The Federal Government is set to overhaul the mechanisms for implementing the ongoing war against corruption.

The move is to achieve better results and nationwide acceptability of the war against corruption.

The new phase of the crusade will involve a stick and carrot approach, says the Acting President Yemi Osinbajo.

Osinbajo however cautioned Nigerians against unhelpful finger-pointing in the war against graft because “all arms and tiers of government are complicit.”

Similarly, the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen, has warned against destroying the country’s judiciary in the process of fighting sleaze because not every judicial officer is corrupt.

The Senate President Bukola Saraki also advised the relevant authorities against making the anti-corruption war a oneman show. He suggested that every department of government should be allowed to exercise its jurisdiction and mandate.

They spoke on Thursday at the National Dialogue on Corruption organised by the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC) at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Osinbajo, who said that he was representing President Muhammadu Buhari because the event was originally designed to have him in attendance, pointed out that corruption cannot be wished away as concrete preventive and punitive measures must be in place to stop the menace.

The Acting President highlighted the Lagos State government model of fighting corruption in the judiciary which he initiated when he was the state’s Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice.

Osinbajo asserted that “there’s nobody in our nation that can say they are not in one way or the other, not necessarily being complicit but at least, under some influence or the other of some of the implications of corruption.”

“So, I think we should leave the finger-pointing, because it is unhelpful. What is important is that we recognise that there is a major problem here.

“The truth of the matter is that there is nothing peculiar about the Nigerian citizen, or the Nigerian type. Corruption thrives where it is allowed to thrive and there are many societies that have found themselves in worse circumstances than Nigeria and have somehow managed to solve their problems.”

The Acting President declared that adopting best practices like he did while he was the Attorney-General of Lagos State can effectively combat graft.

He recalled how he checked corruption in the Lagos judiciary by improving judges’ welfare and salaries and sacking/punishing compromised judicial officers.

“The bottom line is that we can’t just hope that corruption will stop. Efforts must be made to punish wrongdoing,” he stated in apparent response to Onnoghen’s earlier remarks that fighting corruption in the judiciary can be done better than the current administration is doing.

Osinbajo proffered some solutions which include ensuring the integrity of the entire justice system, such as how judges, lawyers, clerks are appointed.

“Not on man-know-man basis. Aside from the Department of State Services (DSS) investigation, there should be particular test and proper investigation of candidates to be appointed as judges.”

He added: “The second thing is to look at the general welfare of the judges (i.e. the general remuneration of judicial officers).

In his speech, Saraki kicked against the situation where the National Assembly is being painted as a den of corruption and condemned last year’s raid by the DSS on senior judges’ residences.

His goodwill message was delivered by Senator Chukwuka Utazi.

According to him, “Deliberately casting the fight as that of one man, a kind of knight in shining armour, who wrestles with a resisting society, in my humble view, will not secure the desired result.”

“Certain government agencies and civil society bodies (and PACAC is not innocent of this), have formed the habit of making a scapegoat of the National Assembly as a den of corruption.”

“They deliberately cast institutions of state in unsalutory hue that is divorced from reality. It does not help in confidence building, within government and across the civil population, when institutions of state are deliberately demonised in order to put the shine on others,” Saraki stated.

In his remarks, Onnoghen lamented how the Nigerian judiciary has been demonised because “it is unfairly perceived as an epitome of corruption whereas all other tiers and arms of government are equally complicit.”

Stressing that he did not intend to make excuses for bad eggs, the CJN argued that there are still many gentlemen as judicial officials who should be given the benefit of doubt by reporting allegations against them to appropriate quarters for investigation and possible sanction instead of clamping down on them in brazenly illegal and unfair manner.

Onnoghen declared that while the judiciary remains committed to and supports government’s efforts at curbing corruption, the efforts would fare better if government also tackles the culture of impunity and adhere to the rule of law.

The Chairman of PACAC, Prof. Itsa Sagay, condemned the recent public protests against the Muhammadu Buhari’s government, even as he lampooned the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and the Nigeria Customs Service for engaging in corrupt practices.

According to him, “These groups consisting of rented characters, and those who have lost elections or whose federal appointments were not renewed; went about pretending that they don’t know those responsible for our catastrophic impoverishment.

“These characters belong to two groups: Those who are agents of the looters, 2010 to 2015, and want to divert the attention of the ordinary Nigerians from the true culprits of our recession and misery, by transferring it to a hardworking, selfless administration which met sand rather than cash in our treasuries.

“The second group are the naïve, unthinking ones who cannot make the slightest connection between cause and effect.”

Decrying the request for more funds by the Managing Director of NDDC, Sagay said: “The NDDC is still buying cars costing N78 million per unit for its officials. What sort of crocodile tears was the MD shedding? Eating the resources and future of the Niger Delta and shedding tears for the same Niger Delta?”

Sagay accused the Customs of still demanding for and collecting bribes to clear goods at the ports.

In a reaction, the Management of the NDDC said that it was not true that that the commission bought over 70 cars that included eight Super Lexus that cost N70 million each and 10 Toyota Land Cruiser Jeeps at N65 million each.

The NDDC’s Head of Corporate Affairs, Chijioke Amu Nnadi, in a statement he issued in Port Harcourt, said that no such purchases had been made since the assumption of office on November 4, 2016 of the current Governing Board.

He said that the NDDC’s Chairman, Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba (SAN), the Managing Director/CEO, Nsima Ekere, and the two Executive Directors are still using their private vehicles three months after assumption of duties.

Nnadi further explained that the commission is only now in the process of acquiring work vehicles – and is adhering to due process.

•Sourced from The AUTHORITY.

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