The Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA Resource Centre) and its international partners have set an agenda for President Bola Tinubu on anti-corruption in Nigeria.
The call was made by the foremost anti-corruption group, and its local and international partners at a two-day National Anti-Corruption conference held in Abuja, where President Bola Tinubu has been tasked with the immediate need to decisively fight corruption to halt the country’s possible drift into a major economic crisis amidst reports that Nigeria loses about $60billion every year to corruption.
The conference with the theme; ‘Nigeria and the Fight against Corruption: Reviewing the Buhari Regime and Setting Agenda for the Tinubu Administration” organized by HEDA Resource Centre and Centre for Fiscal Transparency and Integrity Watch (CFTI) had participants from across the country, foreign countries and institutional bodies representatives.
HEDA observed that Nigeria with a debt portfolio of N77trillion, an inflation rate of 23 percent, GDP of 2.35 percent coupled with unrelenting zeal for graft by public officials, a bold step needed to be taken by the new government to block waste, stop corruption and recreate a new public confidence to save the country from social crisis.
Some of the agenda set for the new Government at the conference is to fast track the whistleblower law, payment of backlog of royalties by oil companies, anti-corruption courts for speedy prosecution of corruption cases, firm implementation of the public procurement law, accountability on the part of political actors among others.
The conference also charged the National Assembly to affirm Nigeria’s readiness to join the international Special Task Force on Corruption, SATF to enable efficient recovery of illicit funds.
Participants also listed the retrieval of billions of funds paid to phantom oil subsidies in the past years, oil theft, public funds stolen by political actors, and a significant cut in the cost of governance as some of the critical steps that Tinubu needed to take to save the country.
Femi Falana, a legal practitioner while speaking at the conference said that Nigeria said Nigeria loses billions of dollars to oil theft and the refusal of oil companies to pay the total expected tax amounting to billions over the past years without sanctions.
He said Nigeria has failed to put a mechanism in place to determine how many liters of oil are taken from the country’s onshore and offshore.
However, Gbenga Komolafe, Managing Director of Nigeria Upstream Regulatory Commission, (NURC) said that new equipment has been acquired by the commission that would monitor every liter of oil taken from Nigeria adding that the new initiative will create a paradigm shift in oil-related revenue generation in the country.
Olanrewaju Suraju, HEDA Chairman, noted that there have been no reasons to believe that there was going to be any serious fight against corruption given the experiences in the past years.
He said Nigeria’s hope is rekindled by the iron cast will of Nigerians and the irresistible wind of change blowing against corruption across the world of which Nigeria cannot be an exception. Suraju further stressed the need to set an agenda for constructive CSO engagement with the new regime to develop the framework for good governance.
The National Security Adviser Mallam Nuhu Ribadu expressed the commitment of the Tinubu-led administration to build the capacity of investigators, as part of efforts to enhance the war against corruption in the civil service and Nigeria as a whole.
Ribadu who was represented by the Special Adviser, Legal Department, NSA, Anthony Oluborode maintained that a cap will be placed on fiscal expenditures for the construction of government buildings and salaries related to compensation, and packages of elected officials, adding that such spending will have a low priority in the Tinubu-led administration and transparent.
