TWO anti-graft bodies – Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) — on Monday vowed to step up the onslaught against corruption.
The ICPC vowed to deal with corruption and corrupt tendencies with a degree of ruthlessness to reduce its effect on the nation’s economy and development.
The commission also said the fight against corruption could only succeed if Nigerians changed their ways of doing things and effectively embraced integrity, transparency and accountability as the way of life.
Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, National Chairman of ICPC, spoke at an even organised to mark the 2019 International Anti-Corruption Day in Lokoja, the Kogi State capital.
The event was organised in collaboration with ActionAid Nigeria and its local rights partners in Kogi, Participation Initiative for Behavioral Change in Development (PIBCID).
Prof Owasanoye said the commission would be ruthless in dealing with corruption and corrupt tendencies within permissible limits under the nation’s extant laws to bring the menace to its knees.
He said that the 2019 Anti-Corruption Day tagged: “United against corruption” was not limited to the Anti-corruption agencies, but to every eligible Nigerians , stressing that the menace had affected all Nigerians and would continue to do so if not tackled headlong.
The chairman, who was represented by the ICPC Commissioner in Kogi, Chilezie Ogwuegbu, said that the commission would intensify efforts at detection and investigation of acts of corruption.
He said the commission’s searchlight would also beam on embezzlement of public funds and abuse of office, stressing that it should be loud and clear that corruption would be dealt with decisively without fear or favour.
Owansanoye said: “When a country’s institutions are weakened by corruption, its security forces would not be trusted, its borders would become porous, criminality will fester and its insecurity may be internationalised.
Halima Sadiq, the acting Executive Director of PIBCID, in her Speech, said the country was endowed with great potentials to achieve greatness but lamented that corruption had created poverty and manifested in many forms through waste and misallocation of resources.
”It has been established that corruption leads to massive poverty, lack of facilities such as good roads, electricity, water, health facilities and other infrastructure such as industries and educational facilities, among others,” she said.
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She commended ICPC, National Orientation Agency (NOA), Initiative for Grassroots Advancement (INGRA), Hands Across Africa Initiative, Activista and SOFADONDO for their support in fighting corruption in Nigeria.
The EFCC acting chairman, Ibrahim Magu, said the agency had secured 1,900 convictions, recovered N794 billion in four years.
Speaking in Abuja at the 2019 International Anti-Corruption Day with the theme: ”Zero tolerance for corruption”, he said: “Our scorecard in this regard speaks volumes; for the four years that I have been in-charge of the commission, we have secured about 1,900 convictions, including top government officials.
“Former governors, captains of industry, oil subsidy merchants and scores of players in the private sector. Former military chiefs and civil servants have also been convicted as well as many illegal oil bunkerers in the Niger Delta.
“On recoveries, there is no law enforcement agency in Africa that has equalled the phenomenal recoveries that the EFCC has made.
“In the four years under my watch, we have recovered more than N794 billion and have ensured hundreds of properties forfeited to the government.”
He added that in the Port Harcourt Zone of the EFCC, a total of 244 trucks were forfeited to the government owing to illegal oil bunkering activities in the region.
Magu said: “As a commission, we are not unrelenting in our determination to completely eradicate corruption from Nigeria through our fight against corruption.
“Those who doubt our resolve must sooner come to terms with the fact that the EFCC is a marathoner and when it comes to the fight against corruption, we never give up.
“This was recently demonstrated last week when, after 12 years of legal hide and seek that took us to the Supreme Court and back, the long convoluted trial of former Abia State governor, Orji Uzor Kalu.
“This trial was brought to closure with his conviction and sentence to 12 years imprisonment without an option of fine for stealing over seven billion naira from the treasury of Abia State Government.
“This brings to three, the number of former state governors that were convicted of corruption within one year on my watch.”
Magu said the commission would go into partnership with various sectors in the fight against corruption as everybody needed to be involved in the fight to achieve a sustainable result.
“We have chosen to partner with various sectors because we want to go into not only fighting corruption alone but select very notorious sectors and partner with them.
“Let us go into sectoral approach in the fight against corruption. We will go with the health sector first because there is a lot of problem in the hospitals with the doctors. This approach might change the narrative.”
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