Nigeria’s ruling class has grown worse – Sagay (This must be breaking news)

Posted by admin Latest Politics Tuesday, April 9th, 2013

Renowned legal practitioner, Prof. Itse Sagay, on Tuesday criticised the country’s ruling elite for failing to provide good governance for the nation.

Sagay said this in Lagos while delivering a lecture ‘Good Governance and Enforcement of Law and Order’ at the Nigerian Institute of Management’s 2013 Management Day.

He said, “The most remarkable characteristic of the Nigerian ruling class is its complete and total insensitivity to the public outcry and outrage over the percentage of our resources that the members appropriate to themselves for their own consumption.”

He explained that while Nigerian Senators and House of Representative members earn $1.7m and $1.4m respectively per annum, American Senators earns about $174, 000 with UK parliamentarians earning £65,738 per annum.

He noted that income per capita for the US and UK is $46,350 and $35,468, respectively, while that of Nigeria is $2,248.

Sagay said, “Nigerian legislators pay themselves the highest salaries of all legislators in the world, even though their country is amongst the least developed in the whole world.

“One fact is clear, the Nigerian political and public service elites have been exhibiting a devastating level of value deficiency since the end of the First Republic, which has grown progressively worse. With a few exceptions, the quality of our ruling elite has degenerated with each successive Republic.”

Sagay also lamented the role corruption had played in contemporary Nigeria, describing it as ‘Grand Commander’.

“No day passes without the disclosure of one fresh set of financial scandals or the other. The financial blood of the country is simply being drained away by a kleptomaniac political and public service elite,” he said.

Some notable scandals according to him, include the 2008 House of Representatives Committee on Electrical Powers investigation into the $16bn expenditure in the power industry, that was overtaken by the arrest and prosecution of the chairman of the committee for corruption relating to contracts in the same industry.

Via Punchwp_posts