products. “Though these issues are pressing, the NBA expects the administration to also set out as part of its agenda the amendment and reformation of Nigerian Laws to make them meet present day challenges. “Government policies must be backed by law and to actualise the desired change agenda, there must be reformation of our Laws to give legal backings to the change agenda”. An activist and convener, Civil Society Situation Room, Clement Nwankwo is rooting for an enabling law that would reinforce the independence of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and insulate it from politics and unnecessary political influence.
Nwankwo said: “We also think that the laws establishing the commission both in the Constitution and the Electoral Act need to be reinforced. This will create an INEC that is not open to manipulation and influence of politics and politicians; an INEC that is able to assert an important presence in determining the conduct of elections; an INEC that is able to have a key role in ascertaining the importance of internal democracy in the parties. So, it means that in going towards the next election, the President and indeed the National Assembly will need to go back to the drawing board and see what laws exist, that need to be altered or need to be reinforced to give the INEC the strength on independence that it needs”. Another lawyer, Bennard Anietor said “the institutions checking corruption need to be strengthened, loopholes through which public officers and politicians steal from public purse need to be tightened and we think there is need to be punishment for corruption. Anietor went on: “The incentive for people to be corrupt is that they get away with it. The system needs to enforce a mechanism that brings people to account for corruption”. A Senior Advocate of Nigeria Chief Awa Kalu simply said “unemployment is massive and security is desperately inadequate in terms of personal security; in terms of security of public infrastructure, public institutions, highway and so on. If you set out on a journey say from Abuja to Lagos, you cannot confidently predict what will happen on the road. You can say how many times you will run into the bush because of marauders on the way. We are not talking about kidnapping, insurgency in some part of the country, so that is another massive assignment.
“But luckily, our President is a retired general and as such he must be an expert in security matters. I think that for that reasons we are in good hands”. Daisi Olatade tasked President Buhari on moribund refineries, urging the President to work towards revamping them. He said: “President Buhari should start something on that. It is a massive problem which I don’t expect him to accomplish within the first two years, but he has to start something. At the moment, none of the four refineries is operating at optimum capacity and so we import fuel and other derivatives. We subsidize those who import them and you see what it has resulted into. Three months here in Abuja and Lagos, there were prevailing queue at the filling station. You imagine an able bodied person spending a whole day to get fuel and no matter the car you drive, within a few days, the fuel burns up and you return to filling station. We spent a disproportionate amount of time queuing for fuel. What time does one now have to be productive and put food on your table for the family? Those refineries have to be put at work”. Innocent Jegede called on the President to massively cut down the cost of governance.
He said: “Under President Jonathan, I recall that a committee was set up to look into that; collapsing certain government agencies and collapsing others in other to trim the cost of governance. Unfortunately, that was not to be. What I want to see is a performance based creation of agencies that will enhance our well-being, not creation of offices that will provide job for the boys. “For instance, there are ministries and agencies of government that are inevitable, such as Health, works, justice and so on. “There are some that are unproductive and contribute to waste, corruption and ineptitude. Those are the ones that must be pruned. Government agencies must be reduced to the minimum and we must attend to the consequences of multiplication of agencies. You have a minister, who has number of advisers; the advisers too, get their own advisers. You must limit the hangers on. When Babangida introduced special assistant as a necessary tool for enabling minister to work optimally, it was limited to two. Each minister had two, and no assistant known to me at a time had his own assistant. The work force should be trimmed”.
Olatinwo Igbayiloye wants Buhari to make rule of law effective. He said: “If you think about the rule of law, what first occurs to you is the rule of impunity that we have developed, call it in the past 16 years across the board. You appoint a councillor, he becomes a law unto himself; you give somebody a police uniform; he becomes a law unto himself, even boys scout appropriate powers unto themselves. In the past one month, I have seen multiplication of traffic light in Abuja but the astonishing thing is that people don’t want to obey the traffic light, rather than ease traffic, it has complicated traffic in certain area. It is nothing but impunity and that must be curbed. “The starting point is limiting the non-challant attitude in which people in power approach their responsibilities. The maxim all over the world is that power belongs to the people. But when you take over the power and arrogate it to yourself, then you cannot think about the rule of law. “So, to be able to restore the rule of law which presumes that no human being in this country is above our laws, we will begin to return to normal, despite impunity, the law will prevail. But if you think that because of the office you hold, no police man can talk to you, no customs agents can talk to you, no immigration agent can talk to you, there is problem”. A former NBA president, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, SAN said: “I know that all of us are very hopeful. I don’t think there has been any other time that Nigerians have been so hopeful about the change which we all longed for in the society. So, our expectations are very clear and the President is also very clear about it in his inaugural speech.
“He has said that the military command will be moved to Maiduguri to fight the insurgents. He talked about the issue of power wherein he said a committee will be set up to look at the issue. He has also talked about unemployment and the backward integration of our economy. In fact, he talked about a number of things and Nigerians are hopeful that with this government, majority of them will be better off. “The President even said that with the level of unemployment in the country, we are sitting on a keg of gunpowder. It is important that people must be gainfully employed. Also, we must encourage agriculture. This has a way of employing so many people. I think if we concentrate on the issue of unemployment, we would have solved a considerable percentage of our problems in this country. We must also know that insecurity is tied to the issue of unemployment. We must also improve on the infrastructural facilities in the country”. A rights activist, Mr. Ebun-olu Adegboruwa, said the top priority issues for Buhari’s administration are power, corruption and insurgency. He said: “The administration needs to tackle the issue of adequate power supply in Nigeria. From the events following the strike last week it is clear that absence of electricity will just simply wreck the nation.”
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