ANEEJ tasks Nigerians on holding leaders accountable

From Femi Oyelola, Kaduna

A group under the auspice of the African Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ) has urged Nigerians to unite in holding leaders accountable, by asking key questions that demand immediate answers from those saddled with leadership responsibility.
The Acting Executive Director of the Network, Mr. Leo Atakpu made the call during the launching of the Report on Utilization of the Special Drawing Rights (SDRs).
Atakpu insisted that Nigerians would have to unite in asking the leaders how they utilized the allocated $3.35 billion, as part of a historic SDR456 billion Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
He also pointed out that SDRs are not money in the classic sense of it, because they can’t be used to buy things, saying it is an international reserve asset created by the IMF to supplement the official reserves of member countries, with value based on a basket of the world’s five leading currencies – the American dollar, European Euro, Chinese Yuan, Japanese Yen and British Pound Sterling.
Leo added that while countries like Zimbabwe and Ghana used their SDRs to Finance Ghana Care (Obaatanpa) and support projects in Social sectors and vulnerable group productive sectors Nigeria uses its own to supplement budget deficit without proper records to show.
“That is the reason we are launching this report. Section 8 of the CBN Act provides that the CBN Governor brief the National Assembly from time to time about its policies and activities.
“The National Assembly did not call on CBN to provide such briefing in 2021 when the SDRs were received, we as Caps are strengthened our citizen’s accountability framework for holding the legislature to account and the report is part of it”, he said.
A panelist, Mohammed Attah, said.
“We know the problems, and we must unite and come up with solutions. We have to unite our efforts to make the government accountable .”
Similarly, Prince Chris Azor, opined that the leaders elected by citizens should operate in the space of transparency and accountability by telling the people what happened to the SDRs received.
In her contribution, Inyingi Iriimagha, said for Nigeria to attain its desired development, the policymakers have to be intentional about transparent and accountable to the commonwealth of the Nation.