Concerns over expensive, low-quality empowerment projects

Despite the substantial amounts allocated yearly for constituency and empowerment projects of lawmakers nationwide, the quality of their end products is fast becoming embarrassing. With constituents now best qualified for exercise books, cups of rice, sewing and grinding machines, hair dryers, hair clippers, wheelbarrows and shovels as dividends of democracy, the motive of ‘empowerment projects’ is in need of review, LAWRENCE NJOKU reports.

Empowerment projects are parts of democracy dividends that have come to be associated with lawmakers in the country. Each fiscal year, they are required to submit projects to be captured in the budget as constituency projects. This is to enable them to impact their constituency in addition to their major responsibility of law making and oversight functions on the executive.

The Guardian checks revealed that though a lawmaker may submit a project that includes roads, healthcare facility, electricity, water among others, s/he is not given the money to execute the project, though involved in appointing a contractor that will handle the project when approved.

Also, empowerment projects are executed with resources a lawmaker personally generated, from his savings or funds from his associates.

While it is becoming increasingly demanding that lawmakers must demonstrate their popularity by the number of physical projects attached to their name, what has, however, become an embarrassment is the quality of items they dole out as their empowerment projects to their people.

Some of these items used as constituency empowerment have been found to include exercise books bearing the pictures of the lawmaker, rice, sewing and grinding machines, hair dryers, hair clippers, wheelbarrows and shovels, while in rare cases motorcycles, tricycles and educational support in terms in scholarships, or payment of WAEC or JAMB registration form.

For instance, on Saturday July 18, 2024, member of Abia State House of Assembly, representing Aba Central State Constituency, Ucheonye Stephen Akachukwu, stirred controversy when he distributed plastic refuse disposal bins to his constituents as his constituency project to mark his one year in office.

At the event held at Azuka Road, in Aba North and Ekeoha market in Aba south, beneficiaries were asked to use the facility to improve the cleanliness of their environment and in the long run support efforts of the state government in keeping the state clean.

In June, the senator representing Enugu West, Osita Ngwu, awarded scholarships worth N81 million to some students as part of his constituency empowerment programme. 19 undergraduates and one postgraduate student benefited from the award, where the Senator also unveiled the Kit A School Child Initiative and provided uniforms, bags, sandals, stockings and books for primary pupils of his zone.

Mr Nnabuike Ezeh, a Vulcaniser on Agbani Road, Enugu, told The Guardian that the idea of constituency projects is good and has helped to lift families out of poverty.

Ezeh, a beneficiary of Offor Chukwuegbo empowerment project in 2022, stated that the Vulcanising machine he got from the lawmaker enabled him to start his business.

“That year when he did his empowerment programme, his aides went round and collected names of some of us that needed to be trained in different skills. I applied to be trained as a Vulcaniser. After our training, he equipped us with tools he could lay hands on. That was how I got this machine, which has helped me to train my family,” he stated.

“That laptop is what I have been using to do some of my teaching in school and other assignments. It has helped my teaching and there is no other empowerment better than this,” she added.

She disclosed that she did not benefit from the gesture by being a supporter of the former senator, but “by the fact that he wanted to empower teachers in primary schools in his constituency, especially the rural teachers.”

Ikechukwu Uzoigwe, however, stated that he got hair clippers with which he started his hair salon from a lawmaker as an empowerment, but lamented that, “the clipper was of inferior quality. I could not use it beyond one week before it was packed up.

“You may also wish to know that I qualified to receive the clipper because I worked for the lawmaker’s victory during his election. So, when we heard that he was doing his constituency empowerment, those of us who worked for him were listed, but it eventually turned out to be a mockery. It (clipper) did not work for me at all,” he stated.

George Ogbonnia, a retired civil servant told The Guardian that a water borehole a former senator provided for his Umumba community, Nsirimo in Umuahia South Local Government, Abia State as a constituency project was abandoned soon after the overhead tank was mounted in 2005. Since then, his community was yet to feel the impact of constituency projects from any elected representative from the area.

Some members of the Ikwerre/Emohua Federal Constituency in Rivers State had earlier this year protested the quality of the constituency empowerment that had come their way from their representatives.

They accused their representatives of doling the sums like N50, 000 to a handful of youths and women as empowerment, while there are no motorable roads in the area.

To correct the alleged anomaly, on February 7, 2024 they petitioned the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offense Commission (ICPC) to beam their searchlights on the implementation of the 2024 constituency projects in their area.

Out of the 3,691 projects tracked across 22 states by the BudgIT, a non-governmental organisation in 2022, about 2,037 were said to be completed; 1,012 were still ongoing and 533 not started and 109 abandoned.

BudgIT had also stated that in the current year, the National Assembly inserted 7,447 constituency projects worth N2.24 trillion into the budget, adding that most of the projects lacked “national significance but narrowed to personal interests.”

Looking at the amount inserted into the budget and the quality of what the lawmakers gave out from time to time as constituency projects to their constituents, a lawyer, Nonso Ogbe, told The Guardian that it was not only embarrassing but unfair.

He expressed sadness that some of the projects were carried out without the knowledge of the people.

“By and large, the constituency empowerment projects, be it in terms of equipment and what have you, generally most Nigerian lawmakers have not been living up to expectation. When it comes to infrastructure, we discover that most of these things are of inferior quality.

“We wouldn’t know why they are normally of inferior quality; are they due to inadequate financial provisions or something or part of the corruption ravaging the country, whereby lawmakers claim they have executed projects whereas in true sense a greater part of money for such projects has ended up in private coffers?” he stated.

Also speaking, another lawyer, Eze Eluchie, stated that the system of constituency projects as presently practiced is rooted in fraud and not intended to benefit the people.

“The present system converts such constituency projects to the legislator’s private property to do as s/he wishes.

Nothing good can be expected from such an anomaly, the constituents appear to be at the mercy or charity of their legislator. Meagre portions are unfortunately served to the constituency,” he said.

For the Enugu State Chairman of Accord Party, Dr John Nwobodo, while the obligations vested on the lawmakers by virtue of the constitution, including making laws for order and good government among others, constituency empowerment has become a way they give back to their constituency as tokens of appreciation for finding them worthy of election.

He told The Guardian that constituency empowerment sponsored from the personal resources of the lawmaker or constituency project backed by the budget have come to be a factor in the success rating of lawmakers in Nigeria, adding that a lawmaker that truly cares for the well-being of his constituents should liberally shower significant proportion of the benefits accruing from his office on his constituents.

He regretted, however, that “As of today, the number of lawmakers executing constituency empowerment projects is infinitesimal compared to over 1000 lawmakers at both the National and State Assemblies,”

For the Executive Director of Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO), Ibuchukwu Ezike, the kind of constituency projects being executed by majority of the legislators in Nigeria are not only poor but below expectations.

“They divert money meant for constituency projects to buy or build personal estates or both, buy lands in choice areas in Nigeria and overseas and establish large business concerns here and in foreign lands at the expense of the voting population or their constituencies,” he said.

Ezike added that most lawmakers have no constituency project attached to their names, stressing that the situation has become so appalling that they sometimes convert palliative materials meant for the poor in their constituencies.