02042019 - Military uncovers arms factory in Benue

18 — Vanguard, TUESDAY, APRIL 2, 2019
SOMETIMES when the attitudes of
public sector workers to their
responsibilities are put in perspective,
one wonders whether they know the
purpose of governance. Do they know
that government and the laws exist for
the betterment and uplift of the
average citizen? Or do they think
government exists only to lord it over
the people?
On Tuesday, March 27, 2019 at
exactly 3.00pm, the bulldozers of the
Federal Capital Development
Authority, FCDA, descended on the
Divine Wounds of Jesus Christ
Orphanage in Kubwa, Abuja, and
brought it to the ground.
The Orphanage had reportedly
sheltered 150 children, some of them
only a few months old. In virtually the
twinkle of an eye, the children were
rendered homeless. Pictures and
videos of these hapless kids, their
foodstuff and belongings littering the
outdoors, went viral on the social
media.
Demolition of Abuja orphanage
Though the owners of the
Orphanage claimed the demolition
took place without warning, FCDA
Director, Mr. Mukhtar Galadima,
counterclaimed that the demolition
was carried out because the owners
had ignored many “Stop Work”
notices.
It also emerged that the property
was the subject of ongoing family
squabbles and litigations between the
widow of the late owner and his family
members.
What concerns us more than any
other thing is the apparent lack of
empathy and human feeling on the
part of the FCDA officials over the
plight of the orphaned children whose
woes were worsened immediately by
being rendered homeless. This much
was evident in the fact that the children
and their belongings spent the
night in the open before the viral videos
brought FCDA officials hurrying
back to meet with the orphanage operators
and promising to accommodate
the children temporarily for at
least one year.
The correct procedure should have
been for the FCDA to get the
orphanage owners to move the
children and their provisions to a
secure place before proceeding with
the demolition. That would show a
government with a human face and a
heart for the plight of these less-fortunate
minors who have no family
member willing or able to care for
them.
If not for the power of the social
media, who knows how long the
children and their providers would
have languished in great deprivation
before any succour would come?
We call on the law-enforcement
agencies and the relevant Federal
Ministry in charge of social welfare
to inquire into this incident and
ascertain the veracity or otherwise of
the claim that some of the children
were not accounted for after the
demolition.
We also condemn all acts of
impunity by some misguided citizens
who refuse to abide by the laws in
setting up edifices, as well as
government officials who engage in
the callous demolition of people’s
buildings.
We must all be law abiding.
IN 1999, the Independent
National Electoral
Commission, under Justice Ephraim
Akpata, spent over N32 billion to
conduct the 1999 general elections.
At that time there was no National
Assembly. The approving authority
then was the 33-man Provisional
Ruling Council headed by General
Abdusalam Abubakar, GCFR. In
2003, the National Electoral
Commission under Chief Abel
Guobadia spent over N60.5 billion
to conduct the general election.
In 2007, National Electoral
Commission, INEC, under Prof.
Maurice Iwu spent over N74.2
billion to conduct the general
elections. In 2011, under Prof.
Attahiru Jega INEC spent over
N89.2 billion. In 2015, under the
same Prof. Attahiru Jega, the
Independent National Electoral
Commission spent about N120
billion to conduct the general
elections. The breakdown is as
follows: N4 billion for vehicles, N3
billion for collapsible ballot boxes,
N5.4 billion for the review of the voter
register, N10.8 billion for operations
(personnel cost requirements and
cost for registration of voters
nationwide), N222 million for hotel
accommodation for state INEC
commissioners, N3.66 billion for
logistics and transport, N502.5
million for training of staff for voter
registration, N10.3 million for
printing of voter register, N5.4 billion
to clean up the electronic voter
register after election, N155.5
million for Servicom, N64.78
million for electoral hazards
allowance, N222 million for voter
education, display of voter register
across the 774 local government
areas. In October last year, the
National Assembly passed a budget
of N242.2 billion for the conduct of
this year’s elections. Addressing
members of the National Assembly
committee, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu,
INEC chairman, defended the
budget as what would be enough to
conduct the poll. He said out of the
N189 billion, N134.4 billion would
be used as operational cost while N6
billion was budgeted for feeding
security officials during the elections.
He added that N27.5 billion will be
used for elections’ technological cost
while N22.7 billion will be for
administrative cost.
Aishatu Dukku, chairman of the
INEC committee in the House of
Representatives, said the lawmakers
would be transparent in considering
details of the budget. “It is important
for us to approach the budget
proposal from both process and
content perspective,” she said,
adding: “It is only by so doing that
one can begin to unravel the
intricacies of the entire range of
issues involved.” She also said the
committee hopes the government
would address issues that have to do
with election funding “unlike the
previous budgets that were not
OPINION
The staggering election burden
productive in the entire planning of
elections”. The commission
subsequently met with the Senate
committee on INEC over the same
matter. At the senate meeting, Prof.
Yakubu said the increase in the
budget - as against the N120 billion
requested in the 2015 elections - was
necessitated by the increase in
number of political parties,
The election burden
has become too much
for our economy; we
can’t continue this way
registered voters as well as high
exchange rate.
The commission has so far
registered 91 political parties as
against the 44 that were in place in
2015. “Also associated with political
parties, is monitoring of party
primaries, congresses and
conventions. There is also the
processing of nominations. We have
12,558 constituencies which means
INEC has to process about 141,778
nominations. We also have more
electoral constituencies. Right now
we have about 68 more
constituencies and there is also
increase in the number of registered
voters. We’ll need to open more
voting points, engage more ad-hoc
staff, supervisors and returning
officers,” he said, stating that as at
August 11, the commission had
registered 12.1 million voters.
In justifying the huge cost of the
election the INEC chairman, Prof.
Mahmood Yakubu said in
December in Abuja that the increase
in the cost of running the election in
the country was partly due to security
and logistic reasons. At a validation
workshop on the study of the cost of
elections in West Africa organized
by ECOWAS Network of Electoral
Commissions, ECONEC, in Abuja,
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu said the
study was part of ECONEC’s twoyear
Work Plan (2016-2018) borne
out of the serious concern of all
electoral commissions in the sub
region about the spiraling cost of
conducting elections.
Prof. Yakubu said: “With every
cycle, the cost of elections keeps
rising, making many countries
unable to fund critical aspects of the
electoral process as a sovereign
responsibility. “The ever-rising cost
of voter registration and the
compilation of a credible voters’
register, recruitment and training of
electoral officials, provision of
electoral logistics, election security,
civic and voter education,
procurement of sensitive and nonsensitive
materials, deployment of
electoral technology, undertaking
regular engagement with
stakeholders and handling of preelection
and post-election litigations
are enormous.” The task of meeting
such extensive expenditure has
increasingly challenged the national
resources of many countries in our
region. It is against this background
that the Governing Board of
ECONEC inaugurated this study to
explore what we can do as election
managers, working together with
national stakeholders and
development partners, to find ways
to reduce the cost of elections without
jettisoning new innovations or
compromising the quality,
transparency and credibility of
elections.”
According to him, ECONEC has
undertaken needs assessment,
solidarity and mid-term review
missions to several member states.
“The objective is for Election
Management Bodies, EMBs, in our
sub-region to share experience,
expertise and even pool resources
not only with a view to ensuring best
practice through peer review but also
in order to reduce the cost of
conducting elections among our
member states. Yet in spite of the huge
amount of money allocated to INEC
some of the elections were
inconclusive.”
In comparison, in January this year
all the thirty-six states of the
Federation including Abuja shared
N173.8 billion from the Federation
account. If we add what INEC has
been allocated since 1999 to conduct
the six elections so far, it will be over
N617 billion. That amount of money
is enough to build the necessary
infrastructure in the country. No
doubt this our democracy is
becoming a burden. We are talking
of a nation without energy, no basic
infrastructure, bad road networks,
etc. The election burden has become
too much for our economy. We can’t
continue this way.