Rights Group Wants President Buhari to Purge Government Of Alleged Drug Barons, Fraudsters
Applauding the chairman, Chief Executive officer of the nation’s anti-corruption institution the Independent Corrupt Practices Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Professor Bolaji Owasanoye for calling a spade by its name in his confirmation of a significant presence of drug traffickers and fraudsters as federal appointees in Nigeria, the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration has been asked to sweep the dirty officials off their positions.
Rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) made the call, stating that presently, it has huge volume of evidence of falsification of ages, wrongful employments and theft of public fund tearing apart a big agency of the Federal ministry of Information and Culture just as the group said it will soon name and shame the alleged corrupt Director General who enjoys ‘immunity’ from the cabinet level minister.
“We found a huge volume of corruption going on in a particular agency of the Federal ministry of Culrure and Tourism in which the Director General and the directors have connived to carry out grandstand heists of public funds and are engaged in fraudulent recruitment’s including offering positions to person who are not qualified on the ground of nepotism.”
This was contained in a statement issued by the National Coordinator of HURIWA, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko.
HURIWA lamented that “several government institutions under the current dispensation are governed by rogues with no moral qualms and persons who believe that they are holding public offices to milk the system dry.
“It is so unfortunate that President Muhammadu Buhari is now being accused of nominating drug barons and fraudsters for public offices and this goes a long way to depict the kind of government that is in place.
“We are challenging President Muhammadu Buhari to name all those indicted persons who were smuggled into public offices because the continued stay of these persons of questionable character will endanger the ability of government to implement policies and programmes that are tailored towards scaling up good governance, transparency and accountability in Nigeria”, the rights group said.
HURIWA recalled that the chief executive of ICPC pointedly disclosed that many of the appointees nominated by President Muhammadu Buhari’s regime are individuals of shady characters, ICPC Chairman Bolaji Owasanoye has revealed.
HURIWA quoting the NewsAgency of government stated that Mr Owasanoye disclosed that many of the regime’s “prospective appointees” were not fit for purpose because of their crisis of credibility ranging from financial impropriety and abuse of hard drugs to failing code of conduct standards.
The ICPC chair stated this in Abuja at the annual ceremony of the ‘4th National Summit on Diminishing Corruption in the Public Sector’.
“As part of the efforts to sanitise the public service and upscale integrity, the commission has been collaborating with the OHCSF to flush out fake appointments and screen candidates for appointment to the position of permanent secretaries, amongst other initiatives,” Mr Owasanoye explained.
He added, “The findings thus far indicate that many prospective appointees are implicated in financial impropriety, corrupt practice, failure of code of conduct standards and substance abuse.”
According to him, the commission, in collaboration with the Budget Office and stakeholders, met with some MDAs on the recurring surpluses in their payroll to determine proactive measures to improve the budget process and separate outright fraud from administrative lapses.
Regarding corruption in the education sector, he explained that ICPC reviewed special funds meant to improve education, such as UBEC and TETFUND, which revealed continued abuses, breaches of procurement standards, and compromise of statutory mandates.
He added that a system study and review on SUBEB in six states from 2019 to 2020 revealed that the intention of UBE law to support states to improve basic education was frustrated by a lack of commitment by governors in not providing matching grants, amongst other defaults.
“The capacity and commitment of states and tertiary institutions to access UBE fund and TETFUND respectively as anticipated by law remain highly questionable,” said the ICPC chief. “In support of the government’s effort to improve revenue generation, the commission continues to investigate the diversion of tax and other statutory revenues as part of routine investigation and has recovered N1.264 billion this fiscal year.”
Speaking on this ground breaking allegations made by someone who should know in the current administration, HURIWA charged President Muhammadu Buhari to expose all his appointees implicated in those shaddy deals if the president ever hopes to receive favorable assessment when the time comes for his legacies to be cross examined by political historians.
