International Anti-Corruption Day: ANEEJ Calls on Buhari to intensify War on Corruption

BENIN-CITY, NIGERIA. December 9, 2021… Anti-Corruption Watchdog, the Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ) has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to carry out a major surgery of his administration’s approach with a view to revving the engines of the war against corruption which it says appears to be losing steam with rising impunity in public sector corruption.

Executive Director of ANEEJ, the Reverend David Ugolor in his message at this year’s International Anti-corruption day 2021 noted that the fight against corruption is one of the present administration’s priorities and noted that even though there have been some successes, a lot still needs to be done to deal with institutional corruption in the public sector, noting that the recent padding of 2022 budgets by some Ministries, Departments and Agencies as exposed by ICPC raises a red flag.

Harping on this year’s theme “Your right, your role: say no to corruption,” Ugolor said there was an urgent need to revisit the rights and responsibility of every individual stakeholder in tackling corruption as the Nation’s Anti-Corruption Strategy which guides stakeholders’ participation expired on July 5 this year and urged the federal government to put a machinery in motion to review the expired strategy without any further delay.

“The review should commence now so that stakeholders can come together to carry out a SWAT analysis of what has worked and what has not worked well in the nation’s anti-corruption strategy and see what new measures can be introduced.” Ugolor suggested.

ANEEJ noted that there have been some wins in the war, particularly in the area of asset recovery and management as well as identification, arrest and prosecution of suspects and pointed that a lot still needs to be done by all stakeholders.

He called on Civil Society colleagues working in the sector to ratchet up efforts at deepening advocacy for good governance across all strata of governance in the country, pointing that corruption has remained a major obstacle to the nation’s development in spite of stakeholders’ efforts thus far, noting that the war cannot be fought by government alone.

“As Civil Society, we must close ranks, build alliances at this time in our history as a nation to join forces with government to combat graft. Poverty is worsening and insecurity is growing all of which are traceable to the plundering of the nation’s resources over the years since independence and the current generation has a duty to ensure a reversal of the status quo for the benefit of the upcoming generation,” Ugolor said.

“The private sector also has their roles to play. Even ordinary citizens need to play their roles by saying no to corruption in their own little conners. We must kick petty corruption out of Nigeria, because any man who goes to equity much show up with clean hands” the anti-corruption expert emphasised.

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