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Nigeria urged to rein in graft
31/01/2007 14:50 - (SA)
Lagos - An international human rights watchdog has urged the Nigerian government to show more resolve in attacking the country's corruption epidemic.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said: "Only by doing so can government begin to meet its human rights obligations in the areas of health and education."
HRW noted that ordinary Nigerians "have derived appallingly little benefit" from the "several hundred billion dollars worth of oil" produced by their country since independence in 1960.
It said: "Authorities must accept the fact that fighting corruption will require them to make government far more transparent and accountable to the electorate than it is today -and that reforms must be pushed much harder at the state and local levels as well."
Health, education responsibilities
The report focused on the human rights implications of local government corruption in the southern Nigerian state of Rivers, the heart of the country's multi-billion-dollar oil industry.
The authors recalled that the Nigerian constitution, together with federal government policy, had largely delegated health and education responsibilities to the country's 774 local governments.
The report said: "Local government budgets in much of Nigeria have quadrupled since 1999. Too often, local leaders have failed to direct that windfall into any attempt to meet their most important responsibilities."
The report highlighted "the contradiction between Rivers' wealth and the material deprivation experienced by many of its people".
Lack of health care facilities
The United States-based rights group said much of the money that could have gone into improving basic social services such as health and education had gone straight into the pockets of a handful of local leaders.
HRW cited one local government chairperson who "habitually deposited his government's money into his own private bank account" and another who diverted funds to a "football academy" he had not yet started building.
The report said the consequence was that "public schools have been left to fall apart and health care facilities lack even the most basic of amenities".
The report further said that Rivers State government, which had a 2006 budget of $1.3bn, had failed in its duty of reining in corrupt local officials and that it had done little to alleviate poverty or improve the delivery of basic services.
The report said: "At the same time, the governor of Rivers budgeted $10m that year alone on questionable priorities like foreign travel, 'gifts' and 'souvenirs' to unspecified recipients, and the purchase of jet aircraft and fleets of new cars for his office."
- AFP
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