By Gift Olivia Samuel,The Sight News
ABUJA-It has been five years since the protest to the National Assembly by Enough is Enough Nigeria(EiE), BudgIT and several Civil Society Organisations, demanding openness from the lawmakers and until today, the demands have not changed.
The CSOs which embarked on the #OpenNASS advocacy campaign five (5) years ago, to demand an open,transparent and accountable National Assembly, believes that legislators who represents their consistuents must provide adequate information on their activities.
Speaking to Journalists on Wednesday in Abuja at a Joint Press Conference, the representative of EiE Nigeria,Adeolu Adekola, stressed the need for the National Assembly members to heed to the demands of thousands of Nigerians to be open, transparent and accountable.
Adekola emphasized that the National Assembly is a critical institution in Nigeria’s democracy and so, the CSOs will ensure that it is repurposed to serve all Nigerians and not just a few.
You would recall that the demands of #OpenNASS to the National Assembly were to: Make public the breakdown of National Assembly’s budget; Replace voice voting with electronic voting so citizens can track their representatives; Maintain a functional website and make public the attendance records at plenary; Work with the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) to review and reduce allowances of legislators and, Provide an audit for the N1.15 trillion ($5.75billion) it received from 2005 to 2014.
Furthermore, Adekola disclosed that EiE over the last two years, focused on the first three (3) goals which relied on getting citizens to sign petitions, adding that 31,013 Nigerians have signed the petition demandingfor an open and transparent National Assembly as at August 31, 2018.
According to him, “Today makes it exactly five(5) years since the protest to the National Assembly demanding openness. Beyond the listed three demands, we will continue to request for an audit of the N1.5 trillion received by the National Assembly between 2005 and 2014.
“We will also demand clarity on what extra allowances members get beyond the approved figures from the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC)” he stressed.
Speaking further on the budget, the representative of BudgIT, Tolutope Agunloye, said that the OpenNASS campaign which commenced under the 7th Assembly, failed to yield results but was successful under the 8th Assembly which published details of its N125 billion budget for the first time in seven(7) years, (2010-2017).
He however noted with dismay that despite calls by citizens for the reduction of the 2017 budget from N125 billion to N52.5 billion, the 2018 budget of the NASS was increased by N14.5 billion to N139.5 billion to the disdain of the Nigerian people.
“Despite promises to ensure their budget is public as standard practice and several, requests from the campaign, the National Assembly has refused to publish the details of their 2018 budget! With Senator Shehu Sani’s N13.5 million running cost disclosure, questions need to be asked regarding what these monies are used for” he stated.
The CSOs further called on the National Assembly to speedily pass the budget for next year’s general elections, so as to stop putting the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) under undue pressure.
