Groups task National Assembly on electoral reform, 2021 budget

Peoples Life Improvement Foundation (PLIF) has blamed the fraudulent electoral system and bad leadership in Nigeria for the protests, which have turned bloody.

It challenged the National Assembly and the presidency to immediately sign into law the amended Electoral Act to bring about good governance.

The National Publicity Secretary, Ngoama Wem, stated yesterday: “We have summed up the totality of prolonged bad governance in Nigeria, which has ruined the country, and have come to the conclusion that our electoral system is the sole reason the country is in this miserable and undone state.”

Noting that the protesters were expressing their democratic rights, Wem insisted that bad leadership led to the present tension.

MEANWHILE, Citizens Action for Good Governance has frowned at the threat by the House of Representatives Speaker, Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila, to reject the proposed 2021 budget over the plight of the disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS).

Spokesperson of the group, Mr. Nazir Galadanci, at a press conference in Abuja yesterday, urged the Speaker not to capitalise on the situation to hold the country to ransom.

Gbajabiamila had, on Tuesday, said that he would not pass the 2021 budget without provision for compensation of police brutality victims.

The group, however, wondered why Gbajabiamila rushed into making such utterances, even when the 36 states of the federation were already constituting panels to probe police brutality in the country.

It noted: “Gbajabiamila shouldn’t have engaged in grandstanding, playing to the gallery and making unhelpful utterances over the 2021 budget, when we are yet to quantify the number of persons affected. He should have understood that there is room for supplementary budget, but not to hold Nigeria to ransom just for cheap political gains.”