By - Shehu Bello-Olayinka

The United States of America has assured Nigeria of its commitment in assisting in the recovery of stolen assets taken out of the country by corrupt officials.

The U.S. Charge’ d’ Affairs, David Young, said this during the Wednesday launch of the US funded anti-corruption web-based platform, in partnership with religious leaders and Budgit, “Report Yourself” that leverage citizen engagement to fight corruption.

According to him, “Nigeria is the single most important strategic partner of the United States in Africa and in other to successfully further our shared goals, the US mission in Nigeria, has made combating corruption a central priorities and which is why the United States remains committed to assisting Nigeria recover stolen assets by corrupt officials” he said.

“Corruption leads to poverty and injustice as it harms millions of Nigerians and is what this platform seek to address”.

On the website initiative, Young said it seek to empower the people in fight against corruption.

“I hope that the Report Yourself starts a new movement in citizen engagement and I hope every Nigerians who is affected by corruption will feel empowered to share their experiences. The tide will turn against the culture of corruption when Nigerians recognize that they must fight as one to stamp out this scourge that has hampered development and stifled prosperity” he said.

“Nigerians should make use of this platform and use it to fight against corruption faced by millions”.

He also said his country State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, are working to increase the capacity of Nigerian Law enforcement agencies and agencies throughout justice sector.

The manager for operations, Budgit, Stanley Achonu said Nigerians must now come together to fight corruption.

“Nigerians need to start coming together to fight corruption. Everyone must be included in fight against corruption and which is the reason why we have included the Religious Leaders in this fight” he said.

The Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idriss, represented by the Head of Public Complaint Rapid Response Unit, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Abayomi Shogunle in his remark said the force has already begun ridding the Nigeria police of corrupt officers.

According to him, “in November 2015, we set community police report where members of the public can get across to us any unprofessional activities of the police. We have also created seven channels through which the members of the public can report to us any issue with a police officer and also have begun keying into the change begin with me” he said.

“we have different platforms where we can be reached by the public for reporting misconduct of any police officer. And you can see that it is yielding result with what those two different cases of police officers dismissed in last couple of months.

“Our platforms are available 24/7 and the IGP is not resting about this and want to flush out corrupt officers from the Nigerian Police force”

Bishop Emmanuel Isong, member of the steering committee of Religious Leaders Anti-corruption, RLAC, in his remark said religious leaders need to start speaking up against corruption.

According to him, “it is a platform we have been working with other religious leaders. We want to thank everyone for this and as a religious leaders we need to speak out against corruption. It is not part of us and we need to also know that” he said.

Iman Shefiu, also a member of the steering committee of RLAC, said the idea is to fight against corruption.

“we are fighting against the Satan that is killing Nigeria. On this, we are also working with some NGOs to fight against corruption in Nigeria and for us to fight against corruption in Nigeria, we must report it” he said.

“we will be going round religious places on how they can use the platform. We will be educating the people and we also be linking up against all the security operatives in Nigeria”.

The Report Yourself website, offers Nigerians the means to instantaneously report corruption, bribery and graft with the option of filing an official complaint with the Nigerian Police Force Public Complaints Rapid Response Unit.


http://thebelltimes.com/us-assures-nigeria-commitment-recovering-stolen-assets-corrupt-officials/

We just need one favor from them, just one favor that will make 160 million Nigerians happy.., let them help us And kill that Stupid Dog lying in thier place der called Buhari.