The Nation Newspaper

Tag: corruption

  • ‘Our mandate is to nip corruption in the bud’

    Protem President of the Chartered Institute of Forensic and Investigative Auditors of Nigeria (CIFIAN), Dr. Victoria Enape, is also an author. In this interview with VICTOR OLUWASEGUN, she speaks on the passage of the CIFIAN Bill by the Senate and her organisation’s belief that it can help to stop corruption. She also speaks on her personal life. Excerpts:

    A mantra of the Buhari administration is the anti-corruption war. Do you sincerely believe that CIFIAN has a role to play in this campaign?

    Yes, I do. From our mandate, it is clear what we can do. And before I start, I’ll like you to understand that CIFIAN is an anti-fraud organisation saddled with the responsibility of giving skills to relevant professionals to use science and technology to prevent and investigate fraud, and also put in place mechanisms to stop future occurrence and prevent illicit financial flows into the country. This is our mandate. And from the mandate I just mentioned, without going further, you would agree with me that we have a lot to offer this government on the issue of anti-corruption fight.

    People will argue that the EFCC and ICPC are there as statutory agencies created for this purpose. What new things are you bringing to the table? What new skills are you parading?

    These two agencies (EFCC and ICPC) are doing great things and trying their best. But we need to complement their efforts in ensuring that there is prevention of fraud in the first place. EFCC and ICPC’s work is an aftermath. Their action is that after the fraud has taken place, they run after those people to ensure that they are brought to book or prosecuted. But forensic and investigative auditors are saying that it is better to prevent fraud, because prevention is better than cure. So, forensic and investigative auditors have all it takes to put in place some mechanisms to prevent fraud from happening.

    What we do is to remove opportunity from the fraud triangle. In the fraud triangle, we have opportunity, rationalisation and incentives. Now, if there is pressure, which makes people to commit fraud, but there is no opportunity, no matter how you rationalise to yourself, it will not take place. So, forensic auditors have come to train people on how to remove opportunity from the fraud triangle, thereby making it difficult for the manipulation of accounting facts and figures, hence making it difficult for fraud to take place. It is when fraud takes place that EFCC and ICPC go after the people.

    Secondly, I want you to understand that a lot of people who have been involved in high profile cases of fraud all these years have not been brought to book. And the reason is lack of evidence. You can’t prosecute without evidence. But forensic people have come to train people on how to get these pieces of evidence and analyse them. First, you get the evidence, preserve the evidence, then analyse it so that it can be presented in the court of law. That is the work we do. You discover that EFCC and ICPC need us in order to make their work tidy.

    You need an enabling law for legal backing and effectiveness. Now, the CIFIAN Bill has been passed in the Senate, but it is yet to be passed in the House of Representatives. What are your expectations?

    Before I speak on that, I will like to appreciate the Senate for taking the bold step to pass the bill to establish the Chartered Institute of Forensic and investigative Auditors of Nigeria (CIFIAN). They have exhibited a high level of maturity to have passed the bill on the 5th of July, 2018. And immediately, they transmitted the bill to the House of Representatives for concurrence. Now, what we expect the House of Representatives to do is to treat the CIFIAN Bill on its merit and disregard the antics of whoever is against the bill. Our prayer is that the House of Representatives will pass the bill just as the Senate has done. We hope for a speedy concurrence from the House.

    But the President still has to assent it. What assurance do you have that he will do that? He is known to have returned several bills unsigned in the past.

    That may be true, but not a bill like this, because this bill has come to salvage the Nigerian economy from total collapse. If you watch, a lot of people are running outside the country. Our youths are not comfortable in their own country. They are running outside the country to look for greener pastures. This is due to the fact that we have a virtually empty treasury and the government is hampered in its plan to create jobs and employ these people, and that is why the youth are running out.

    Now, if there is a bill that can help government to put money in the treasury to enable the government use it for infrastructural development, if you are the one, you will quickly sign. And we are optimistic that the only problem we have is the House of Representatives. Once they pass this bill, we believe the President will give assent to it. It is only someone who does not have Nigeria’s interest at heart that will talk against this bill, because it has come to give hope to the hopeless. This bill has come to give hope to the future generations. What we are doing now is not for you and I; what we are doing now is for generations unborn. We want to have a platform for them to start from. So, Mr. President would be happy to see this kind of innovation we have brought to the country.

    Would you say that the CIFIAN concept is catching on in the country? How acceptable is the concept right now?

    Read also: Corruption still high despite Buhari’s efforts – SERAP

    As I said, CIFIAN uses forensic audit for prevention of fraud, corruption and cybercrime, and we are aware that government has lost billions of dollars to fraud and cybercrime in recent years. It has even climbed to N25 billion in the past five years. Now that CIFIAN is calling on Nigerians to come for training on the use of forensic and investigative audit for the prevention of fraud, corruption, financial and cybercrime, a lot of people are happy with it, and our name is becoming a household name in Nigeria.

    People are happy and they want this thing to stand, but just one set of people because of that of forensic. They are afraid that if forensic comes, our nakedness will be known and the evil we have done to the financial system in this country will be exposed. That is why they are fighting. If not, majority of people, let me say 90 per cent of Nigerians, are pleased that that innovation is coming to our country. We’re even coming behind. In other parts of the world, they have gone far. By the time forensic comes, let me tell you what will happen: in the office where you work, on the computer system where you work, there are softwares that will be installed. If you come to the office and change 1,000 to 10 million, you will be found out. There is no hiding place. This software will tell who did it, how he did it and which mechanism he used in committing the fraud. The person will be brought to book. All these are the reasons why Nigerians want it, because it will return sanity to our system.

    You mentioned that 25 billion in five years is taken away from the country through fraud and corruption. But we can’t discountenance the banks. Are you collaborating with the banks?

    Well, that will be done as soon as our bill is assented to. You know we have limits now. That’s why we need the law to back us. Without that, we have no muscle and are limited. Immediately it is signed into law, we can collaborate. We have a lot of organisations to collaborate with, but we cannot because the bill is yet to be assented to. My blame now is to the House of Representatives that has delayed our bill for over eight or nine months; a bill that did not take time to pass through the Senate. It has spent nine months (in the House) because of some myopic and parochial-minded people who don’t want forensic audit/investigation to come into the country.

    You said 90 per cent want the bill and now you are talking about parochial and narrow -minded people in opposition. Are there professional bodies against this bill?

    Yes. As you are aware, we have two approved professional accounting bodies—ICAN and ANAN. ANAN is behind us 100 per cent. They came at the hearing and said: ‘We are behind you.’ But ICAN said it is a duplication of functions. But I want to say all that they are saying is not true. They are only being biased. Why? Because forensic and investigative auditing is a current trend in the whole world. It was not there in 1965 when ICAN Bill was passed. It is a current and emerging trend and exists differently from accounting professional bodies in other jurisdictions. So, for them to come and say it is a duplication of duties, and the House of Representatives wants to listen to them, is not right. Because the Act that established ICAN is there for clarification. What the House ought to do is to consult the Act and pass our bill expeditiously.

    Which organisations do you hope to partner with when the bill is assented to?

    The ministries and agencies we are to partner with after our bill is signed include Fiscal Responsibility, Office to the Accountant General of the Federation, ICPC, EFCC, Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, FIRS and Federal Ministry of Justice, amongst others.

    Some people would say you’re angling for something futuristic on this CIFIAN issue. What do you think?

    Yes, of course. What we are looking at in pushing the bill is that we’ve already sat down and analysed what has happened in the past 10 years, what is happening now, and discovered that if we don’t come now and rescue this country, there will be serious problem and we don’t want that to happen. We don’t want our unborn children to come and suffer. If this thing is not done now, in the next 10 years, those who are outside will not like to come back, and those who are here will not want to stay. Everybody will want to run outside the country, then we won’t have a country. In order to have a country, this must be done now to ensure that our economy is secured.

    So, who do you blame?

    All these things happen as a result of aiding and abetting of accountants. Because it is accountants that aided these people to carry away all this money from the government treasury as a result of their insidious accounting practices. That is the reason why we need an independent body to look at what accountants are doing. What has been happening over the years is that accountants will prepare financial statements, check it and audit it all by themselves. There must be checks and balances.

    In accounting, there is what we call checks and balances. Meaning that you who prepared the statement or the voucher should not be the one to check whether the figures are correct. And you who checked should not be the one to audit, because auditors are there to make sure that it complied with rules and regulations.

    As a person, what is your philosophy of life?

    My philosophy of life is that I go for anything that is right, no matter the cost. I pursue it with the whole of my life. I believe in pushing forward in everything I do. For me, it is forward ever, backward never.

    With your busy schedule, writing curriculum and all that, how do you relax?

    I don’t even have time for leisure, because writing is my hobby. But sometimes I take my leave.

    As a pretty and fashionable woman, what dictates your style?

    I am a Christian. And I am not just a church goer, I am a born-again Christian. So, with that, I dress modestly and try not to be extravagant.

    In your anti-fraud campaign, what would you say has been your greatest challenge?

    It is money, because we don’t have subvention from government. So, we may not be able to go where we should go. The protem council members, 14 of us, contribute money from time to time.

  • Our Girls; Adeyanju; AU; corruption; thugs

    Our Chibok Girls were kidnapped on April 15, 2014. Inexplicably our Dapchi girl-child, 15, Leah Sharibu is not released.

    Who is DejiAdeyanju? Google him. Is it true that he is held by an arm of the authorities for 50 days? Can this happen to a human rights activist in 2019 with elections this weekend?

    Our research economists need to get to grips with the need to assess and publicise the cost of corruption in Nigeria. Have you ever thought about the road corruption in Nigeria and its cost in the loss of billions of hours and damage to millions of lives on a daily basis?

    A very simple case study follows…. In 1976 the short-lived but at the time visionary Lagos-Ibadan Expressway brought Lagos closer to Ibadan, just one hour instead of the Sagamu nightmare or having to go through Abeokuta. But it did not last because the road was, through a moral and monetary corruption, allowed to quickly collapse structurally through criminally negligent and prosecutable zero maintenance practices even though huge sums were being raked in from tolls on the users of the deteriorating road.  All this conspired to force traffic jams and new increased time separation of Lagos from Ibadan to 3-12 agonising hours. It took five hours to get to Lagos last Sunday afternoon!!! Corruption driven roads collapse destroying the private and work lives of citizens. Hundreds of kilometres of road, initially corruptly poorly built and corruptly certified by consulting engineers under the thumb of thieving politicians believed to be demanding 30-70% of the contract sums for ‘party purposes’ as good have caused a nationwide collapse of the road network during the last 30 years. Every year we hear of budgets to redo these corruption-driven rubbish roads. No heads ever roll for signing off these badly constructed substandard roads. Just more billions down the drain. Shamefully Nigeria seems permanently retrogressive. The political class has largely led us backwards or in reverse.  The longest lasting roads are those built in the 50s and 60s. We had railways in the 50 and 60s. I was travelling from Ibadan to Zaria in 1969 for NUGA games by train and Lagos-Ibadan in 45minutes on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. Not now. Those roads and railways built in the 70s and beyond just have not lasted because of political myopia, over centralisation, anti-democracy policies and base corruption of political heart and mind.  You know the Romans built roads adding to them annually and they have lasted 2000 years. Nigeria takes forever to build any small rubbish road and spends forever before rehabilitation of the same road just like with its refineries.  The cancer of corruption is in money, maintenance and execution of projects and policies. Meanwhile we rot on the Lagos-Ibadan road, not expressway so long overdue for delivery.  Google China- Pakistan Road to see real roads.

    President Al Sissiof Egypt takes over the African Union chairmanship. This AU Summit seeks cooperation across the board in health care, economic development and progress. NEPAD is changing its name to African Union Development Agency along with other reforms. The AU Free Trade Agreement is moving forward without Nigeria. The AU is seeking increases in education and health budgets to meet UN guidelines of 15% for health and 26% for education to stem the tide of displacement, economic migration and lift millions out of poverty. Did Buhari or Osinbajo attend on behalf of Nigeria or were they on the campaign trail? Charity begins at home, I suppose.

    If you kill someone directly or allow or encourage anyone under your control to kill someone, then you are a murderer and the sentence for murder is life in prison or death. If you kill someone to take political advantages or political power in your village, community or nationally, you are not only a murderer entitled to a death penalty or life imprisonment, but you are also a coup plotter. You are murdering to divert the course of democracy and change the government against the will of the people-a coup by any definition. The punishment for coup plotting is prison or death. Violence, intimidation and bribery are also part of punishable efforts to divert the course of the democratic process -a coup.  The crime of murder is not diluted because it is done in the name of politics. The dead remain dead. The injured remain injured. An orphan status is permanent and made easier because it is the result of political murder.

    Many politicians have been seen with thugs and many citizens have already suffered at their hands. Thugs recruited to divert the course of democracy often become politicians themselves.  Any politician with thugs deserves to be disqualified in a modern ‘free and fair’ electoral process in Nigeria@2019.  Unfortunately idle youth have a job of begging at events and during the political cycle. If not given free money, which some politicians have to steal from the public purse to give to thugs and run campaigns, the thugs quickly resort to rowdiness and the destruction of nearby infrastructure and destabilise the democratic process.

    A free and fair and violence free election is not a Nigerian impossibility but a political developmental necessity. It happened before. You must help. Do not encourage thugs, murder, violence, intimidation and please Vote ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES this Saturday February 16-SDG 16.

  • Why churches must condemn corruption, by Osinbajo

    Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Sunday urged the church to step up its condemnation of corruption and illegally acquired wealth.

    Osinbajo lamented that corruption has been the country’s biggest problem and causes a multitude of child deaths yearly.

    He warned that Christians would fail to positively influence the country unless they unless they committed themselves to living like the biblical salt of the earth.

    Osinbajo was the guest minister at a special service of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG)’s The Open Door Parish, Odogunyan, Ikorodu, Lagos.

    The Vice President’s longtime friend Aina Ololade Salami is the Pastor-in-charge of the parish.

    Speaking on the topic The church and the destiny of the nation, Osinbajo berated Church leaders who, through their teachings, “sometimes give the impression that there is no need for hard work.”

    He urged Christendom to remember the Biblical command for people to pray for their leaders like the Israelites prayed for Esther before she met the Persian King Ahasuerus and saved her people from genocide.

    Osinbajo said: “…I do not hear very often that the church criticises corruption and corrupt people. I don’t hear very often that there is condemnation, because, when you look at it, the greatest problem that our country has is corruption.

    “People stealing directly from the treasury is what exposed in so many cases that there is so much poverty in the land, the leadership stealing directly from the treasury.

    “The greatest cause of death is corruption because when you look at the number of children who die between the ages of zero and five, who should have been provided with medical care and the money has been stolen, some people say oh there are many kidnappings, many this and that, but the greatest cause of death in our country is corruption.

    “If you look at poverty, from 2012, almost 110,000 children die of diarrhea-related illness yearly. Why? The resources that should be used for medical care is stolen.

    “So, if the church does not stand up and condemn corruption, if the church doesn’t say, ‘if we suspect that you this man, you are a public officer but you have money that you shouldn’t have we’ll ostracise you’, then it’ll be difficult for us to play our role.”

    He advised Christians worried by the idea of an Islamist agenda not to be afraid but to dutifully obey the Great Commission in Matthew 28:16-20.

    Osinbajo said: “I was saying to a group of Christian leaders the other day that I as a pastor, long before I was appointed Vice President, I attended the (RCCG) Holy Ghost Service regularly, as a matter of fact before I became Vice President I never missed the Holy Ghost Service once in 15 years, not once. I’ve missed the Holy Ghost Service now maybe once or twice.

    “As Vice President I attend, even in Abuja, all of the (Christian) gatherings and these are big gatherings at the Abuja National Stadium.

    “Even look at the Holy Ghost Night, it’s televised all over the world, I as Vice President am standing there everybody sees me all over the world.

    “I said to the leaders, can you imagine a situation where President Muhammadu Buhari every month, gathers in Sokoto, with hundreds of thousands of Mullahs, what would we say? What would the leaders say? There would be panicking.”

    The Vice President explained he has been able to survive in politics without compromising his religious beliefs by trying to live as salt of the earth.

    He narrated an incident while he was Lagos State Attorney-General when he held a meeting in a room filled with cigarette smoke and how God helped him to understand his role as the biblical salt.

    Osinbajo said: “But, I was so upset by the fact that there was so much smoke and when I was leaving the place my entire body smelled of cigarettes; my hair, my clothes, my entire body.

    “As I was leaving, the first thought I had was that why should I be in the company of these people who are smoking cigarettes and pipes? Why? Is it not wrong? Should I be in their company?

    “After all I’m a Christian, a born again Christian. A pastor. And then the Lord spoke to me: ‘You’re the salt. If you don’t get into the soup, what will happen if you don’t get into the soup?

    “It struck me immediately that my role was not to look condescendingly at what may be the problem.

    “My role was to get involved in it, fight as much as I could with the power and the grace of the almighty God and God enabled us at the time and we were able to do something.”

    Several dignitaries at the service included the Ayangburen of Ikorodu, Oba Kabiru Shotobi; Olubeshe of Ibeshe Oba Richard Abayomi Ogunsanya; member representing Ikorodu federal constituency in the National Assembly, Hon. Jimi Benson and Majority Leader of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Hon. Sanai Bolanle Agunbiade, among others.

  • PDP to Buhari: Your Presidency reeks of corruption

    The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Sunday declared that President Muhammadu Buhari has failed the integrity test and has no moral rectitude to pontificate on corruption.

    The PDP said the President has entangled himself and soiled his administration in corruption.

    In a statement by its spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP said if there is any person whose activities of corruption have become a threat to the coming election, it is President Buhari.

    The main opposition party accused the President of financing his campaign with looted funds, while surrounding himself with politicians indicted for corruption.

    The statement was a reaction to President Buhari’s accusation of corruption against the PDP, particularly with regards to the opposition party’s campaign expenses.

    But the PDP it has all the while refrained from calling out the President on his “various indictments” for corruption, even during his reign as a military ruler.The statement reads, “A clear reading of Mr. President’s statement today shows that he is not yet aware that Nigerians have decoded his mastery of concealments of corruption in his Presidency and are no longer interested in his failed self-acclaimed fight against corruption.

    “President Buhari presides over the most corrupt and incompetent administration in the history of our nation, for which Nigerians are very eager to go to the polls on Saturday to vote him out of office.

    “If Mr. President were to be aware, he would have discovered that his entire surrounding reeks of moral, institutional and integrity corruption.

    “But since he has consistently claimed not to be aware of anything around him, it is imperative to let him know that the fish in his pond is rotten from the head.

    “Clinical examples can be drawn from his campaign council. Nigerians are aware that not a few members of this council have been indicted for malfeasance bordering on corruption

    “Is it not strange therefore that President Buhari who wants Nigerians to perceive his administration as fighting corruption, will cast a net into the ocean and bring out only corrupt people to run his campaign?

    “The truth is that Nigerians have seen more than enough of the fake fight against corruption and have come to a conclusion that President Buhari is merely paying lip services to this fight. He has no intention to do it and even if he had the opportunity to govern perpetually, he will never fight corruption.

    “Rather than seeking for sympathy votes, President Buhari should simply admit his failure in governance and allow Nigerians to build their future by getting our nation working again under the leadership of Atiku Abubakar”.

     

  • Corruption still champion

    In an election year, it is disappointing that the President Muhammadu Buhari administration’s war against corruption has not achieved the expected result after four years.

    Nigeria is still among the world’s most corrupt countries, according to the 2018 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) released by Transparency International (TI) on January 29.   Nigeria ranked 144th, with Kenya, Mauritania, Comoros and Guatemala, out of the 180 countries surveyed and ranked by the Berlin-based anti-corruption group. Nigeria had ranked 148th out of 180 countries in 2017.

    The movement from 148th position to 144th out of 180 countries in 2018 is insignificant. Indeed, the Executive Director of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, an agent of TI in Nigeria, Musa Rafsanjani, observed:  “Nigeria scored 27 out of 100 points in the 2018 CPI, maintaining the same score as in the 2017 CPI.”

    It is remarkable that Buhari, who is campaigning for re-election, rationalised the unremarkable result of his government’s anti-corruption efforts when he met with members of Jigawa State Council of Traditional Rulers at the government house, Dutse, on February 2.

    Buhari said in Hausa: “When I was fighting corruption as head of state, they said I was in a hurry to wipe out corruption in the society, and I ended up in jail for over three years. Now, that due process is being followed in the fight against corruption they are complaining that I’m too slow. Before, they said I was in haste, now they are saying I’m slow even calling me Baba Go Slow. You can see, governing Nigeria needs Gods guidance and payers. Let me assure that I will not relent in the fight against corruption…”

    In other words, Buhari believes the rule of law is ironically responsible for   the alleged slow pace of his government’s war against corruption. But this viewpoint is simplistic.

    Rafsanjani provides insight into why “Nigeria is still perceived as a highly corrupt nation.” He said: “With the inability of the current administration to stop political boycotts of key appointments and pass the much-needed legislation such as the Proceeds of Crime Bill and to implement the recommendations given at the launch of the CPI 2017, it is no wonder that Nigeria’s score in 2018 is no different from the one of 2017.”

    He added, “Public participation and active reporting of corruption is seriously hindered by the absence of the Whistleblower Protection Act that would ensure the protection of the whistle-blowers from dismissals, suspensions, harassment, discrimination or intimidation. Let us be clear, no country can make progress without insider reportage of corruption abuses.”

    Rafsanjani also observed:  “Corruption in the defence and security sector contributes significantly to the human despair and economic stagnation in Nigeria. While the Nigerian defence budget has soared more than 500 per cent in the last 10 years, insecurity and breakdown of the rule of law in some parts of the country continue unabated.”

    In addition, he said: “Despite some indisputable evidence, many corrupt politicians and businessmen and women seem to be above the law. Recent corruption scandals, including the GandujeGate, ShemaGate, DasukiGate, IkoyiGate, among others, have not seen diligent investigations, prosecutions and convictions of these cases and other Politically Exposed Persons. The authorities need to understand that these acts deepen a sense of hopelessness among well-meaning Nigerians.”

    A striking development further highlighted why Nigeria’s war against corruption is unimpressive.  Saturday PUNCH reported that the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) had refused to release copies of asset declaration forms of some prominent Nigerians more than seven days after the newspaper sent a letter of request to the bureau.

    The newspaper said in its February 2 edition: “Relying on the provisions of the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act 2011, Saturday PUNCH  had on January 24 written to the CCB asking for copies of asset declaration forms of the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari; Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha; Minister of Labour, Dr Chris Ngige; Minister of Works, Housing and Power, Babatunde Fashola (SAN); Minister of Communication, Adebayo Shittu; and Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi.”

    Saturday PUNCH  had also sought  from the CCB the declaration forms of  Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed; Minister of Agriculture, Audu Ogbeh; Minister of State for Transportation(Aviation), Hadi Sirika; Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami; Director-General, DSS, Yusuf Bichi; and Finance Minister, Zainab Ahmed.

    The newspaper’s letter contained other requests: “the number and names of political office holders who have yet to fill and submit their asset declaration forms for whatever reasons” and “the number of names of political office holders the Code of Conduct Bureau is investigating over issues relating to asset declaration forms.” In addition, the newspaper asked for the names of political office holders “yet to comply with the bureau’s directive to visit it for verification.”

    It is noteworthy that the FoI Act provides that public institutions must make the information requested available within seven days of receiving the request. The Act also states that failure to give access to the information requested within the time frame provided by the Act is deemed as a refusal of access.

    It is also noteworthy that “eight days after the application was filed and acknowledged by the bureau, the information requested was not made available to Saturday PUNCH, neither was there any written notice to state the reasons for the denial.”

    Not surprisingly, the Buhari administration has been accused of selectiveness in its war against corruption. This may well be yet another reason for the alleged slow progress.

    Rafsanjani argued: “If Nigeria’s democracy is to be the preserved, the origins of huge assets of Nigerian real owners needed be disclosed.” His organisation also attributed the high corruption index in Nigeria to the secrecy in the allocation of oil and gas licences to individuals and companies. He accused the federal government of pretending not to be aware of money-laundering crimes and tax evasion in the country, saying it had failed to investigate and prosecute individuals and companies involved in money laundering and tax evasion.

    Buhari’s selling point hasn’t changed as he seeks re-election. His mantra is still: war against corruption. Will another four years as president make a difference?

  • How to tackle corruption, by lawyer

    A Lagos lawyer, Wahab Shittu, has advocated the establishment of ethical and moral code of conduct for political actors in the country.

    Mr. Shittu, one of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)’s lawyers, said the code of conduct when operational would guide and regulate the affairs of politicians.

    He added that “this will enable them to know what is permissible and what is not permissible.”

    The legal practitioner said this in Offa, Offa Local Government Area of Kwara State at a colloquium organised by a group known as Galaxy Clique Offa.

    The colloquium, which is its second edition, was in memory of the victims of April 5 robbery attacks in Offa.

    The colloquium was entitled “The Lost Concept of Omoluabi in Our society.”

    He said: “We need to re-enact the Omoluabi movement at various levels. We can, from that platform, begin to build political parties and other things. Without that, the society is in serious danger.

    “It is for us to restore core values in our national consciousness as a vehicle for development. The family in our contemporary society is under serious attack. And so the values that we used to cherish before the foundation of the family are increasingly eroding away. And we

    need to do something about it.

    “Before, when you were privileged to be rich, people would want to know the source of your wealth. But today what is important to most people is that you are wealthy. They do not want to bother about the source of your wealth. That is why the society is in serious decline.

    “Again, there is pervasive corruption these days occasioned by indiscipline and absence of core values. There is mismanagement of resources. In summary, we need to re-enact the process of core values.

    “We need to bring back those values so that the foundation of the family can be restored.

    I am suggesting that in the quest to pursue a career, we should not neglect the home. Be it mother or father. If we neglect the home, we will not be able to monitor the activities of our children and inculcate in them those core values. And even at that, we need to introduce civics in our school system so that people will know what is right and what is wrong.”

    He said Nigeria’s craze for money and material things caused the moral degeneracy we are witnessing these days.

    “We got it wrong when we started emphasising the craze for money. Yes, money is very important, but we need to question the source of wealth of an individual.

    It is not just money, we should be more interested in the colour of money.

    “Because of this craze for money, most of our young people are ready to indulge in internet scams and all kinds of rituals alien to our culture,” Shittu said.

     

  • Why we exposed corruption in OML 30 pipeline contract, by firm

    Eraskorp Nigeria Limited (ENL) has said it exposed the controversial re-award of the Trans Forcados Pipeline (TFP) surveillance Contract to Ocean Marine Solutions (OMS) Limited for national interest and its belief in the anti-graft war of President Muhammadu Buhari.

    ENL is an indigenous oil and gas service company providing security for critical production facilities and sundry services.

    In an earlier statement, Eraskorp explained how the Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC) planned to re-award the contract to OMS “in violation of laid-down procurement procedures, and against the counsel of stakeholders in the Oil Mining License (OML) 30, including the JV Partners, Operator, and the 111 communities in the oil field”.

    It exposed the alleged inflation of the contract from $1.5 million per month to $3.69 million, and catalogued alleged non-performance by OMS in the oil industry.

    But OMS denied any wrongdoing, accusing Eraskorp and Shoreline Natural Resources of “smear campaign orchestrated by desperate factions fearful that their lucrative abuse of the TFP will be over if OMS takes over the responsibility for security and surveillance.”

    But Eraskorp said OMS and its owner embarked on a “macabre dance” to “launder their battered image and douse the stench of the raging contract scandal.”

    Eraskorp insisted OMS failed to answer the most critical questions, but instead engaged in “media shadow boxing”

    The firm described as “redundant falsehood”, allegation by OMS that it ”was responsible for the loss of 11 million barrels of oil or $800 million in revenue while it provided security surveillance for OML 30 pipelines.

    “We challenge OMS and their collaborators in NNPC to provide Nigerians with cogent evidence of this spurious claim. The truth is that Eraskorp is not in charge of Operation and Maintenance (O&M) services in OML 30, and a surveillance contractor cannot be held liable for production shut-ins due to technical hitches.

    According to the firm, the questions begging for answers included – how much is NNPC paying OMS monthly to protect Escravos-Warri and Bonny–Port Harcourt, which are non-functional pipelines?

    -How can OMS claim to have eliminated illegal bunkering and oil theft on those lines when refineries are inactive, and crude is not transported through the lines?

    -Why is OMS (with no history of job execution for IOCs) the only company approached by NNPC and invited to “help” with surveillance contracts?

    -Is NNPC’s refusal to follow due process in re-awarding the contract anchored on the knowledge that OMS cannot meet the eligibility criteria for public tender, as provided in the Public Procurement Act (since its directors cannot pass the fit and proper test)?

    -Why is OMS waging a smear campaign against NNPC’s JV Partners in OML 30, on account of the latter’s refusal to sign a contract which makes neither economic nor business sense?

    Eraskorp added that ”since the deal became public, OMS has deployed resources to wage a fierce media campaign to justify a deal perceived as a serious dent on President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-graft war.”

  • Corruption, Nigeria’s lyrical poem

    SIR: Something, we all cannot deny, is the fact that corruption has become a widely recited lyrical poem. To a large extent, it also has shaped the narrative of the Nigerian state, albeit, negatively. It has ‘steadily’ metamorphosed into a hydra-headed monster that seems to be omnipotent, and ruthless.

    There are quite a handful who, ascribe varying connotations to ‘corruption’, as a nomenclature. They say “it is stealing money from government or public coffers; it is giving undue favouritism to ones’ family, cronies and relatives; it is when people are extra-judicially killed by trigger-happy cops, and then, when government officials inflate or over-bloat contracts for their own selfish gain”, among others.

    Corruption, to a section of people, is limited to only public office holders, and perpetrated by members of the executives, legislators, lawyers and judges.

    It needs be said that the misconceptions about corruption has made it difficult to conclude that it is a terrifying cankerworm, which then makes it to be perceived as a non-entity or inconsequential. Hence, the corruption scourge has permeated our schools, critical institutions, centres of worship, various arms of government, and our homes.

    These aforementioned institutions, however, are truly the bedrock of attaining national development in any given society. But their gradual decay, over the years, have stagnated the socio-economic growth of many third world and developing nations.

    It is pertinent to assert that the root of corruption is our homes, and of course parents are to be blamed. Corruption has made vital assessment factors like merit, intellectual capacity, competence, and integrity to be thrown to the dogs in exchange of filthy lucre. This we glaringly see during leadership or job recruitment exercises.

    Persons who are corrupt or are perhaps embodiment of corruption lack a modicum of integrity, dignity and honour. Of course, the woes besetting us as a people are due to the fact that a staggering magnitude of corruption has ravaged the moral fabric of our society. To fight this cantankerous malady demands first, sound child moral upbringing by parents at their homes. Then others, such as capital punishment – may be – for those who pilfer our treasury, and a long jail-term sentence, may also follow. If we truly desire to build a corruption-free Nigeria, then, now is the time to wage a mortal war against this malaise which President Buhari said will kill us, if we don’t kill it.

     

    • Fechi Henry Izumuna,

    Lagos.

  • NGO seeks religious leaders’ support against corruption

    A Non-Governmental Organisation, His Marvelous Grace Support Foundation has appealed to religious organisations to join the ongoing war against corruption.

    Its Founder Oluwadamisi Ladega, insisted that for the fight against corruption to be total and effective, religious leaders must be involved due to their influence in the society.

    Ladega made the call in Lagos at the Launch/Presentation of findings of the African Union Convention for Preventing Combatting Corruption (AUCPCC), organised by Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC).

    She noted that the religious leaders and Community Development Associations (CDAs) are the ones that have the direct link to the grass roots.

    She said: “These set of people have a role to play to fight corruption. When they are involved in the fight, things will be better because they influence the grass roots. Let the churches and mosques begin to talk more about corruption. Let the traditional rulers across each state and the CDA’s come together to sensitise the grass root. As individuals, we need to talk to ourselves to end corruption because the change starts from us. We need transparency; unity, integrity and we need to speak out.”

    Executive Director, Community Women’s Right Foundation, Alhaji Lateef Akinborode, said: “Nigeria has been battling with corruption over the years; it cannot be eradicated in two years. What we need to do is to start educating the younger generation on the need to shun corruption. We should let them know what the law says about corruption and and let the law prevail on all those involved in any form of corrupt practices,” he said.

  • Atiku: corruption has become official policy under Buhari

    PEOPLES Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has said corruption has become official policy under President Muhammadu Buhari.

    Atiku said he was taken aback last when the sacked Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr. David Babachir Lawal, turned up at the Presidential Villa last Thursday, where he was received with pomp and pageantry.

    Lawal was sacked in 2016 for diverting to personal use, funds meant for the feeding and rehabilitation of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Northeast.

    The sacked SGF had on Thursday attended a political event, tagged: ‘Together Nigeria’, which was organised by the Buhari Support Organisation (BSO).

    A statement yesterday by Atiku’s Media Adviser Paul Ibe said it’s a very sad day for Nigeria, when the President honoured a man proven beyond all reasonable doubts to have soiled his hands with money meant for starving IDPs.

    “These are the actions that feed the perceptions that have made Nigeria turn in its worst ever Corruption Perception Index rating by Transparency International, where we went back 12 steps in 2018’s rankings, moving from 136 under President Jonathan to 148 today”, the statement said.

    Quoting the Transparency International, Atiku said Nigeria is more corrupt today than ever before.

    He raised a number of questions for the administration to answer: “Who reinstated and double promoted Maina? Who owns the Ikoyi Apartment $42 million? What has happened to Aisha Buhari’s ADC, who looted N2.5 billion?

    “Why was the $25 billion Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) contracts awarded without due process investigated? Why haven’t those beyond Buhari’s padded budget scandals been sacked or charged to court?

    “When will Babachir Lawal be charged? How come fuel subsidy has doubled even when petrol price has doubled? Why did President Buhari lift the suspension of the corrupt National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) boss, Usman Yusuf, before public pressure forced him to suspend him? Why has he not been charged?

    “In May, Transparency International warned that Buhari had increased Security Vote by 600 per cent, yet our soldiers have no weapons and are killed by terrorists. Where is the money going?

    “In February, Buhari withdrew $1 billion from the Excess Crude Account to ostensibly fund the war on terror, yet the Chief of Army Staff said after Metele that they have no weapons. Where did that money go?”