Curbing the menace of abandoned projects

Dennis Ogu

The issue of abandoned projects has become a tradition in Nigeria. A government in power will spend huge amounts of money to initiate projects, and it will drag these projects until it leaves office without completing some of them.

In more recent times, the projects are started a year or a few months to the end of its tenure. A new government will come, take a whole lot of time criticizing its predecessor(s) for doing the wrong things or for not completing the projects it started.

Then it will start its own projects entirely different from the ones abandoned by its predecessors and there would be no intention or plan to give attention to the abandoned projects. And at the end of its tenure too, it will still abandon many of the projects it started. Repeating the exact thing its predecessors did and the cycle continues.

There have been reports, however, that most of the so-called abandoned projects are projects that the money meant for them have been pocketed by the administrations that started them but would sign on paper that the projects had been completely paid for; in some cases they would write that the projects are completed whereas they remain uncompleted and abandoned. Hence, the people have been defrauded by their own government.

This act forms part of the reasons why a succeeding government would not give attention to the abandoned projects since it would not be able to defend itself effectively if the claim that they spent the money meant for other projects to complete the abandoned ones when documents indicate that they have been completed or completely paid for.

It is not that the governments in power don’t know that the people are suffering or that the economy is bad or that there has been no development whatsoever in the country and that the people have not, in reality, felt the existence of democracy in the country. But the major problem has been the near absence of accountability, true checks and balances in government.

Unfortunately, in most cases the legislatures that ought to protect the interest of the people have abandoned them. They hobnob with the executive and do collaborative impoverishment on the people and laugh at them too. The legislatures have become toothless bulldogs: they don’t get the executive to account for its actions and expenditures.

There is no talk of impeachment of the executive on offences that call for such; instead they impeach a speaker or any principal officer that questions the defaulting executive. The judiciary on the other hand most times is accused of bias. There is no justice at the court of law anymore. Presidents and governors have become emperors, and legislature and judiciary have become their errand boys or personal assistants.

Again, there is complacency on the side of the people in promoting the trend of abandoned projects. The people don’t ask relevant questions about the number and nature of projects the government has for them and its importance to their life, the economy and the state. They also do not monitor or follow up the execution of such projects to its completion.

They don’t even try to find out if the money allocated to each project is commensurate to the effort and resources put into bringing it into existence. The government will start a road project or any other project and stop it halfway without giving any proper explanation for stopping it, and the people will keep quiet.

What some leaders do is to recruit a small section of young people who will be going about singing their praises on radio and television stations and even beer parlours and the social media. They use them to form a retinue of aides or PA’s whom they pay peanuts.

These vagabonds and idlers are preoccupied with giving accolades to a non-performing leader, trying hard to convince the poor masses that such a person is doing well. Others even fight and kill the leader’s perceived enemies and hard critics so that nothing ill will be heard about the leader no matter what he does.

However, a time has come for the people to realise that there are two parts of a government: the leader and the led; for the people must to form a formidable force that will stand against bad governance.

A force that will question the leaders for failing in their campaign promises; a pressure group that will call for the impeachment of a non-performing governor or president; a force that will recall a legislator that is not giving an effective and qualitative representation; a force that will assess projects to ascertain if they meet specifications and needs of the people; what the money was used for; strengthen the institutions of government to do their job independently; boldly sue an incumbent or past leader for failure or embezzlement with facts and figures.

Until we boldly and consciously fight our battles against bad governance, our leaders will continue to defraud us, take advantage of us and take us for granted. And if we don’t stand up to press for our needs and ask for what our monies are used for, then our education is a waste.

Ogu, a public affairs analyst wrote from Ota, Ogun state