₦airaland Forum

Senate President Ahmad Lawan has said those insinuating that graft and corrupt tendencies are more prevalent under the Muhammadu Buhari administration are being political and petty.

Lawan said this on Monday while addressing State House Correspondents after the second National Summit on Diminishing Corruption and launch of the National Ethics and Integrity Policy by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).

The Senate President noted that when prosecution of a case of corrupt practice drags into years, such is an indication that something is wrong and a tacit support for corruption.

According to him, no government in the history of Nigeria has hinged its campaigns on fighting corruption like the present administration.

Lawan said: “I don’t know who they are and I don’t know what their facts are. But I will not speak to speculations; I speak to facts. I want to see the facts that there’s more corruption in this administration than the previous administrations.

“You will recall that in a particular former administration, we know that somebody once said that what people accused the government of corruption was simple stealing. This administration does not see anything that appears like corruption or thievery and leaves it untreated. So, I believe it depends on who is talking.

“If you have an opposition, it is likely the opposition will tell you there’s so much ‘persecution’ of the opposition, that there’s so much corruption in this administration than the previous one. But we know the previous administrations.

“Let me be a bit more decent and may be non-political. But I want to tell you that this administration has done so well because we campaigned on the basis of three pillars of anti-corruption, the fight against insurgency and insecurity across the country and the revitalisation of our economy.

“So, no administration or political party, in the history of Nigeria that fought its campaigns on the basis of fighting corruption in Nigeria. In fact, there were administrations that never mentioned corruption in their entire tenure.

“This administration has stood firmly, trying to fight corruption, and I want to believe that those who are saying there’s more corruption in Nigeria today than before are simply trying to be partisan or petty.”

The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) said it had discovered N2.67 billion of funds meant for feeding in some schools, stashed away in some private bank accounts.

The anti-corruption agency disclosed this on Monday during its 2nd National Summit on Diminishing Corruption and launch of the National Ethics and Integrity Policy at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

Chairman of the ICPC, Professor Bolaji Owasanoye, explained the money was meant for some Federal Colleges during the COVID-19 lockdown.

He said further the Commission also discovered over N2.5 billion appropriated by a deceased senior civil servant in Ministry of Agriculture for himself and cronies, listing other assets recovered in the Ministry Agriculture to include 18 buildings, 12 business premises and 25 plots of land.

He said under Open Treasury Portal review carried out between January to August 15, 2020, out of 268 Ministries, Departments and Agendas (MDAs) 72 of them had cumulative infractions of N90 million. He said while 33 MDAs tendered explanations that N4.1 billion was transferred to sub-TSA, N4.2 billion paid to individuals had no satisfactory explanations.

According to Owasanoye: “We observed transfers to sub-TSA were to prevent disbursement from being monitored. Nevertheless, we discovered payments to some federal colleges for school feeding in the sum of N2.67 billion during lockdown when the children are not in school, and some of the money ended up in personal accounts. We have commenced investigations into these finding.”

The ICPC chairman also said under its 2020 constituency and executive projects tracking initiative, 722 projects with a threshold of N100 million (490 ZiP and 232 executive) were tracked across 16 states.

The ICPC chairman said in education sector, 78 MDAs were reviewed and common cases of misuse of funds were uncovered.

Some of the discoveries include life payment of bulk sums to individuals/staff accounts, including project funds; non-deductions/remittance of taxes and IGR; payments of unapproved allowances, bulk payment to micro finance banks, payment of arrears of salary and other allowances of previous years from 2020 budget, payment of salary advance to staff, under-deduction of PAYE and payment of promotion arrears due to surplus in Personnel Cost, abuse and granting of cash advances above the approved threshold and irregular payment of allowances to principal officers.

On asset recovery, Owasanoye said the commission recovered N16 billion from Ministry of Agriculture paid into individual accounts for non-official purposes.

He said: “We have restrained or recovered by administrative or court interim and final orders assets above N3 billion, facilitated recovery of $173,000 by the whistle blower unit of FMFB&P from an erring oil company, retrained £160,000 in a UK-bank in an ongoing interim forfeiture. These figures exclude quantum of recoveries on return or contractors to site as a result of projects tracking initiatives.

“It should however be noted that some of these assets are subjected to ongoing cases and where suspects proved their cases physical or liquid assets will be released in accordance with laid down laws, guidelines or court directives.”

Romanoff:
If e pain you, take panadol. I said what I said.

Having big breasts, big butt and a fine face does not mean you shouldn't have more to offer.

Romanoff:
Asides her breasts, there was really nothing more to her. Nengi is more intelligent but Nengi's bimbo appearance sold her short.

I watched this show for the first time and I'm glad the right person won.

10mobile:
We pray the meeting yields positive results. Let them not accept brown envelopes though and come back and begin to double-talk.

SmartProf:
The Calibre of guests in the video can never agree with you that the current price of foodstuffs in the market has gone up. In Nigeria, once a govt favours you, and you are in the first team of those whose titles begins with 'Your Excellency', what you do is to observe table manners (don't criticize while eating), get your share of the super palliatives, organize your glamorous events within that period, and bolt out after the final whistle of that tenure has been blown. In this country, the gap between the rich and the poor will continue to be wide. That's why the poor recieve ludo to vote while the rich are escorted with a presidential jet just to tell a lady 'I love you, pls follow me home'...Congrats to the couple for having such a beautiful event...It is what it is.

Ajibel:
LaShatap, why not snap pictures of the dirty and traffic ridden places abi you no get phone to do am ni

helinues:
Chai,this people have finally resorted to be second fiddle for life..

Too bad