FG dismisses claim of compromising in anti corruption fight

The Federal government has dismissed the claim making the rounds that Buhari’s administration is compromising in its fight against corruption in the country, saying that, corruption fight will be frontal in the new administration.

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Muhammad, who shed light on the claim in Washington D.C., in an interview with the Voice of America (VOA), stated that the president will not compromise his anti-corruption programmes and policies.

Meanwhile, the Minister is in Washington to engage international media and think tank and has assured the international community that President Muhammadu Buhari’s new administration will be more focused and determined in the fight against corruption.

In the interview anchored in English by Alhaji Aliyu Mustapha of the VOA Hausa service, the minister Lai said that the anti-corruption fight would be frontal in the agenda of the government, saying that, corruption is one of the major causes of poverty and underdevelopment in the country.

He recalled a saying by President Buhari that “if we do not kill corruption, corruption will kill us’ and reaffirmed the government commitment to the fight against the scourge. The minister also confirmed the discovery during the past administration, that 55 Nigerians shared a whopping sum of N1.3 billion equivalent to what the present administration had spent on infrastructure development in the last four years.

“The President is committed to the fight against corruption and the administration will continue with it. For example, the Treasury Single Account has instituted accountability in government‘s earnings and spendings and the whistleblower policy has led to the recovery of billions of Naira.

“It takes more than four years to clean a country endemic in corruption. However, it is on record that this administration has driven corruption under the carpet in four years. In the next four years, therefore, the government will consolidate on the achievements recorded particularly in the fight against corruption,” the minister said.

Speaking on insecurity, the minister Lai Muhammad said that the administration is to apply multidimensional approach besides deployment of forces. He also said that the government was not unaware of other remote causes of the crises in the affected areas including economic and social reasons, and non-inclusiveness, and lack of infrastructure as well as, job opportunities.

The minister has noted that, by and large, the administration had performed preferably well in addressing insecurity, saying that the country is safer than it was in 2015. Very interestingly, he said that the government had successfully secured the entire territory of the country from the Boko Haram.

Although, the farmers/herdsmen clash in Benue had been curtailed. Mohammed has said that the fight against banditry, killings and banditry in Zamfara and also in Kaduna has been put under control in the last two weeks, saying that the reason was as a result of the synergy among the security forces in the country.

He assured that the Bihari’s government will continue to strengthen partnership on the regional and international levels in or to address the challenges. The minister spoke on how the administration has made progress in economic recovery with deliberate programmers such as diversifying the economy through agriculture and other sectors, including the development of infrastructure.

On the general elections, minister Lai said that President Buhari’s victory was well deserved, adding that, it represented the triumph of the ordinary Nigerians over the elites. According to him, having delivered on his electoral promises, the people voted for Buhari and he won the elections fairly and squarely with about four million votes. The minister said that, with a wide margin of winning, the government did not envisage any attempt to delegitimise the will of the people.

Source: vanguardngr.com

📢 We are hiring writers!