Towards a Better Nigeria - The Urgent Need To Enact a Special Legislation Making Public Offices Less Attractive By Cajetan Osisioma As stated earlier, governance is a serious business and should only be undertaken by serious people. People should not see public offices as avenues for enriching themselves. Public office holders should be held accountable for their inactions and misappropriation of public funds entrusted in their care.

Nigeria is one of the countries in the world where costs of
governance are very high. Political and public office holders in
Nigeria turn millionaires and billionaires overnight as a result of the
skyrocketing emoluments they enjoy coupled with the impunity
with which some of them misappropriate, embezzle, steal, and
siphon public funds. Unlike in other climes where the emoluments
of political and public office holders are in the public domain, in
Nigeria, the reverse is the case, as no one can reliably tell how
much the members of the legislative houses in Nigeria receive as
annual emoluments, except the members themselves. This has
generated heated debates in the past; nevertheless, the total
emoluments they receive are still shrouded in secrecy, even when
these representatives are paid from our public funds. This
evidences, to a larger extent, the craze and desperation to occupy
one public position or the other in Nigeria.
Recently, during the just concluded general elections, our
environments were awash with political posters advertising various
positions the political contestants aspired to occupy. Those in the
corridor of power employed the sit tight syndrome and were not
willing to relinquish power, as the opposition vowed to snatch
power from them by all means possible. The political stage was
tensed up with its usual characteristics of campaigns of calumny,
making hate speeches, inciting and inflammatory statements,
assassinations, threats to lives, buying over some stakeholders
and voters with money, making empty political promises that
hardly materialize, making sycophantic statements aimed at
carrying favour from the politicians and their political godfathers,
emptying our common treasury to sponsor political campaigns,
among others. For these political gladiators, elections are a “do or
die affair”.
This craze to occupy one public office or the other has reached its
climax to the extent that when one asks ten children who they
intend to become in the future, at least about six of them will reply
that they will like to become politicians. And when one presses the
question further and asks why, one will be surprised to hear them
say that politicians are very rich people in Nigeria. This is not far-
fetched; the evidence is clear.
Governance in Nigeria is very attractive, considering the mouth-
watering privileges that come with holding political or public offices
in Nigeria. However, if governance is made less attractive as
recommended in this article, it will result to an exodus of people
abandoning politics and embracing their hitherto abandoned
professions, so much so that holding political or public offices will
then be left to those who actually have the interests of the masses
at heart. One of such means of making governance less attractive
will be by enacting a special legislation that will make provisions
affecting political and public office holders aimed at reducing the
costs of governance.
The need to enact such legislation is overdue. I therefore
recommend and urge the 8th National Assembly to urgently enact
what I term “The Public Office Holders (Certain Prohibitions) Act.
This Act will make certain sweeping provisions, prominent among
them will be as suggested below.
Every public office holder in Nigeria shall seek the services of
Nigerian physicians and no public office holder in Nigeria, spouse
or children shall travel abroad for medical treatments except the
illness being suffered or diagnosed by such public office holder,
spouse or children, is among those exempted; in which case, such
public office holder, spouse, or children, may travel abroad for
such treatment or diagnosis. However, before embarking on such
treatment or diagnosis abroad, such public office holder, spouse or
children, shall make known to the public the nature and extent of
the illness. The essence of these provisions is to compel public
office holders to pay adequate attention to our dilapidated
hospitals and medical facilities. If adequate, conducive and well
equipped and staffed medical centres are available in Nigeria, our
public office holders will not be embarking on foreign trips to treat
even a mere headache as is presently the status quo.
Another prominent provision relates to education. No public office
holder, upon assumption of office, shall obtain any foreign
education other than in Nigeria, and no such public office holder
shall send any of his/her children or spouses to other countries for
the purpose of obtaining foreign education. A further provision will
be made to the effect that where a public office holder, spouse or
child is a student in a foreign country, such public office holder,
spouse or child shall forthwith cease the education in such foreign
country and change to a public school in Nigeria. Also, as a
corollary to the provision, every public office holder, spouse or
child shall attend public schools in Nigeria, and no public office
holder, spouse or child shall attend any private schools, whether in
Nigeria or elsewhere. The proviso to the prohibition of foreign
education will also be applicable to obtaining education in private
schools. The essence of these provisions will be to compel our
public office holders to pay adequate attention to our dilapidated
public schools at all levels. It is hoped that Nigeria will boast of
well equipped and staffed public schools with all the modern
facilities in place if such legislation is enacted.
Furthermore, there will be provisions relating to the emoluments of
public office holders to the effect that the total emoluments and
allowances of every public office holder in Nigeria shall be made
public. The salaries and allowances of public office holders,
especially those of the legislative houses, shall be reviewed
downward and no public office holder shall earn any salaries or
allowances in excess of the statutory fixed emoluments. These
provisions aim at reducing the salaries and some unnecessary
allowances that are being paid to our public office holders, which
make holding public offices very attractive. There will be
provisions on penalties for violating any of the above provisions,
and in each case, the punishment, upon conviction, will include
loss of the affected public office, imprisonment for a period not
less than 10 years, without any options of fine.
Every public office holder will be made to live in an official
apartment and use official cars and no public office holder shall
live in a private apartment, hotel, or other personal places. Also, no
public office holder shall use private or personal cars. Whilst
occupying a public office, no public office holder shall own any
property which shall not reasonably be expected to be owned by a
public office holder of that status and/or the market value of which
exceeds the total emoluments earned by such a public office
holder within the period of occupation of such public office. Any
public office holder who violates these provisions shall, upon
conviction, be sentenced to a period not less than 15 years in
prison and forfeiture of such property.=
There shall also be included in the legislation provisions creating
stiffer punishments on public office holders who award contracts
without following due process; public office holders who steal,
embezzle, misappropriate, or siphon public funds; and public office
holders involved in other corrupt practices. I recommend that upon
conviction on any of the above corrupt practices and other related
offences, the affected public office holder shall be sentenced to
death by firing squad. The reason for this is not far-fetched.
Imagine this scenario. A hungry man who perhaps steals his
neighbour’s yam in his barn gets a 7-year prison term upon
conviction, whereas a governor or any other public office holder
who steals, embezzles or misappropriates public funds, or who
awards contracts without due process, gets a lesser punishment
upon conviction. Is this not a travesty of justice? Where then lies
the deterrence?
On many occasions, funds earmarked for medical facilities, social
amenities and other life saving programmes had been
misappropriated, embezzled, stolen, or siphoned, resulting in
deaths of many people. The few cases which had been prosecuted
had only resulted in handing insufficient prison terms to the
culprits. In many instances, the punishments provided for in the
existing laws are not sufficient, and can at best be described as
‘mock penalties’. This cannot serve as a deterrent.
The Act will also make provisions which will aim at putting an end
to attaching police officers and other security agents to our
legislators, except the heads of the legislative houses. This
privilege has recently been abused by the legislators and our police
officers and other security agents are being used as bag carriers
and errand boys to these legislators. The legislators should be
made to go about like other citizens so that they will appreciate the
positions they occupy and discharge their duties impactfully
towards affecting the lives of their representatives positively,
rather than priding at the security provided to them by the
government. No legislator shall use any siren of any kind, and the
security details to each of the heads of the legislative houses shall
not be more than two.
Also, in the legislation, there will be provisions prohibiting the
government, at all levels, from sponsoring pilgrimages to foreign
countries. Any individual or public office holder who wishes to go
on a pilgrimage shall do so at their expense. Thus, no public office
holder, or spouse, or children shall go on a pilgrimage at the
expense of the government.
These recommendations will invariably affect certain provisions in
the constitution and other statutes. One may therefore argue that
the recommended provisions will be null and void to the extent of
their inconsistencies with the provisions of the constitution and
other statutes. Thus, there will be the need to amend the
constitution, repeal or amend the other affected statutes so as to
make them reflectory of the provisions of the special legislation.
As stated earlier, governance is a serious business and should
only be undertaken by serious people. People should not see public
offices as avenues for enriching themselves. Public office holders
should be held accountable for their inactions and
misappropriation of public funds entrusted in their care. The time
to reduce the craze to occupy political or public offices as a result
of the attractive benefits and privileges that come with them is
now. The answer is enacting a law that will provide harsh and
stiffer punishments for public office holders who are involved in
corrupt practices, thereby making public offices less attractive.
*Cajetan Osisioma is a Legal Practitioner and writes from Lagos.
cjosisioma@gmail.com. 08063640152.