UNDEDSS, Middle Belt Forum decry face-off over 774000 jobs

The United Niger Delta Energy Development Security Strategy (UNDEDSS) and the Middle Belt Forum have urged Nigerians to be more forceful in making the executive and legislative arms of government accountable to the people.

The two groups said that failure to do this, and urgently so, might have serious consequences for the country.In separate interactions with The Guardian yesterday, the Executive Secretary of UNDEDSS, Mr. Tony Uranta, and spokesman of the Middle Belt Forum, Dr. Isuwa Dogo, said Nigeria had gotten to a stage where strict accountability must be demanded in managing the country.

UNDEDSS specifically called on all concerned Nigerians to rise as one and caution the leadership of the National Assembly against using their oversight powers for personal aggrandizement, padding budgets and slowing down well-meaning programmes and projects of the Federal Government.

In a statement, Uranta pointed to the ongoing face-off between the Labour Ministry and the National Assembly that is currently stifling the orders of President Muhammadu Buhari to create socio-economic welfare programme reaching directly the constitutionally recognized 774,000 local government areas of the country.

“We see a pattern in the way the Minister of State for Labour, Employment and Productivity, Festus Keyamo (SAN), Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio and others are facing campaigns of calumny since the inception of the Fourth National Assembly. The budget of every ministry, department and agency of government has been delayed, until the legislature is allowed to pad the budgets and also share out the ‘juicy’ contracts amongst themselves and their proxies!”

The group warned that if the situation continued, the Niger Delta and others might resort to mass action to get it redressed.Dogo challenged the Federal Government to publish names of those it employed in the last five years for Nigerians to see whether federal character principle, equity, justice and fairness were achieved.