By Angela Atabo
Abuja – Mr Clement Nwankwo, Executive Director, Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC), said absence of oversight function by the legislature contributed to impunity and mismanagement culture in the country.
Nwankwo stated this while interacting with newsmen on the sideline of Capacity-Building and Needs Assessment workshop with Security Sector-Related Committees in the House of Representatives in Abuja on Monday.
He said that the purpose of the workshop was to analyse and document specific technical and institutional needs of the key security-related committees.
He said it was to further operationalise the oversight mandate of the lawmakers to deliver improved accountability for Nigerians.
“A critical part of the governance mechanisms aimed at ensuring security sector accountability is legislative oversight.
“In Nigeria and beyond, experience has repeatedly demonstrated that the absence of democratic oversight contributes to mismanagement which in turn damages the effectiveness of security institutions.
“It also hinders efficiency of their use of resources and jeopardises public trust in the security sector,’’ he said.
Nwankwo said that the National Assembly was a key stakeholder in the governance chain legally mandated to monitor the security sector’s policies, actions, budgets and expenditures.
He said that as elected representatives of the people and a formal arm of government, members of the assembly had a critical role in championing popular demand.
This, he said, was for increased security sector accountability in a way that preserved constructive relationships with the institutions and helped to improve their capacity to deliver effective and responsible services to citizens.
Nwankwo said that the workshop was intended to support other activities of project partners aimed at documenting and analysing the state of democratic security sector accountability in Nigeria in an over-reaching manner.
He said that participants would look at different levels of impediments to effective democratic accountability, taking into account specific cultural, institutional and security context of Nigeria.
According to him, the national assembly has a greater role to play in helping to support the security sector in a way that will help them deliver on services and enhance security of Nigerians.
The CSO director said that a lot of the security agencies, especially the army, were stretched beyond their capacity across the 36 states, doing what the police ought to be doing.
He said that the national assembly needed to work with security agencies on security challenges, pointing out that most times, citizens’ rights were trampled upon due to too much pressure on security agents.
According to him, citizens are made to bear the brunt of some of the pressures on the security agencies.
Nwankwo, therefore, urged the lawmakers to increase their role to ensure that security services worked in a way that guaranteed respect for rights of citizens.
“So, bringing the security services in a democracy within the control of the legislature becomes important.
“It is the work of CSOs in defending and protecting the lives of citizens to report some of those human right cases to the national assembly for intervention.’’ (NAN)