Posted by By Luka Binniyat/Habib Yakub on
ABUJA - THE Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai yesterday at the Seventh Leon Sullivan lecture in Abuja....
ABUJA - THE Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai yesterday at the Seventh Leon Sullivan lecture in Abuja, lamented the dearth of infrastructure in most of the states of the federation, and described some of the state governors of these states as 'Vagabonds in Power" (VIPs).
El-Rufai came to this conclusion after a Nigerian in Diaspora argued that outside Abuja, the security and infrastructural state of Nigeria still falls below the level that can motivate Nigerian experts abroad to return. The minister said: 'It is a pity that outside Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt and a few more towns", there is no wwere you will see the presence of government. 'The states control about 50% on the Nigerian budget."
'The federal government with all its huge responsibilities control 50%", he said, then you ask, ‘‘what are the state governors doing with their money"? 'There is this my friend (he mentioned a youthful governor from the South East) who can not as much as sweep a street that passed through his state capital," he said. 'When asked why," 'he said it was a Federal Road! Do federal people sleep on that street?," he queried, 'some of these governors are just vagabonds in power."
'These are people with no integrity that hijacked power." 'We must not allow that to happen in 2007", he advised, 'good people like you (Nigerians in Diaspora) must come back home and contest for power."
According to Mallam El-Rufai 'we must not allow these miscreants to come near power again. 'CNN did a documentary of the Chairman of the EFCC, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu yesterday," 'the world can now see that corruption can no longer be practiced. 'Look at what one single person has done," 'what if we have ten Ribadus in Nigeria?" He submitted that Nigeria still has a long way to go if it really desires to develop, noting that 'there will be letters with death threats, 'but whether the letters are written or not, we are all going to die one day, anyway", he observed.