Veteran journalist Sully Abu, Director of FrontFoot Media Initiative, has declared that a lack of respect for accountability is a sure invitation to bad governance, disorder, and even anarchy.
He made this declaration in introductory remarks on Thursday at the opening of a two-day workshop on audit reporting training for journalists in the North East subregion and Plateau State, ongoing in Gombe.
According to him, “You can now see why the picture Nigeria presents today is akin to a horror story. Institutions have been subverted, systems hobbled, rules flouted with impunity.”
He stressed, “Such is our situation that anyone with the means or connections can procure their own law enforcement services, suborn the justice system to get a desired ruling, lock up the weak or innocent using the normal machinery for law enforcement, rip apart the Treasury – and get away with it, sometimes by returning only a part of the loot.”
He asked, “Must we live this way? Who says you or I or our loved ones will not be victims of a grossly perverted system where impunity rules tomorrow?”
“But believe it or not, it was not always this way. When we were growing up in the ’60s and ’70s and even up to the ’80s, the universal belief was that tomorrow would be better. No matter your station in life, this belief sustained you, especially because you could see the evidence in the lives of others, even the people you know,” he added.
Sully Abu said, “Today, not many would bet that tomorrow will not be worse. In almost every facet of life, the nation lies in ruins. This has been an incremental process. But it is at least in the last nine years that we have seen a calamitous descent down the abyss.”
He further asked, “So what do we do? The easiest thing is to wring our hands and engage in songs of lamentation, blame one another—or retire to our closets and places of worship and proceed to overload God with our desperate cries for help and desires.”
He also stated, “We have engaged in all this, but our situation just continues to laugh at us in the face. Why don’t we try to do something different – and try to become the change that we seek or at the very least change agents.”
“As we clamor for a change in our leaders, so must we work for a total change in our own individual attitude. We need to start from that basic but essential premise: respect. Respect for one another. Respect for rules and regulations. Respect for public institutions, laws, and systems. Respect for the public treasury and public property,” he added.
Furthermore, the veteran journalist said, “But, no matter how much we talk or preach about these things, the fact is that rules and regulations have to be enforced since we live on earth as humans with all the foibles and follies attendant to that reality.”
He also said, “We can begin the process of promoting and enforcing change in and from our little corners. And no corner is as powerful and influential as the media, which has a constitutional and institutional obligation to hold everyone, including itself, to account.”
He also said, “To do so, we have to constantly remind ourselves of the things that matter, that will enable us to do our work and build our capacity to do it effectively. Hence this workshop. The choice of topic has been quite deliberate.”
According to him, “The self-inflicted tragedies of our nation have derived substantially from the failure to hold people, not just the leaders, to account for their actions and transgressions. This has been quite evident at the state level where governance touches the lives of most people and where only cursory attention is paid to the constitutional and institutional mechanisms to enforce accountability.”
He added, “The result is that in many places, state governors have turned into local potentates who, because of their often untrammeled access to and control of the public treasury, are able to suborn individuals and other branches of government to do their will with results not always guaranteed for the public good.”
“Thus, State Houses of Assembly, which are meant to use Auditor General reports as vital tools to hold the executive to account, sometimes find themselves neutered. This is where the media has a vital role, putting the spotlight on how budgets are made and public monies spent,” he lamented.
Sully Abu also said, “The Auditor General is supposed to keep an eye on how your money, our money is spent. He is constitutionally empowered to do this. The position of Auditor General is one of the most important offices of state. But what influence has it had on governance and in ensuring that the people’s business is conducted with respect, honor, and accountability?”
According to him, “This unfortunately has been one of the dark recesses of governance in our clime. Our duty as journalists is to shed light on it and hold our leaders accountable and thus be part of the rebuilding process of our nation.”
He emphasized, “To enable us to do so – and effectively – is the reason we are gathered here. Our workshop focuses on the auditing process based on the implementation of budgets. But we begin by drawing attention to why we are journalists in the first instance and why a subject like auditing public finances should occupy our attention.”
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He stressed, “It is a rich area for investigative journalism, which, given the murk our country is in, should be our preoccupation rather than the old and familiar pattern of ‘The governor said, the commissioner averred’.”
“A few of our presentations here would give you the needed tools and ideas, and please feel free to ask any questions, as we expect everyone will be part of animated and rewarding discussions. I heartily welcome you all and say: Let’s get to work,” he added.
He also stated, “Our public space is replete with buzzwords. One of them is transparency. Another is its close cousin, accountability. It is hard to find any public discourse without one or both words or terms, if you like, coming into play. Unfortunately, the all too frequent—and rather casual—use of these terms presents the distinct danger of their being emptied of serious meaning.”
He also said, “This is a temptation we must resist. Accountability is the yardstick for holding us responsible for our actions and even inactions, our verbal interventions or absence thereof.”
He concluded, “Through accountability, human existence is ordered – from the basic family unit to complex organizations and governments.”
