By Ekuson Nw’Ogbunka Abuja
The Apo – Six Lawyer, Amobi Nzelu, who did pro bono case for six Motor Spare Parts traders from Apo Motor Spare Parts Market, Apo, in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), who were allegedly killed by the police, some years back has advised Senate President Godswill Akpabio to stop treating the ever rising hardships Nigerians have been passing through with levity, kid gloves and unseriousness.
The constitutional lawyer and the principal partner of Chinenye Chambers in the FCT wrote a letter to Mr Senate President to that effect and made it available to some media houses over the weekend.
He faulted in its entirety the removal of Senator Ali Ndume as the Senate Chief Whip, for calling on President Ahmed Bola Tinubu, to as a matter of fact and seriousness, address the increasing hardship in Nigeria, coupled with hyper inflation and hunger.
Describing that as an encroachment into Ndume’s fundamental human right of freedom of speech, as guaranteed by Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution as amended, Nzelu hailed Ndume for speaking the people’s mind and the true position of things in the country, even as he also frowned at Nigeria’s 10th Senate for suspending a member who raised issue about budget padding some months back, who was later recalled back. He said that the hardship inflicted on Nigerians by either acts, omissions and commissions of National Assembly (N/Ass) in recent times, according to him are better imagined than experienced.
The Apo Six lawyer went on to note that, prices of food items are at roof top; prices of diesel and fuel are at N1, 200 and N700 per litre respectively, even as he added that the salaries of about 60% workforce in Nigeria couldn’t take their transport fare to and fro for a month, let alone feeding their families. Nzelu therefore decried that basic drug prices had over time been out of the people’s reach, even as he observed that the multi vitamins for the elderly one can’t be affordable, resulting into not only their untimely death, but also, folding businesses manufacturers.
“The hardships inflicted on Nigerians by the graveside silence on the part of the N/Ass to the plight of Nigerians are worrisome and a pointer to the abduction of your constitutional responsibilities. The frustration, complacency, deprivation of basic rights, excessive greed being exhibited by the N/Ass constituted sins against the people.
“People you swore to put food on their tables, give them good governance and ensure them with dividends of democracy, are the same people dying in thousands due to deaths arising from hunger, deprivation, poverty and insecurity. The sins of deprivation, frustration, hunger, willful denial of rights, excessive greed, lack of empathy, force on the people by the ineptitude and complacency on the part of N/Ass have given rise to collateral damages, otherwise known as iniquities of sins.”
The collateral damages or iniquities of sins, according to him has given rise to prostitution by both married and unmarried; selling of children to make a living; untimely death arising from hunger and premeditated hardship; break up of marriages due to hardship and infidelity; monumental corruption in other to make ends meet; violent death and insecurity plaguing the land; teenage girls capable of being our children, roaming the corridors of N/Ass, looking for whom to patronize them; no employment, yet children of the mighty get employment through the back door while teeming graduates remain unemployed and; dishonesty to remain afloat.
Wondering why the senate president presided over a senate that agreed to purchase N160 million SUV for each N/Ass member without him dissenting, he described such as a total betrayal of the confidence and trust reposed on them. If the amount is multiplied by 469 legislators of the N/Ass both Upper and Lower chambers, he went on, it would be N75billion. He also informed that few days ago, a former Speaker of the House of Representatives disclosed that his salary and allowance were N450,000 and N25million per month respectively. This he faulted in its entirety, observing that the speaker has N750,000 to spend daily, including Saturdays and Sundays.
Raising the alarm over the homongous amount the legislators are receiving, he said that Senator Sani disclosed that each senator’s salary with allowances is about N15 million per month, adding that by simple arithmetics, each senator has N500,000 to spend per day, including Saturdays and Sundays.
Beckoning the senate president to live up to expectation, he observed with dismay that since 1999, most of them in the N/Ass has not spent their personal hard earned money, adding that they have been feeding on the tax payers’ money. According to him, that informed why they are complacent in what has been going on in Nigeria. The country, he went on is bleeding and one doesn’t need a prophet of God or seer to tell them that.
“From 1999 till now, some of you people haven’t spent your personal money, but tax payer’s; from commissioner to governor to Senator to Minister and now senate president and maybe president at a later date. For about 25 years, some of you have been in the corridors of power and that is why most of you are insulated from the realities on ground. You are far away from the people, likewise the realities on ground,” the Apo Six lawyer accused, noting that insecurity in Nigeria isn’t only unparallel, but has resisted any security architect put in place. He stated that perhaps the insecurity was being confronted in the wrong direction, hence no positive result yet.