We Should Hold Our Leaders Accountable – Chief Anekwe

Chief Agunwa Anekwe is a former speaker, House of Representatives. In this interview with DAVID ADUGE-ANI he bares his mind on many national issues including the use of the permanent voters’ card (PVCs) in the forthcoming general elections.

As the 2015 general elections gather momentum, how would you describe the on-going political campaigns among political parties?

I believe that the atmosphere is charged in the country, as a result of more political awareness among the people. However the dangerous aspect of it is that many of the on-going campaigns, especially among the major political parties in the country are not issue-based. There are a lot of name-callings, there a lot of hate-speeches and a lot of references of the past which has nothing to do with the abilities of the individuals to deliver.

I think this is as a result of the desperation in the system. I think the political actors in the country don’t need to overheat the polity. I believe that the way we are going instead of moving forward we are moving backwards.

There is a sort of controversy on the use of the card readers in the coming general election. What is your opinion on this?

We must know that life is dynamic. The technology of 1960s is not the same technology of today. Nigeria must be part of technological development, so that the world would not leave us behind. For me there is no single technology that we would say is perfect, because perfection belongs to God. 

If the card reader has some advantages which outweigh the disadvantages, what is wrong in using it?

What is important in democracy is that the people must vote for the persons of their choice. It shouldn’t be that while the voters have voted for Mr B, one other person is using another means to bring in Mr A as the winner. I believe that anything that would make the choice of the people to prevail, and reduce electoral malpractices and rigging is acceptable to me.

Sir looking at the economy of Nigeria today, how would you compare it with other economies of other countries, knowing that only recently the Nigeria currency was devalued? What do you think is wrong with our system?

Well, a lot is wrong with the Nigerian economy. A system where more than 80% of the annual budget goes into recurrent expenditure is not a good system. This is because it is only from the remaining 20% that the majority of the population benefits. The funny aspect is that it is only less than 0ne per cent of the population that consumes the 80% annual budget. You can see the injustice in the entire system.

If we have the courage, we can stop certain unnecessary aspect of the budget, such as drinking of champagne or unnecessary overseas trips and others. These are the things that take away all the budgetary allocations.

There a lot of things that is wrong with our system. That is why I believe that we should hold our leaders accountable. We need people who think more about the people and less about themselves. That is why democracy should be allowed to be practised the way it should be so that the people selects the person of their choice and should be voted out if he fails to perform.

So we need a lot of political reforms in our system of government. We have to ensure that corruption is stamped out. We must sanction people if they violate the laws. (Leadership)