A leading human rights lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), has cautioned the political elite and the Federal government not to incite mutiny among the populace.
Falana gave the warning in Abuja on Thursday, during a speech at the National Symposium sponsored by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) under the theme, “Nigeria Economy and the Crisis of Survival: Robbing the Poor to Pay the Rich.”
The warning is coming after soldiers in Gabon overthrew a democratically elected government through a coup d’état.
The vocal activist bemoaned the fact that public officials continue to spend lavishly despite the government telling the poor to tighten their belts and bear the burden of the country’s economic problems.
He also attributed the recent trend of juntas in Africa, particularly the most recent in Gabon, to a number of causes, including the western exploitation of African countries’ mineral resources, third term syndrome, political manipulation of the constitution, and the establishment of foreign military bases in African countries.
Falana forewarned that Nigerians would become enraged and turn against democracy as long as statistics about the National Assembly’s wasteful expenditures kept coming out.
He said: “They must be careful not to provoke Nigerians to mutiny. Some of the things going in the National Assembly show that we are in trouble. N70 billion for palliatives for 469 people and when we said no they claimed it was for the facelift of the National Assembly.
“Three years ago, N37 billion was earmarked for the facelift of the National Assembly. That contract has not been fully executed and there is no renewal of the contract so you cannot talk about N70 billion for facelift.
“Secondly, N40 billion to buy exotic cars now for the leadership of the National Assembly is not going to be allowed.
“The latest provocative news from the National Assembly is that N54 billion has been earmarked for constituency projects for 360 members of the House of Representatives. It has come to 150 million per person under this austere condition of the country.
“So when these figures are oozing out of the National Assembly Nigerians are being provoked and enemies of democracy are being provoked.
“The military has been honest to say that they are under pressure to dismantle this rickety political system but someone told them to go and deny it and they came out and denied it. But we can read between the lines. We can’t gather here to talk about democracy that is under threat.
“The immediate causes of coups in Africa today are third term syndromes, manipulation of constitution, military bases.
“Today, America has 29 military bases in Africa. France has 15. Soldiers are protesting because numbers of these foreign bases are receiving salaries as if they are in their countries. So the soldiers are protesting the preferential treatment between them and these foreign troops, so we must look at that.
“The remote causes are the ruthless exploitation of the mineral resources of our country by Western countries. The people are getting poorer.
“The poor are asked to tighten their belts even when they are dying. We may there discussing democracy, democracy is under threat in Africa.”