The prominent civil Rights Advocacy
group- HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has accused
the Senator representing Delta North Senatorial zone Mr Peter Nwaoboshi of very
poor representation of his constituents even as it expressed sadness that the
Senator is enmeshed in serial allegations of financial misconduct which have
adversarial effects in terms of quality representation needed by his
people.
In a related development, the
frontline Civil Rights advocacy group (HURIWA) has concluded arrangements for
the publication of its national legislators performance index book in which all
the national Assembly members in the immediate past eight session and the
current ninth session and the legislators of the 36 states of the Federation
would be evaluated in terms of presentation of quality bills which have or are
about to become laws of the Federation of Nigeria and would disclose secret
deals by the legislators that used constituency projects to divert public fund
to their private accounts.
The Rights group said the publication
which would be introduced in August represents the milestone of the organization
to provide civil society-led oversight to the law makers and to ascertain and
enlighten Nigerians on the constitutional goal which aims at their getting
actively involved in the governance of Nigeria so as to achieve the overall
goal of attaining the highest good governance standards in Nigeria. HURIWA
believes that the apathy displayed by millions of Nigerians to politics is the
fundamental cause of the widening spectre of poverty amongst
Nigerians.
In a media statement by the National
Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director
Miss Zainab Yusuf, HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) stated
that it was worried also by the claim purportedly made by the Senator
representing Delta North Senatorial zone Mr. Peter Nwaoboshi to the effect that
banks were in the habit of opening accounts for National legislators just as
the group affirmed that it will be sending a petition to the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to urge it to investigate the claim so as to
sanitize the nation's banking environment and weed out all the
undesirable elements that are purportedly forcing national Assembly legislators
to get entangled in money laundering schemes under the guise of opening
operational accounts for Senators and Members of parliament.
HURIWA stated that information at its
disposal indicates that in In 2017, the Federal Government allocated fifty
million naira as part of the zonal intervention project expenditure for the
supply of one hundred and twenty (120) motorcycles in Delta North Senatorial
District of Delta State, according to Tracka NG- a public project monitoring
system developed by BudgIT.
HURIWA quoting sources with the
information alleged that at the time of execution, the man representing the
district at the Senate, Peter Nwaoboshi, allegedly distributed refrigerator
worth fifty thousand naira (50,000) to the people as against four hundred and
sixteen thousand naira (416,000) that should have been the value of the
budgeted motorcycle.
Similarly, in 2018, two hundred and
twenty-two million, two hundred and twenty-two thousand naira was allegedly
released to Delta North Senatorial district under the supervision of Mr. Peter
Nwaoboshi to supply transformers across the district in the Federal Government
Rural Electrification drive. Not a single transformer was supplied to the
region according to this report which HURIWA has already concluded arrangements
to send a Freedom of information request to the Senator representing Delta
North at the eight session of the National Assembly Mr. Peter Nwaoboshi.
HURIWA said it was disturbing that
whereas his (Nwaoboshi's) constituents that gave him their mandate four years
ago had expected sound and qualitative representation the said Senator is
enmeshed in serial allegations of financial self-enrichment detrimental to good
governance even as the Rights group recalled with shock that the Federal
High Court in Abuja on July 05, 2019 decided to grant an interim forfeiture
order on 22 bank accounts and 14 properties linked to Nwaoboshi, which the
Rights group said sent a shock wave across Nigeria's human rights community who
have raised questions on Senator Peter Nwaoboshi's capacity to independently
and legitimately acquire these assets.
HURIWA disclosed too that it will be
sending a FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST to Senator Peter Nwaoboshi to furnish
the Nigerian Civil Rights community with clarifications on the widely
circulated allegations that Peter Nwaoboshi since qualifying as a lawyer did
not practice for a day but has always being recircled in different government
offices from serving as a Commissioner for Agriculture and Special Duties under
the James Ibori-led administration in 2006 to being appointed as the State
Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in 2008, and the group stated
that it will ask Mr. Peter Nwaoboshi to show evidence of any traceable record
of business or enterprise that could have yielded enough profits to acquire the
linked properties as widely claimed by institutions of law enforcement.
HURIWA stated that it has information
at its desk that statistically speaking, the cumulative figure of Peter
Nwaoboshi's legitimate salaries and allowances from his numerous appointments
into diverse public offices would not be enough to purchase the N805million
Guinea House in Apapa area of Lagos purportedly linked to him and which he is
on trial for by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) just as the
group has challenged the Senator to publish his tax returns.
HURIWA disclosed that the NATIONAL
PERFORMANCE INDEX BOOK OF ALL LEGISLATORS that is in the offing which would be
presented in August at its annual national human rights lecture and Conference
in Abuja will be used to invite a cross section of national and state law
makers to present their score cards so the members of the audience would
scientifically and in a meticulously evidential manner seek for concrete proofs
of these claims in a direct encounter with these claimants.
No comments:
Post a Comment