Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has accused the Senator representing Delta North Senatorial zone, Peter Nwaoboshi of very poor representation of his constituents.
The group, in a statement signed by its Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko and made available to DAILY POST on Sunday, expressed sadness that the Senator is enmeshed in serial allegations of financial misconduct.
HURIWA said it had also concluded arrangements for the publication of its national legislators performance index book, in which all the National Assembly members in the immediate past eight session and the current ninth session and the legislators of the 36 states.
It said the lawmakers would be evaluated in terms of presentation of quality bills which have or are about to become laws of the Federation.
HURIWA said it would disclose secret deals by the legislators that used constituency projects to divert public fund to their private accounts.
The Rights group said the publication which would be introduced in August represents the milestone of the organisation to provide civil society-led oversight to the law makers and to ascertain and enlighten Nigerians on the constitutional goal which aims at their getting actively involved in the governance of Nigeria so as to achieve the overall goal of attaining the highest good governance standards in Nigeria. HURIWA believes that the apathy displayed by millions of Nigerians to politics is the fundamental cause of the widening spectre of poverty amongst Nigerians.
HURIWA stated that it was worried also by the claim purportedly made by Nwaoboshi to the effect that banks were in the habit of opening accounts for National legislators just as the group affirmed that it will be sending a petition to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to urge it to investigate the claim so as to sanitise the nation’s banking environment and weed out all the undesirable elements that are purportedly forcing national Assembly legislators to get entangled in money laundering schemes under the guise of opening operational accounts for Senators and Members of parliament.
It added that information at its disposal indicates that in In 2017, the Federal Government allocated fifty million naira as part of the zonal intervention project expenditure for the supply of one hundred and twenty (120) motorcycles in Delta North Senatorial District of Delta State, according to Tracka NG- a public project monitoring system developed by BudgIT.
HURIWA quoting sources with the information alleged that at the time of execution Nwaoboshi, allegedly distributed refrigerator worth fifty thousand naira (50,000) to the people as against four hundred and sixteen thousand naira (416,000) that should have been the value of the budgeted motorcycle.
Similarly, in 2018, two hundred and twenty-two million, two hundred and twenty-two thousand naira was allegedly released to Delta North Senatorial district under Nwaoboshi to supply transformers across the district in the Federal Government Rural Electrification drive. Not a single transformer was supplied to the region according to this report which HURIWA has already concluded arrangements to send a Freedom of information request to Nwaoboshi.
HURIWA said it was disturbing that whereas his (Nwaoboshi’s) constituents that gave him their mandate four years ago had expected sound and qualitative representation the said Senator is enmeshed in serial allegations of financial self enrichment detrimental to good governance even as the Rights group recalled with shock that the Federal High Court in Abuja on July 05, 2019 decided to grant an interim forfeiture order on 22 bank accounts and 14 properties linked to Nwaoboshi, which the Rights group said sent a shock wave across Nigeria’s human rights community who have raised questions on Senator Peter Nwaoboshi’s capacity to independently and legitimately acquire these assets.
HURIWA disclosed that it will be sending a FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST to Senator Peter Nwaoboshi to furnish the Nigerian Civil Rights community with clarifications on the widely circulated allegations that Peter Nwaoboshi since qualifying as a lawyer did not practice for a day but has always being recircled in different government offices from serving as a Commissioner for Agriculture and Special Duties under the James Ibori-led administration in 2006 to being appointed as the State Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2008, and the group stated that it will ask Mr. Peter Nwaoboshi to show evidence of any traceable record of business or enterprise that could have yielded enough profits to acquire the linked properties as widely claimed by institutions of law enforcement.
HURIWA stated that it has information at its desk that statistically speaking, the cumulative figure of Nwaoboshi’s legitimate salaries and allowances from his numerous appiibtments into diverse public offices would not be enough to purchase the N805million Guinea House in Apapa area of Lagos purportedly linked to him and which he is on trial for by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) just as the group has challenged the Senator to publish his tax returns.
HURIWA disclosed that the NATIONAL PERFORMANCE INDEX BOOK OF ALL LEGISLATORS that is in the offing which would be presented in August at its annual national human rights lecture and Conference in Abuja will be used to invite a cross section of national and state law makers to present their score cards so the members of the audience would scientifically and in a meticulously evidential manner seek for concrete proofs of these claims in a direct encounter with these claimants.
