The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, weekend, said former President Muhammadu Buhari may not have established legacy anti-corruption institutions, but showed the need to fight graft.
Executive Chairman of the EFCC, Mr Ola Olukoyede, said anti-corruption was one of three pillars of the Buhari administration, saying the former president showed it by establishing a Presidential Advisory Committee against Corruption and designing a national anti-corruption strategy for the country.
Olukoyede stated this during a lecture titled: ‘Navigating the Nexus of Anti-Corruption and Good Governance in Nigeria: Striking a Balance for Economic, Social and Environmental Justice,’ held at the 20th anniversary of Human and Environmental Development Agenda, HEDA Resource Centre, in Lagos.
He stressed that countries that desire good governance invest in anti-corruption by building institutions, processes and systems that make corruption less attractive.
For him, it was not until the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo that Nigeria truly began to fight corruption in a predictable, formal and sustainable manner.
He said: “The point of departure for the administration was that, unlike others before it, it went beyond tokenism in establishing institutions that are today the backbone of the anti-graft war. The administration of late Umaru Yar Adua, Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari may not have established legacy anti-corruption institutions, but they all emphasised the need to fight corruption.
“Indeed anti- anti-corruption was one of three pillars of the Buhari administration which established a Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption and went ahead to design a National Anti-corruption Strategy for Nigeria.”
Also speaking, Chairman of HEDA, Mr Olanrewaju Suraju, said HEDA will continue to play a facilitating role until Nigeria gets to the promised land.
He said: “It has been a very long battle and the only thing we can pledge at this point is to continue to play the facilitating role. We don’t have the capacity to change things, we can only influence the process for the duty bearers to discharge their duties and for the right bearers to claim their rights.
“It is more for Nigerians actually to take destinies into their hands. Interestingly, we have a very challenging situation and that is where we would want to see that things can possibly change. We need an effective policing with a system built on integrity. Also, the judiciary is not acting as the last hope of the common man. Without these things in place, there can never be progress. Unfortunately we have been dealing with that of the police, but we are also moving to that of the judiciary. If you see what have been coming out from the judicial pronouncements recently with respect to people charged with corruption, we might be having futile efforts.”
On his part, Executive Secretary of HEDA, Mr Sulaimon Arigbabu, said: “We are 20 and one of the things we have done is to promote investigative journalism. Even though we are not a media organisation, we realise that we cannot achieve anything without having the media fully onboard.
“One of the gap areas we find is that sometimes there is an inadequacy in the understanding of certain areas, especially when it comes to public accountability and anti-corruption. However, we find a way to bring global resources that are available through some of our partners to build capacity with the media because we think the media is critical in the fight against corruption and cannot be underestimated.”
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