Buhari’s corruption fight is all bark and no bite – NLC gives suggestion
– Comrade Denja Yaqub, an executive of the NLC, has said the judiciry needs to be sanitised in the fight against corruption.
– The secretary advised the administration to conclude investigation before prosecution
– He says unbundling the NNPC is not the solution
Comrade Denja Yaqub who is the assistant general secretary of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has criticised the anti-corruption fight of the Muhammadu Buhari administration.
In an interview with naij.com, Yaqub accused Buhari of making a lot of noise while little result is seen in the fight against corruption.
Comrade Denja Yaqub
He said: “They have been fighting but the fight is not methodical. So far, all we have seen is dog barking without biting. What we have seen is an anarchistic approach to the fight against corruption. They are picking on people who truly and evidently have stolen, who have been arrested, tried in the media the way they want it, but get to court and the next day, is out.
“It is not a methodical fight but a showman kind of thing. If we have to fight corruption, it is not just picking someone. You don’t pick someone and start investigating him; you finish your investigation before you pick him or her, and then you take him to court.”
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On what can be done to make the fight against corruption better and yield result, the labour executive advised that improvement should be made in the judiciary.
“Let the court also sit up because the fight against corruption is not just one person’s thing. It is not EFCC thing neither is it limited to the president. It should be a system thing. The judiciary is too corrupt that it needs to be tried for corruption. The judiciary is not part of this anti-corruption fight. You need to make the judiciary, both the bench and the bar, realise that we all need to sit up to fight corruption. It is not a one-man fight. The way this thing is going is like a flash in the palm. It is not a systematic thing; they pick somebody, it is in the front page of the newspaper, the next day, he is taken to court, he is immediately remanded in Kuje prison and the next day, he is told to bring N5 million as bail bond and he walks home and that’s the end of the story. So we need to be systematic about it.
“To fight corruption has to do with the entire system. Everyone must be involved, including the police, but before you do all that, there must be some reforms. Reforms have to be done in the judiciary; both the bar and the bench, there should be consultations. In fact, there is need for a conference on corruption itself with all the stakeholders involved, all the tiers of government, especially the judiciary. I don’t see the judiciary as part of the anti-corruption fight. They are not part of it at the moment. Instead, they are actually a clearing house for those accused of corruption, because people make themselves available for arrest because they know they are going to be freed.”
Concerning the issue of unbundling the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Yaqub said he does not see it as a measure that will stop corruption.
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“We have our position on the petroleum industry which was purely that it cannot be deregulated. We didn’t make proposal for unbundling. If unbundling the NNPC will bring solution to the crises that we have and the various levels of corruption in the industry, that will be fine, but personally, I do not see how unbundling NNPC will stop corruption. I cannot see how unbundling the NNPC will make the place effective.”
“What the industry needs very urgently is the revival of the four refineries because those refineries, we understand, are the best in the whole world and are still functioning. All they need to do is turn-around maintenance on them and use them, not to privatise them. Those who are calling for the privatisation of the refineries are waiting to buy those same refineries because it can still function. So what we are asking for is that the industry should be revived.
“ I do not know how unbundling will revive the industry. Unbundling is not what will repair the refineries, unbundling will not build refineries. What we need is to take effective actions that will bring fuel to the common man on the street. What we need is to stop importation of fuel. We have this product; they should resume production and make it available to the people to enjoy it. We must stop creating jobs for people outside this country while we are losing jobs here. I do not know how unbundling NNPC is going to solve the problem and that’s my personal opinion because NLC has not sat to discuss the matter. Unbundling cannot solve the problems. They are just slicing a piece of yam so that it will be enough for everybody to steal from. That’s how I see it.”
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