Chairman, Media Committee, OneVoice Coalition, Pastor Adedeji Adeleye has described tne corruption war embarked upon by the present administration since its inception as unsuccessful especially because up till date, no high profile conviction has been achieved and a good number of individuals that should be facing the law for allegations of corruption are the President’s henchmen.
He noted this during his paper presentation at a media parley organised by OneVoice Coalition held at the Centre for Constitutional Governance, Lagos and with the theme: State Of The Nation: Buhari, His Men And His Three Cardinal Programmes- A Critical Assessment.
“President Buhari’s much lauded war on corruption is one area in which his hard-core supporters continue to defend him. In many aspects, the defence could entirely be understood because at no point since its establishment in 2003 has the EFCC been seen to be so active in pursuing alleged perpetrators of graft as it does at present. Yet, there has been no high profile conviction up till date. We only hear about arrests, interim forfeiture of huge sums of money and property but no conviction”, he said.
He also listed out names of serving officers in the present administration who should not be found in government having been found to be corrupt including the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Mallam Abubakar Malami, Alhaji Abdulrahman Danbazzau, Alhaji Mohammed Barkindo, ACP Zakari Biu, Alhaji Ahmed Gambo Saleh and Mr Timipre Sylva.
On the issue of national security which remains a serious challenge, he said while the Book Haram insurgency has been reliably curtailed, the Fulani herdsmen under the umbrella of Miyetti Allah Cattle Rearers Association had continued to wield heavy weaponry to kill thouaands of innocent citizens while ravaging cultivated lands.
“When Buhari came into office, Nigeria’s most pressing security challenges were posed by the Fulani herdsmen, the Niger Delta militants and Boko Haram. While government was able to free many of the Chibok girls and also diminish the insurgency by Book Haram via a number of strategies including intelligence gathering, superior weaponry, assistance from international community and surrender by many insurgents, the fight is yet to be over. The Niger Delta Avengers tabling long-held grievances in the oil-producing region had held on to pipeline vandalism. When Professor Osinbajo acted as President, he struck some deals with the militants regarding modular oil refineries, return of maritime universities and some others but when Buhari returned, he jettisoned the agreements which led to renewed violence”, he said.
While renewing the OneVoice Coalition pledge to continue in its drive towards accountability and good governance, Adeleye said: “As civil society professionals and practitioners, we are more concerned with the impact of government policies, activities and programmes on the ordinary citizenry. More often than not, they bear the full consequences of harsh policies. Our position is therefore from this perspective. We are not the media team of President Buhari whose moral duty is to always launder his image, especially judging from the recently released patronising book. We are non-state actors and as such we shall always assess President Buhari within the governance space”.
And in his conclusion, he said: “Buhari’s administration has a mixed performance of success and failures. On a balance, the administration came at a time the oil fortunes took a nosedive which, to a large extent, made it to fall short of its promises but was nevertheless marked by some little achievements”.
