Human rights lawyer, Mr Femi Falana (SAN), has said Nigerians are yet to come to terms with the level of corruption and injustice in the country, just as he noted that there can’t be any justice in the face of colossal diversion of public funds by politicians and public officials.
He also attributed the spate of insecurity and emergence of different militias dotting the nation’s landscape to lack of economic justice, explaining that the only justice available in the country was the one for the rich.
Mr Falana stated this at an international conference, entitled, “Nationalism and Economic Justice in Nigeria”, organised by the Department of Philosophy, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, in honour of the former national president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Dr Oladipo Fashina.
According to him, the figure released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has revealed that a lot of Nigerians live below the poverty line, saying despite this staggering revelation, some politicians are busied amassing wealth without considering how to improve the standards of living of their people.
“Though there is poverty in the land, the number of private jets in the country has increased from 25 to 137 in the last two years. Grand corruption has become a key component of President Jonathan’s transformation agenda. Yet, the president does not appreciate the enormity of the crises confronting the country.”
The former chairman of the West African Bar Association (WABA) disclosed that many Nigerians had found it difficult to become nationalists due to the level of injustice in the country, adding that politicians had also compounded the problem by promoting ethnicity over nationalism.
“How nationalist can Nigerians be? Can they be nationalists when there is no economic justice? Rather than nationalism, what we have are ethnicity and the exclusion of the poor, especially young people from the wealth of the nation. They now pick up arms against the state, and the state gradually drifts to the era of the unknown.”
Mr Falana, while criticising the neglect of the Section 2 of the Constitution by the ruling class, said this was deliberate, because they knew it safeguarded the socio-economic rights of Nigerians.
“There are many provisions safeguarding the rights of Nigerians in the constitution; UBE Act makes education compulsory for Nigerians from primary school to junior secondary school, there is Human Rights Act, and many others, but they deliberately make it impossible for Nigerians to ask for their rights,” he revealed.
source: http://www.tribune.com.ng/news2013/index.php/en/news/item/11682-falana-decries-level-of-corruption-injustice-in-nigeria-calls-for-economic-emancipation-of-citizens
No comments:
Post a Comment