Falana, who made the call in Lagos at a civil society organisation launch of a camping tagged “Upright for Nigeria – Stand against Corruption’’ also asked the government to harness resources to promote national prosperity that would impact on citizens’ welfare.
The activist lawyer also said that the reality of integrity will be a mirage in a country where majority of the citizens were faced with poverty, low wage, poor healthcare and poor education system.
He noted that the crisis of underdevelopment of the country had been worsened by what he called the anti-welfarist policies of successive governments.
Falana further stated that though, the Federal Government had enacted some welfare laws for the actualisation of the socio-economic rights of the people, it had consistently breached the provision of its welfare law.
The lawyer listed some of the laws to include: the People’s Bank Act; Nigerian Education Bank Act; Compulsory Universal Basic Education Act; Child’s Right Act and National Health Insurance Act.
He pointed out, “Instead of providing fund for public schools, the government has continued to encourage the establishment of private schools for the education of children of the elites.”
Falana said that majority of the state governments failed to contribute counterpart fund that would enable them to access the UBE fund. This, he said, led to N68 billion lying idle in the UBE account with the Central Bank of Nigeria.
The rights activist said that the situation had led to increasing rate of out of school children in the country.
In his remarks, Newton Otsemaye, the Project Manager, Actionaid Nigeria, recalled that the programme was implemented by three Civil Society Organisations, including the ActionAid Nigeria, Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) and Centre for Communication and Social Impact.
Otsemaye said that the consortium of CSOs manages an anti-corruption project called Strengthening Citizens Resistance against Prevalence of Corruption (SCRAP-C).
SOURCE:LEADERSHIP
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