Posted on: 02:30 Tue, 01 Aug 2017



The promoters of Nigerian Peace Corps have said they carried out ‘intense lobbying’ of lawmakers before they rammed through a bill that seeks to upgrade their non-governmental organisation into a federal law enforcement agency.

PREMIUM TIMES reported Saturday that members of the Peace Corps, led by its national commandant, D!ckson Akoh, bribed lawmakers with job slots and cash reward to secure votes needed to pass the Nigerian Peace Corps Bill.

The Senate approved the harmonised version of the controversial bill on Tuesday, despite deep scepticism from its own committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters that the proposed para-military agency offers virtually no unique service to the public.

In a statement to PREMIUM TIMES on Sunday, the group’s spokesperson, Milicent Umoru, denied any illicit motives on the part of the Peace Corps and lawmakers prior to the passage of the bill.

“In advanced democracies of the world, people lobby legislators to pass bills,” Ms. Umoru said. “And that is exactly what Dr. Akoh and those who believe in the nobility of this project did.”

The spokesperson said purported enemies of the Peace Corps erroneously tagged the pressure her organisation mounted on senators as “bribery.”
Ms. Umoru, however, failed to explain if offering cash to lawmakers while promising them other favours was an acceptable component of lobbying in a decent society.

Moreover, Ms. Umoru said promoters of the Peace Corps will remain resolute in their pursuit of presidential assent to the bill, although she did not highlight unique impacts a nationalised Peace Corps would engender for the country.

Questions about why a country crippled by fiscal challenges occasioned by a bloated civil service would need another paramilitary department even as existing ones become increasingly exorbitant to run have continued to pop up.