Prominent civil rights advocacy group, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has carpeted the chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Offences Commission (ICPC), Adamu Aliyu, for saying that Nigerians are suffering due to corruption. The rights group said it is wrong to justify the economic hardship based on this puerile perspective when it is unambiguously factual that the institutional compromises of the anti-graft agencies, created opportunities for grandscale corruption by successive government officials.

“Reading the bland and very tepid submission of the head of ICPC on the cause of the massive economic crisis confronting Nigerians most of whom are starving to near-death, that says that Nigerians are suffering because of corruption, that statement is diversionary and incomplete. That statement did not apportioned the blame appropriately to the Government officials including the successive presidents and the current holder of office of president, but tries to blame Nigerians for these government imposed economic difficulties. The truth is that, the ICPC and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission were established many years ago by then president Olusegun Obasanjo, but due to compromises and leadership failures within these two anti-corruption bodies, successive government officials have continued to swim in massive and unmitigated corruption with little or nothing being done to ensure that corrupt government officials are sent swiftly to prisons for their crimes against humanity. The troubled implementation of fuel subsidy which was overwhelmed by corruption was made a reason for the current hike in fuel price, but the truth is that both the EFCC and ICPC were in communion with the government officials that siphoned money meant for the subsidy,” HURIWA said.

HURIWA through its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, submitted that “the ICPC chairman left many things to the imagination because he deliberately failed to call a spade by its name by not mentioning that successive governments since 1999 but more particularly the immediate past government of Muhammadu Buhari and the current administration brought about the economic problems through a cocktail of corrupt enrichment with public funds and poor economic policies.”

The rights group said failures of ICPC and EFCC to tackle corruption due to political interference and lack of independence of the anti-graft system, compounded the economic adversities and so the ICPC chairman should be sincere with his assessment on the ongoing hardships.

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