Muslim Media Watch Group of Nigeria, MMWG has expressed dissatisfaction over alleged politicisation of the anti-corruption fight of President Muhammadu Buhari administration by some politicians and therefore urged them to desist from such attitude.
In a statement issued on Monday, the National Coordinator of the group, Alhaji Ibrahim Abdullahi, particularly called on the politicians “not to destroy this country by politicising criminal offences, but to rise-up to the challenge posed by corruption and join the effort to nip-in-the-bud the cankerworm – called corruption”.
He stated: “Record shows the recovery of over N800 billion looted funds recovered by this administration through the nation’s anti-graft agencies in the last 43 months (three years and seven months) including last week’s forfeited N1billion from the wife an immediate-past President of Nigeria – Dr. Goodluck Jonathan as directed by the court of law of Nigeria.
“There are over 400 landed properties seized from former political office-holders and their allies, having been traced and endorsed as illegally acquired properties by several courts of law, in addition to 427 automobiles discovered to be illicitly acquired properties.
“It is therefore inimical to nation’s progress to trivialise such unprecedented record of achievements in the history of the nation’s anti-corruption fight”.
Abdullahi added that politicians should endeavour to dissociate themselves from the ongoing trial of the suspended Chief Justice of Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Justice Walter Onnoghen at the Code of Conduct Tribunal, CCT, “for whatever pecuniary interest”.
He commended President Buhari “for bringing sanity to our economic process through the anti-corruption fight which obviously has turned to hardship for the looters and their collaborators”.
“We also urge him (Buhari) to address squarely some uninvestigated cases of corruption and those investigated but abandoned for certain interests which might not be known to him.
“A typical example is that of Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Company (NBET) which is believed to be ‘swept under the carpet’ by some public officials. We are aware that EFCC, ICPC, PACAC and the IGP are aware of this matter officially since last year.
“The failure of the anti-graft agencies to act decisively made the affected MD/CEO of NBET to now descend heavily on the officers of the Company protecting the Nation’s interest by exposing the scam
“She has sacked unlawfully some of them who belong to the Management. This is believed to be illegal as only the Board of the Company can sack anyone in line with the Act setting-up the Company. She had earlier refused them salaries for more than one-year, which is not known to any law.
“This is one of the rots being pointed to in the federal agencies that must be urgently addressed. The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF are aware of this issue”, Abdullahi stressed.
