Osinbajo asks agencies to fight corruption according to statutory mandate

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo says the Presidential Inter-Agency Task Team charged with anti-corruption, transparency and accountability should fight corruption according to the statutory mandate and shun censorship.

Osinbajo gave the advice on Wednesday while delivering a speech at the United Nations International Anti-corruption Day in Abuja.

According to him, to reverse the negative trend and break the corruption chain, inter-agency task team should fight corruption in accordance with their mandate and in line with rule of law.

Osinbajo, represented by Prof. Sadiq Radda, Vice Chairman of the team, urged Nigerians to ensure that their moral maps did not become blurred because of opportunities offered by their access to benefits.

The vice president urged Nigerians to play their role in turning the tide against corruption, adding that if attitude of “see no evil, hear no evil continues, so will corruption continue to thrive’’.

The theme of the anti-corruption day is “Break the corruption chain’’.

He said the 2015 TI Global Corruption Barometer Report on people and corruption in Africa Survey said there was clear disparity between a few strong performing countries in regard to anti-corruption.

He noted that the report further suggested that addressing corruption was not an impossible task but most African nations had simply failed to make progress in this regard.

The vice president listed impunity and absence of law, appropriation of public wealth for private use and systematic corruption as faces and concepts of corruption.

John Hare, representative of Amb. Michel Arrion, Head of the delegation, European Union to Nigeria and ECOWAS, said EU provided 27.5 million pounds since 2005 to 2015 to support Nigeria to fight corruption.

He said 35 million euros was also given to Nigeria since three years now, to support the country fight corruption, adding that the union would provide Nigeria skills to fight it.

Acting Executive Secretary of NEITI, Dr. Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, said there were many multi stakeholders initiatives action against corruption and mismanagement of revenues from oil, gas, mining, and other natural resources.

He said the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative being implemented in 50 countries now was one of the initiatives.

Orji said that disclosures from independent audits showed the difference of what confirmed it received from oil and gas sector alone in 13 years was 9.8 billion dollars.

He added that NEITI was working closely with government agencies and had recovered 2.4 billion dollars into Federal Government coffers.(