The Executive Director of Yiaga Africa, Mr Samson Itodo, has advocated for removal of immunity currently being enjoyed by governors for 20 years to sanitise the country’s political space.
Itodo stated this in an interview with journalists in Abuja on Sunday.
He argued that the removal of immunity would help to sanitise the current political space and make political office holders, particularly the governors, more circumspect.
“With the level of impunity that we’re seeing, I think we should remove immunity from public officials, at least, for 20 years so that we can sanitise the current political space.
“Hiding under the toga of immunity is one thing that has been used to perpetrate impunity.
“I don’t see any reason why, if a public official who is holding power in trust commits a criminal offence, that he should not answer for his offence,” he said.
Itodo said that since legislators don’t enjoy immunity except within their chambers, the same should apply to the governors.
“Why should the executives enjoy immunity from alleged criminal acts throughout the duration of their term? No, I don’t think that it is fair.
“We either remove the immunity completely or limit the executive immunity to the precincts of the government house. They should be answerable to the dictates of the law,” he said.
According to him, the country needs stronger rules to hold public officials to account.
“We just cited an example of the Supreme Court judgment on the local government autonomy, but governors said local government chairmen dare not open accounts with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
“Our clime requires certain stringent laws. And that’s why I say let immunity be removed for only 20 years so that we will clear the system of the mess,” he said.
Itodo called on Nigerians to pay more attention to what their leaders do for enhanced service delivery.
“We need to pay attention to what our councillors, local government chairmen, members of the state houses of assembly, governors and national assembly members do.
“What appears to be happening is people often focusing attention on the president and forgetting those who are closer to us, which is wrong,” he said.
