Fight against corruption is also the citizens' fight - Abari
- The fight against corruption remains one of the major agenda of the Muhammadu Buhari administration
- The director general of the National Orientation Agency, Garba Abari, is of the opinion that the fight is also that of the Nigerian citizens
- He made the comment when members of the Say No Campaign paid him a courtesy visit
The director general of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Garba Abari, has urged Nigerians to see the fight against corruption as their own fight.
Abari made the comment on Tuesday, November 7, when members of the Say No Campaign paid him a courtesy visit at the headquarters of the NOA in Abuja.
His words: “The fight against corruption is not just a government fight but a citizens fight. One compelling thing we need to do in this fight against corruption is to work together.”
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Abari stated that the visit of the group was timely, informing them that the NOA had already concluded plans to convene a round table with Civil Society Organizations in the first quarter of 2018.
He promised them that the NOA will develop a synergy with the CSOs in the fight against corruption across the nation.
Speaking on the purpose of the visit, a co-convener of the Say No Campaign, Mr Nwagwu Ezenwa, informed Abari of their plans to partner with the NOA in the fight against corruption.
“The depth of the kind of work that we have began to do has made it practically possible that we must begin to partner with forthright agencies like NOA, especially with the kind of leadership it currently has,” he said.
Stressing on their main focus in the partnership plans with the NOA, Nwagwu said: “We are concerned about corruption, but we are not just concerned about corruption as a mantra. We have built a personality cult around that a lot of people don't feel a sense that it is their own fight.
“We have thought that we need to make this fight the fight of the Nigerian people. The ordinary citizens of Nigeria should begin to engage the fight against corruption.
“Even if the president of the country says e does not want to fight corruption as a policy, it is the responsibility of citizens to make sure that corruption is fought because they are the direct victims of the consequence of corruption.”
He lamented the scourge of abandoned projects around the nation and the waste of resources by governments at different levels used in servicing loans taken for those projects.
He further called for government to initiate policy that will ensure continuity in the implementation of government projects, while emphasizing on the need for citizens to pressurize government to ensure justice for victims of crime especially in the Internally Displaced Persons’ camps as reported recently by the Human Right Watch.
“If you go to the northeast where people are taking advantage of the misfortune of other citizens. People sharing away donations that are meant to preserve lives, people who have been kept for protection at the IDPs themselves have been rap*d and as we speak, nothing has happened round those issues, and the perpetrators are people in uniforms,” he added.
On his part, Jaye Gaskia, also a co-convener of the group, stressed that citizens need to be empowered to ask relevant questions of its government and hold them accountable.
He advised the NOA to capitalize on its wide reach to promote the anti-corruption fight of the present administration by sensitizing the citizens on the direct impact of corruption on daily lives and their role in curbing it.
Meanwhile, Say No Nigeria and other leading CSOs in the country are set to embark on a protest tagged 'accountability walk' on Saturday, December 9 in Abuja.
The CSOs made their plans known during a press conference on Thursday, October 19, in Abuja.
The groups include; Say No Campaign, Centre for Transparency and Accountability, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, Protest to Power, Peering Advocacy and Advancement Centre in Africa and Youths Initiative for Advocacy Growth and Advancement.
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The EFCC staged a walk against corruption in Abuja on - Legit.ng TV
Source: Legit.ng
