2019 Elections: Why Politicians offered Us Bribe - Follow the Money CEO

Fri, Mar 29, 2019 | By publisher


Featured, Interview

Hamzat Lawal, chief executive officer of Follow the Money, a nongovernmental group told Anayo Ezugwu, staff writer; in an interview that narrated how some politicians offered them bribe to influence the report on the general elections in the country

 

Realnews: Follow the Money has been in existence for more than five years,. How has it been?

Lawal: It’s been challenging and exciting. Follow the Money started in 2012 advocating for and tracking the release of $5.3 million meant for sick school children in Zamfara State. And so far we have tracked over N120 billion in the 36 states and we have impacted over five million lives directly. And Follow the Money is now Pan-African. So we are now in Kenya, Gambia, Cameroon and we just started in Liberia.

Realnews: Why are you expanding to other African countries?

Lawal: Because we believe that corruption issue is not just a Nigerian problem and for us to grow as a continent we must ensure that we grow together. Today, we are experiencing cross country and cross continental migration. In the past, it was rural urban migration. We believe that if we can end corrupt practises not just in Nigeria but in African continent at large, then for once we will be able to tackle issues that affect communities and provide better services delivery. And that’s why the African Union invited me last November to speak to heads of states and governments at the African Union level.

Realnews: Are there corruption issues you are following in this present administration?

Lawal: Yes. We are following issues around basic education particularly the Universal Basic Education Funds. We are also following money around National Primary Healthcare Development Agency. We are also looking at the extractive sector because Nigeria gets her revenue from the oil and gas. I mean over 80 percent of the nation’s revenue is generated through oil and gas but when you go to the Niger Delta region, they don’t have potable drinking water, children cannot go to school over gas flaring. For us we are looking at how we can engage host communities and broker dialogue along peace building so that we can have less vandalism.

Realnews: What have been the challenges you face since 2012 in running Follow the Money?

Lawal: For us one of major challenge is accessing communities. It will surprise you that for you to travel from Abuja where our head office is to some grass root communities, it takes you more than 25 hours travelling on the road. In some communities they don’t have roads, they don’t even exist to government but when you look at government appropriations, there is money for these communities. And another big challenge is the fact that there is a lot of secrecy in government. Government would appropriate and budget money but they will not give you budget information to be able to track this money. And lastly resources, we lack resources to meet our targets.

Realnews: Have you been tempted to take bribe?

Lawal: Of course. Yes. I think iit s one of my exposee. We have been intimidated, harassed and bribed not today but we resisted it. I can give you a couple of experience.

Realnews: Can you share one with us?

Lawal: In 2014 when the then federal executive council approved the sum of N9.2 billion to procure 750,000 clean stove and 18,000 wonder bags to distribute free of charge to rural women. At that time, I was the only voice that was sensitising the public and holding government to account. I was bribed at one of the meetings with a N1 million just to keep quiet, which I rejected. That time I was put in risk because they were threaten to kill me. Recently, during this election Connected Development got accredited by INEC and some political stakeholders tried to bribe us as observers. My colleague in Plateau, Bauchi and Benue states, they tried to bribe us in order to manipulate our reports but we rejected these bribes because for us it is about integrity. We can’t talk about Follow the Money and ensuring that we change the society and then being involved in any scandal.

Realnews: Are there risks that you encountered?

Lawal: Of course. The work that we do is life threatening. I have been harassed and intimidated but I have never been arrested by any security agency because you can’t pin anything on me. Everything I do is transparent. I’m sure they have even gone to my account.

Realnews: YALI, what is your level of involvement with them?

Lawal: I’m an international trainer of the US State Department under YALI Network. And what this means is that the US State Department fly me around the world to build capacity of young people. And so far we have build capacity of over 2000 young people from the Africa and other continents.

Realnews: You were involved in the Not-Too-Young-Run campaign, how do you rate youth involvement in the last general elections?

Lawal: The exciting part was that the success of the Not-Too-Young-Run bill got the youngest state lawmaker into office. Today, we have a 26-year-old who was elected into the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly. Today, we have someone who is less than 30 years, who would resume work during the 9th National Assembly in June. For me, it tells that the young are not just ready, they are willing to take over the affairs of the country. For us it is not just having people run and occupy public office but we want people with competent, character and capacity so that they will be able to ensure that Nigerians enjoy the dividends of democracy. From the just concluded elections, one lesson that we learnt as a movement is the fact that we need to go back to the National Assembly to tackle the issue of godfatherism and party supremacy whereby money played a central role. As young people, we don’t have the resources to compete these people. So we will go back to the National Assembly to amend the constitution and put money cap on political finance and campaign spending in Nigeria so that the right set of people will get into public offices.

Realnews: You said the movement will be going back to the National Assembly, are you considering independent candidacy?

Lawal: Yes. There were two amendments we seek,.  One was to reduce the age people seeking elective offices and the second was for independent candidacy. For us, we believe that if we have independent candidates, it will cripple party supremacy whereby as long as you are popular you would like to represent the interest of your people. And if you look at the trend in the last elections, most people actually voted for candidates not political parties. But the only difference is that it is only the party that will allow you run for office. We will approach the 9th National Assembly to reduce the age further and ensure that we have independent candidacy to enable us do away with money politics.

– Mar. 29, 2019 @ 16:59 GMT |

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