Abuja — Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon Dimeji Bankole has alleged that almost N1tr unspent funds are not returned to the treasury at the end of every year even as he called for an aggressive fight against corrupt practices.

Bankole also said that Nigeria can never have a free and fair elections unless the attitude of politicians is changed towards politicking in Nigeria. He noted that the recently concluded constitutional amendment does not guarantee free and fair elections.

"I am afraid, scared and worried that that we may not find solutions to these problems unless we take drastic moves to the way we run things in Nigeria," he said.

The Speaker spoke while addressing the gathering at a dinner held in honour of the General secretary of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) John Odah in Abuja last night where he made startling revelations about the extent of corruption in the country.

"...the 32 clauses that were amended do not make the constitution perfect and it can never be perfect. All parties have to have structures in all states of the federation; you cannot just sit in Abuja or Lagos and expect to win 30% seats."

Speaking against the backdrop of the National Assembly being sued by the Nigeria Bar Association over allowance increase, Bankole said the "learned" members of the association cannot differentiate between allowances and overhead.

He questioned the association did not sue various organisations that have been found involved in corrupt practices.

According to him, the NBA ought to have sued when it was discovered that over $30.5bn was spent to solve Nigeria power problem without any result. He also queried why the lawyers did not sue when a quotation of N65bn was being made for the construction of the Abuja airport runway before the contract was cancelled after investigations were launched by the House.

"A week after I became Speaker of the House, we were told unspent funds were just N28bn which means there was about 90% performance of the budget. But we all know that in Nigeria, budgets do not perform more than 30%, so I insisted on knowing what happened to the rest 60%. Within six weeks we had N450bn as unspent funds"

"An average of N1tr does not get returned to the treasury every year and no one is suing anyone."

He expressed hope that the next 50 years of Nigeria's nationhood would be better than the last 50 while adding that the next generation of leaders would be better because "this nonsense must stop".