ShareTHE Transparency International has expressed worry over the scope and speed of corruption in Nigeria this year, saying it is beyond what it has ever dealt with.
This was revealed in an open letter to President Goodluck Jonathan by Fitch and Associates in The Hague, The Netherlands, on behalf of Transparency International.
In the letter, part of which was given to Nigerian Tribune by Save Nigeria Group (SNG), the Transparency International said the scam in Nigeria at present is quite heartbreaking.
It reads: “The problem, Your Excellency, has to do with the rate and scale of scams and corruption probes coming out of Nigeria in 2012.
The scope and speed of corruption in your country this year is beyond anything our client has ever dealt with. When the pension scam broke out, the three specialists working on Nigeria complained about overwork and threatened a law suit against Transparency
International because they had to work 23 hours a day from Monday to Sunday just to cope with the figures coming out of that scam.”
The letter further stated that the Transparency International had to transfer country specialists away from zero or low corruption countries, such as New Zealand, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Singapore, Norway, The Netherlands, Australia, Switzerland and Canada to Nigeria to ensure that the figures were well scrutinised.
Meanwhile, in their reactions to the letter, Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka and Pastor Tunde Bakare have given the Federal Government a two-week ultimatum to begin the process of prosecuting indicted officials of the oil subsidy and pension scams.
The duo spoke at a news conference tagged, “A diary of executive theft” organised by the Save Nigeria Group, calling on government to do so now or face national protest to be initiated by the group.
The convener of the group, Bakare had read out the House of Representatives committee’s report on the management of petroleum subsidy with various figures, describing it as an organised banditry.
Commending the House for adopting the report, Bakare called on President Jonathan to act on it as he had promised not to spare any indicted official or face the wrath of the people through protest.
Bakare mentioned the governor of Gombe State, Alhaji Ibrahim Dankwambo, who was the Accountant General of the Federation in 2009 and who was alleged to have issued cheques for N999 million in places in 24 hours totalling N127 billion as one of the officials to be prosecuted.
He said: “President Jonathan has played the ostrich by saying that no one indicted would be spared. That is fine for as long as that includes his oil minister, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke and all three ministers of finance, which include Alhaji Mansur Muhktar; Mr Olusegun Aganga and Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, in the period covered by the report.”
Commenting, Soyinka said that the figures read out by Bakare were overwhelming and were yet to be disputed by the indicted people or the government.
He said: “This has gone beyond using the word contempt. This issue is being treated with disdain. It is dehumanisation of ordinary people of Nigeria. Some of us who travel around the world are facing serious humiliation over the country’s situation.”
He called for public examination of various financial scams to be televised. “We want to see how the indicted people would exonerate themselves. We don’t want any kind of kangaroo arrangement,” he said.
Soyinka, who threw his weight behind the two-week ultimatum said that the group would prefer the appointment of a private prosecutor to deal with the prosecution process.
