SAN FRANCISCO, July 24, (THEWILL) – A pro-democracy non-governmental organisation -Human Rights Writers Association Of Nigeria (HURIWA) has described the decision of President Muhammadu Buhari to probe exclusively alleged corrupt acts that may have happened during the four year tenure of the immediate past President Goodluck Jonathan -led administration as selective and unfair, saying such probe must be broadened to include all successive Federal administrations since 1979 till May 29,2015.
In a statement jointly endorsed by the National Coordinator of rhe group, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, and the National Media Affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, HURIWA said the laws of natural justice and morality are all against any governmental policy that would be targeted at a selected group of persons to the exclusions of all others particularly when public corruption and graft reportedly pervaded public and political spaces during the military regimes of General Ibrahim Babangida and late General Sani Abacha.
“Corruption indeed became a general theme of debates as far back as 1983 when some politicians abused import licences and waivers to import rice and even the national chairman of the then ruling party-National Party of Nigeria (NPN) was accused of large scale insider abuses which included the importing of customised champagnes for his birthday bashes”, HURIWA affirmed.
HURIWA recalled further that from the late General Sani Abacha’s military junta, several billions of USD of public funds disappeared into public offshore bank accounts and were only recovered not too long ago when civil rule returned in 1999 but regrettably the Rights group stated that the federal administration of Olusegun Obasanjo was accused of allegedly diverting substantial percentages of the repatriated stolen funds to private accounts.
“If any sound, deliberate, articulate, forensic, all -inclusive,
dispassionate and unbiased investigations of graft and alleged heist of public funds by government officials is to be conducted , then this government should commence the probe from the genesis of corruption in Nigeria and not focus exclusively on the immediate past administration of President Jonathan.
“Any investigations that are not all inclusive is nothing but selective and politically motivated and therefore renders any expected outcomes null, void and vindictive,” it said.
The Rights group admonished the current government to adopt a comprehensive and broad-based non-partisan approaches and anti –graft strategies and must fundamentally change the hierarchies of the anti-graft agencies of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Allied Offences Panel (ICPC) for efficiency and effectiveness in the anti corruption war to be won.
“The current leaderships of the anti graft bodies are compromised, corrupt and ineffective and must be changed and replaced with independent -minded experts that will wage an all out anti corruption war devoid of partisanship and eye service as is currently obtained. You can’t fight impunity with impunity”, HURIWA averred.
