Femi Falana, human rights lawyer,
wants public officials barred from foreign trips until the insecurity in the
country is resolved.
President Muhammadu Buhari is
currently on a 10-day private visit to the UK.
While presenting a paper on press
freedom in Nigeria and the rule of law, Falana said the president and all
governors ought not leave the shores of the country until there is a solution
to insecurity.
The senior advocate of Nigeria
(SAN) attributed the root cause of insecurity to poverty, adding that the
menace cannot be curbed outside Nigeria.
“It is high time President Buhari
and all state governors who are abroad returned to the country to attend to the
urgent crisis of insecurity,” he said.
“With the virtual take-over of
the country by armed bandits, terrorists and kidnappers, the president and all
top public officers should be barred by Nigerians from embarking on foreign private
or official visits to other countries until further notice.
“It is common knowledge that the
security challenges facing the nation include terrorism, kidnapping, armed
robbery, human trafficking and extra-judicial killings. As the root cause of
such violent crimes is traceable to the excruciating poverty in the land, a
critical examination of the security challenges cannot be undertaken outside
the nation’s neo-colonial capitalist political economy.”
Commenting on the role of the
media, Falana said the constitution has charged members of the fourth estate of
the realm to hold public officers accountable.
He advised the press to shun
putting light on the certificate controversy of politicians but nudge them to
provide solutions to underlying issues of poverty and underdevelopment.
“In Nigeria, no attempt has been
made to repeal any of the repressive media laws while the national assembly has
been trying frantically to censor the media and use the pending press council
to gag the media,” Falana said.
“All elected public officers
should be made to proffer solutions to the crisis of underdevelopment and stop
the irrelevant debate on the educational qualification of any candidate.
“Since the 2019 elections have
been concluded the duty imposed on the media is to ensure that political
parties and elected officials are held accountable.
“To that extent, the media should
ensure that the political parties are made to explain to the Nigerian people
how they plan to address the crisis of underdevelopment that has reduced a
richly endowed nation to a beggar taking questionable loans to pay salaries of
public officers and service unproductive bureaucracy.”
He also called for a review of
the concept and understanding of the rule of law among politicians.
“While senior public officers
continue to give the impression that the country is operated under the rule of
law their actions and utterances suggest otherwise. In the process, the country
is reduced to a banana republic where the rule of law is substituted for the
rule of the rulers,” he said.
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