A former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential aspirant, Dr Abdul-Jhalil Tafawa-Balewa, has said that federal and state lawmakers “have failed people of their various constituencies”.
Tafawa-Balewa, a medical doctor and businessman, said this in Lagos, while reacting to the socio-economic challenges faced by Nigerians.
He said: “It is a shame that Nigeria is in this state.
“Now, a lot of elected representatives of the people at the Senate, House of Representatives, state assemblies and local government legislative houses , are supposed to do community work in their constituencies.
“The senators, Reps and state assembly members receive a lot of money, more than their counterparts in other parts of the world.
“And they have this community projects that they are supposed to execute each time, which they do not do, or when they do, it is usually so poorly done that the rest of the money is kept in their own pockets.
“I just don’t understand what a large majority of these people are going to do with all the money ?
“I think more community jobs, more community involvement need to happen at this time.”
According to him, in spite of receiving a lot more now under this administration than at any other time in the country’s history, not much is getting to the people from the various elected officials.
He said that every Nigerian should know how much senators, House of Reps members and governors receive for development purposes ” then we can now start asking them what they do with that money”.
Lamenting further, he said: “Because this is our commonwealth, the money belongs to all of us. It doesn’t belong to one person or a group of people.
“These people are elected to be able to represent us,and that’s what democracy is all about. We chose them to represent us.
“It is really very disheartening to see that even with more money flowing within the government, less and less is getting to the people”.
Tafawa-Balewa also decried disagreements between the state and the local governments over statutory allocations to the local government.
He said that the local government was supposed to be the closest to the people, but the people at the grassroots were still groaning in poverty .
Tafawa-Balewa, who noted that one of the main problems in Nigeria now was high cost of food, said that many people could not feed their families.
He said that if the government was not willing to regulate food prices, the market should be open for free competition.
“For instance, the borders have been opened and the price of rice is going down. The price of some other foods are going down,” he said.
