Coalition of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) working in Nigeria on Tuesday called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu not to appoint anyone having any corruption-related allegations into his cabinet.

The CSOs’ clarion call is coming barely days after the appointment of 20 advisers and less than 24 hours to the appointment of Service Chiefs and dissolution of board of government agencies and parastatals.

Speaking during a press conference in Abuja, the CSOs Spokesman, Auwal Ibrahim Musa (Rafisajani) alleged that “Unlike President Muhammadu Buhari, the newly sworn-in President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu does not seem to have the issue of anti-corruption as a priority on his agenda, despite the fact that corruption has eaten deeper into every sector of our society and is crippling the country like an epidemic.”

According to him, “From his campaigns to his manifesto, the President has not shown to Nigerians his anti-corruption agenda and clear plans on how his administration intends to fight corruption.”

He however urged Tinubu to publicly and immediately declare commitment to the fight against corruption with a view to give confidence to Nigerians and international community as well as investors, that “his government is not going to be populated with crooks, criminals and people with allegations of corruption and people who have bought their ways and capture power for personal use.”

Mr Rafisajani who doubles as Head of Transparency International – Nigeria and Executive Director of Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Center (CISLAC), maintained that “President Bola Tinubu should declare serious commitment and action, it’s not just to make the talk but to follow it with action.

“And this includes ensuring that people with corruption allegations, people that are under investigation are not even considered for any appointments. If he does that, he’s going to send a wrong signal to the international community and to Nigerians that the business (of corruption) will go as usual.”

While noting that Nigeria is rated as the most corrupt country in West Africa, alongside Guinea Bissau, he maintained that corruption has undermined our value system, integrity and rule of law.

The CSOs also warned members of the 10th National Assembly to shun all forms of corruption tendencies during the oversight functions of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in the cause of carrying out their legislative activities.

He said: “We have seen so many disregards of freedom of information requests from Nigerians we must ensure that we implement freedom of information law in order to create an enabling environment for Nigerians. If you refuse to disclose information you are going to give room to fake news, you are going to give room for disinformation, you are going to actually mislead the public because if you refuse o give them authentic and authoritative official information, they will have no option than to go and making stories from wherever they could. So, it is in the interest of government to ensure that Freedom of Information requests are granted.”

He also urged President Tinubu’s administration on the need to fully implement “key policies such as Whistleblowing policy, Voluntary Offshore Assets Regularization Scheme (VOARS), Treasury Single Account (TSA), Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme (VAIDS), and others.

“The government claims an overwhelming success of these policies. For example, the Whistleblowing policy allegedly led to the recovery of 7.8 billion Naira ($25 million) $378 million and £27.800 between November 2016 and 2018 according to the government figures. However, independent verification of the volume of recovered assets is not available. The end use and/or compensations of the recovered proceeds, especially in cases of immovable and perishable assets are largely not traceable.

“Asset recovery has clearly high-level political support of the immediate past administration. However, even with a legal framework now in place, the low level of coordination of domestic stakeholders and lack of implementation of key guidelines on the management of recovered assets may adversely affect international and domestic asset recovery efforts.

“The Pandora Papers project exposed some former and current Nigerian public office holders as having secret and suspicious assets kept away in tax havens. This triggered calls by Nigerians for further investigation and prosecution of the individuals who have allegedly breached the country’s assets declaration laws and tax regulations.

“But, like in the case of the previous Panama Papers which, six years ago, uncovered 110 Nigerians holding suspicious assets in tax havens, no politically exposed person (PEP) has been sanctioned or has vacated office due to the revelations despite actionable intelligence.

“Unlike Nigeria, public officials indicted in countries like India, Canada and Iceland were probed, relieved of their positions, or resigned from office.

“Pandora Papers is the latest in a series of mass leaks by journalists across the world; from Luxleaks (2014) to Panama Papers (2016). They were followed by the Paradise Papers (2017) and FinCEN Files (2020).

“President Muhammadu Buhari, in the wake of the Pandora Papers revelations, reportedly ordered the relevant agencies including the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), and the CCB to investigate the named Nigerians suspected to have violated the law with their secret assets,” he added. (Nigerian Tribune)

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