No To Amnesty Bill For Looters

The anti-graft campaign by President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration may suffer a major setback if the bill on public funds looters, now before the Federal House of Representatives, eventually sails through.
Presented on June 14, 2017 by Hon Linus Okorie from Ebonyi State, the bill seeks, among others, to allow those who looted the nation’s treasury to return certain percentage of their loot as exchange for total amnesty.
By implication, the bill, if finally passed by the National Assembly, will give looters the leeway  to walk free from being prosecuted for financial crimes and for sabotaging the nation.
Whatever purpose the bill intends to achieve, we consider it as self-serving and a gross insult on the intelligence of Nigerian citizenry whose collective wealth is being plundered at will by looters. We wonder if the nation’s lawmakers spared a thought on the far-reaching effects of their actions, not only on the nation’s economy but also on its image within the international community.
The Tide is dismayed and highly disappointed that at a time like this when the country is writhing in pain as a result of economic recession, our representatives at the National Assembly, who were primarily elected to protect their constituents, would turn around to initiate and sponsor such an anti-people bill.
We are, however, consoled by the opposition to the bill by some well-meaning Nigerians like the erstwhile Kaduna State Governor, Balarabe Musa, who had already implored the leadership of the National Assembly to quickly halt further deliberations on the vexatious bill.
The bill, indeed, makes a mockery of the Nigerian state, and perhaps, lends credence to the position of the former British Prime Minister, David Cameron and other international citizens who see and describe Nigeria as a fantastically corrupt country.
We recall that President Buhari had, at different fora in the past, cried out that certain persons and organs of government were fighting hard to sabotage his anti-graft crusade. The bill, therefore, may not be a surprise to many pundits, as it appears to have vindicated the President’s alarm.
The fact that the bill was sponsored by a member of the National Assembly, allowed to be presented on the floor of the hallowed chamber and passed the first reading, shows the level of immaturity, decadence and immorality that pervade the rank of the nation’s leadership.
The Tide sees the bill as an indirect way of legitimising corruption in high places and therefore, calls on all well-meaning Nigerians to rise up against the bill.
Rather than finding soft-landing for looters, who in other climes like China and Indonesia, are summarily executed or sentenced to life imprisonment, we expect NASS to enact laws that would compel looters to refund their entire loot to the public treasury, as well as strengthen existing laws on financial and economic crimes that will shield the country from corruption.
In Indonesia, for instance, the electorate physically assaulted members of the country’s parliament recently, for their disgraceful and embarrassing stance against public interest. We hope that the Nigerian parliament will not degenerate to that level, where the public will rise against them.
While The Tide does not pray for a replay of the Indonesian experience in Nigeria, we implore our legislators to be more patriotic and responsive to their mandate.
We believe that for the anti-graft campaign to succeed, all hands must be on deck. The country is currently passing through recession, and for her to come out of it, all economic saboteurs, no matter how highly placed, must be brought to book.