Since the inception of a democratic government in 1999, the Nigerian government has made fighting corruption one of her major aims and part of the vital aspect of the government, even though this fight transcends the democratic government into the military dictatorship’s era, we’ll confine ourselves to the government under a democracy.
The fight against corruption has always been an acclaimed part of each of the past administration. Still, it has seen its most massive publicity under this current administration as it was made one of their key campaign promises during the elections.
The APC and President Buhari led administration promised to get rid of corruption in the country, what we’re yet to be sure about is if this fight against corruption doesn’t extend to the government and the people in it.
Despite the acclaimed fight against corruption by this present administration, the country has been hit by some of the worst corruption allegations the country has ever seen right under this administration, with the height of it being the allegations and probe of the head of the EFCC, an agency responsible for being in the forefront of the fight against corruption in Nigeria.
What is the essence of creating a whole agency to management recovered looted assets when we already have multiple agencies in the country responsible for the fight against corruption?
What are the responsibilities of the EFCC, what is that of the ICPC? Can the federal government explain to us why holding the recovered asset is such a peculiar responsibility that a whole agency is needed to be set up for this act to be adequately performed?
What exactly is this new agency set out to do if not just a mere waste of resources and creating a new avenue for more corrupt individuals to cart away with the resources that are meant to be used by the country on more important issues?
What can be said to be so peculiar in holding of assets that a department cannot be created in any of the agencies having those assets to oversee them? Why does this insignificant function require the creation of a whole agency to be handled?
This same administration has been saying they’re trying to cut down on the cost of running the government and cut out waste; they’re the same administrations that are about to waste more resources of the country by duplicating agencies and their responsibilities.
In the memo presented by the Federal Ministry of Justice to the Council to be transmitted to the National Assembly, part of it read;
“It is, in essence, a bill that is targeted and intended to have in place a legal and institutional framework. The legal component of it is having a law and the institutional component of it is to have an agency that will be saddled with the responsibility of managing the assets that constitute the proceeds of crime in Nigeria.”
The problem with this framework is simply that it is the duplicity of function, we already have these agencies all over the country handling corruptions, crimes, recovering and preserving the assets recovered, in a system, where the government now operates a single central account, creating an agency for the sole purpose of managing assets recovered from crime is a waste of resource.
There is no doubt that this is another avenue meant to foster corruption is this administration, the police are expected to hand over seized vehicles to another agency, I wondered what purpose the impound yard of the police would now serve, the EFCC is expected to hand over recovered money to another agency before it can be reported to the government, of course, the process makes it easier for more money to be mismanaged as investigation would become harder in this process.
This is not a fight against corruption; it is merely another mode of creating jobs for corrupt individuals.
