Politics
THE foremost Anti-corruption Civil Society Organization, Human and Environmental Development Agenda, HEDA, Resource Centre has charged the judiciary and government agencies to be more proactive in handling corruption cases and dispensing justice in order to reduce corruption in the society.
The anti-corruption organisation on Saturday, presented a well-researched, five-chapter publication titled “Impunity Galore: A Chronicle of Some High Profile, Unresolved Corruption Cases in Nigeria”, involving the collection of corruption cases being investigated by the EFCC, ICPC, Senate and House Committees of the Nigerian law-making body- The National Assembly. The collection is centred on cases between 1999 till 2022.
Briefing newsmen at a press conference, HEDA’s Chairman, Olanrewaju Suraju, noted that there has been a lot of developments in the fight and campaign against corruption, which also made the organisation reflect on the numerous cases of corruption and probes that have not made it to the court and have remained unconcluded to date.
According to Suraju, the events of recent years have shown that impunity has remained unstoppable, adding that in many of the cases, it is either investigation was not completed, committee reports not made public, white-paper not released or there is clear sabotage within and or outside the government.
The total amount involved in all the cases reported is N1,623,584,000,000 (one trillion, six hundred and twenty-three billion and five hundred and eighty-four Naira) and another $825,679,500,000 (eight hundred and twenty-five billion, six hundred and seventy-nine million and five hundred thousand US Dollars).
The anti-corruption advocate further maintained that the cases listed in the chronicle are not exhaustive and the selection has not been discriminatory in any manner.
“We have only tried as much as possible to report such high profile cases as much as we can find stories and report on. So, even if we missed some, perhaps we may be able to update them in the near future. However, we have done our best to cover the most ground.
In the same vein, the Executive Secretary, HEDA Resource Center, Sulaiman Arigbabu, noted that corruption thrives because some already existing cases are not given fair hearing and treatment.
Arigbabu further thanked the media for documenting some of the corruption cases, which serve as research data, encouraging them to continue to give light to issues that are critical to the survival of the country.
However, the link to the “Impunity Galore: A Chronicle of Some High Profile, Unresolved Corruption Cases in Nigeria” report is https://hedang.org/impunity-galore-a-chronicle-of-some-unresolved-high-profile-corruption-cases-in-nigeria-1999-2022/
KN
Tags: HEDA Olanrewaju Suraju
