The Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha; and the Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN), yesterday, lamented that despite concerted efforts by the President Muhammadu Buhari\u2019s led administration to eradicate corruption, the scourge still ravages the country.
\nThe duo among other stakeholders spoke at an event in Abuja where they highlighted steps that needed to be taken to strengthen the government\u2019s anti-corruption agenda.
\nAlso at the event: \u201cOne-day Dialogue Session on Strengthening the Anti-Corruption Agenda: Ensuring Accountability and Transparency,\u201d goodwill messages were delivered on the subject matter by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Anti-corruption and Financial Crimes, Senator Sulieman Kwari; the Director of Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) and organisers of the event, Idayat Hassan and Director, Africa Office, MacArthur Foundation, Kole Shettima, the funding partner.
\nThe SGF, who spoke through the Permanent Secretary, Special Services, Amina Shamaki, disclosed that the Buhari administration had since 2015, recorded \u201cunprecedented level of successes\u201d in the fight against corruption by securing \u201cthe most number of convictions, including very high-profile personalities\u201d and making \u201cworld-record recoveries in terms of money and assets.\u201d
\nHe, however, lamented that despite the successes recorded, the anti-graft war had not been won.
\nHe said: \u201cNonetheless, we should not rest on our oars with the illusion that the war has been won despite the level of the successes I have enumerated.
\n\u201cWhile the fight has been very successful in tackling monumental corruption, less grandeur cases are perceived and even reported.
\n\u201cWhile the government has displayed uncommon courage to relieve its appointees especially, in its agencies, of their positions and responsibilities, there still exist some level of infractions on Public Procurement Act, and other laws. These tend to diminish the efforts of government in this direction.\u201d
\nWhile proffering solution to end the scourge, the SGF expressed the need to bring about \u201cinnovative legislations, policies and measures to deal decisively with the lingering acts of corruption.\u201d
\nIn addition, he posited that the roles of audit departments\/units and auditors in aiding and abetting corruption in ministries, departments and agencies should be addressed.
\nTo this end, he called for the prosecution of auditors who sanction corrupt payments alongside the main culprits in corruption cases.
\nHe added: \u201cI should like to see the Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation come up with innovative policies and measures to empower auditors to halt any payment that is clearly in breach of Public Procurement Act, Financial Regulations, Public Service Rules in particular, and other laws, in general.
\n\u201cFor such auditors that compromise, or are complicit, such policies and measures should isolate them for disciplinary action which should not preclude prosecution.\u201d
\nOn his part, Prof. Itse Sagay noted that the consequence of corrupt acts, included \u201cmassive unemployment, unequipped clinics, and hospitals, wretched schools, colleges, and universities without facilities, bad roads, lack of electric power and so on.
\n\u201cDeaths on the roads, deaths in hospitals, deaths in maternity facilities, militants, kidnappers, armed robbers, murders, suicides are also a direct product of this Nigerian culture,\u201d he added.
\nAs a short-term solution to the corruption problems, Sagay suggested that \u201cthe existing Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit structure be adopted as the centre of Nigeria\u2019s intelligence databank for sharing information and intelligence on corruption.\u201d
\nAdding his voice to the issue, the CDD Director, Hassan, who spoke through the Senior Programme Officer of the organisation, Lukman Adefolahan, also said \u201ca lot more still needs to be done to strengthen the fight against corruption, promote accountability and transparency\u201d, despite \u201cthe great strides\u201d that had been made in the fight against graft.
\n\u201cThese different dimensions of corruption have characterised Nigeria\u2019s landscape and by implication made it be consistently rated among the most corrupt countries in the world by Transparency International in its Corruption Perception Index.\u201d
\nShe accordingly called for \u201cpragmatic measures to curb corruption to safeguard Nigeria\u2019s future given the implication of the problem on security, political, social, and economic prospects of the country.\u201d
\nBut Kwari said the Senate through its committee on Anti-Corruption and Financial Crimes \u201cis also reviewing all the anti-corruption and financial legislations with a view to bringing them in line with current day realities and making them more effective.\u201d
\nMeanwhile, a leading legal practitioner in Nigeria and President of the Caleb and Greg Foundation (CAGG), Olusegun Bamgbose, has said that President Muhammadu Buhari should have nothing doing in the State House, if he can\u2019t tackle poverty.
\nHe called on the President to declare war on poverty and joblessness among the youths in the country.
\nBamgbose had earlier told newsmen that he can fix Nigeria in 24 hours, if he takes over from Buhari in 2023.
\nIn a statement, yesterday, the senior lawyer said, \u201cExtreme poverty in Nigeria is alarming and assuming a new and dangerous trend. Most recently the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq, asserted that 90 million Nigerians are living in extreme poverty.
\n\u201cThis is actually not shocking but a sad one. If these Nigerians were a country, it will be more populous that Germany. It\u2019s really not good news because almost six people in Nigeria fall into poverty trap every minute.
\n\u201cWe, therefore, call on Buhari\u2019s government to declare total war against extreme poverty and go further to declare state of emergency on joblessness in the country. Wars can\u2019t be fought without weapons.
\n\u201cThe weapons should be pragmatic and purposeful programs that will clearly minimize poverty in Nigeria.
\n\u201cThe World Poverty Clock has clearly indicated that if nothing seriously and sustainable is done to curtail poverty, Nigeria might be home to 120 million people living in extreme poverty come 2030.
\n\u201cThis is dreadful. I want to say here with all sense of responsibility that this is certainly not the best of time for President Buhari to be out of the country for more than five days.
\n\u201cThe economic status of Nigeria being the poverty capital of the world must change.
\n\u201cSomething urgent and cogent must be practically done to nip in the bud this perennial problem of poverty, hardship and joblessness.
\n\u201cThe introduction of N-Power is quite good but more is expected from the government to reduce meaningfully the poverty trend in Nigeria.
\n\u201cPoverty and joblessness breed crime and violence. Our youths are finding crime attractive because the jobs are not there.
\n\u201cNo country in the world has ever succeeded in curbing the wave of crime without first tackling poverty headlong.
\n\u201cMahatma Gandhi once said that poverty is the worst form of violence. It\u2019s not in doubt that poverty is a nightmare.
\n\u201cThe government must search for extraordinary ways through which poverty will be minimized if not eradicated.
\n\u201cIt won\u2019t be out of place to come up with a committee with a mandate to come up with blueprints on how jobs can be created and poverty minimized.
\n\u201cIf this government can\u2019t find a way to minimize poverty then the government has failed in its responsibility.
\n\u201cPresident Buhari has nothing doing in State House if he can\u2019t tackle poverty. On our part as Foundation, we shall launch LEAP Community in 2020.
\n\u201cLet\u2019s Eradicate Abject Poverty (LEAP). It\u2019s our expectation that about 25 million Nigerians will be part of the community.
\n\u201cOur main aim is to join forces with the government and stakeholders to eradicate poverty in Nigeria not later than 2030. We, however, expect President Buhari to take the lead in fighting poverty.
\n\u201cOur universities turn out graduates every year but joblessness stares at them. Crime and prostitution are now on the increase as a result of poverty and joblessness. The time to act decisively is now\u201d, he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha; and the Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN), yesterday, lamented that despite concerted efforts by the President Muhammadu Buhari\u2019s led administration to eradicate corruption, the scourge still ravages the country. The duo among other stakeholders spoke at an event in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":219950,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,26],"tags":[688],"class_list":["post-219939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-front-pix","tag-front-pix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=219939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/219950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=219939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=219939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=219939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}