Former Minister of State for Works, Chris Ogiemwonyi, wants President-elect Muhammadu Buhari to wield the big stick against Petroleum Minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, for allegedly encouraging high level corruption in the oil sector.
He alleged that Alison-Madueke “performed dismally” and despite the high calibre of staff in the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), “she never allowed them to perform. She was madly in-charge. She should be held accountable for the lapses in the oil sector.”
Ogiemwonyi demanded that the accounts of the NNPC should be audited, and “let her face the music.”
He said Buhari’s election is the result of agitation for a better country.
“I have 99 per cent confidence that the man elected president by Nigerians is the messiah we have all been waiting for. I see hope and a new dawn in Nigeria. I see the locust days gone forever in Nigeria.”
There are institutions to check corruption in Nigeria, he reiterated, and what is needed is to strengthen them to perform their roles.
Buhari has also been advised to set up a truth commission “to investigate and address all cases of flagrant corruption both past and present” to recover “huge sums of monies in the control of past and current treasury looters.”
Development Alliance of the Niger Delta (DAND) Convener, David Ugolor, who gave the advice, counselled the strengthening of anti-graft agencies and a review of the criminal justice system “to expeditiously deal with economic saboteurs and corruption cases in the country.”
He sought failed contract tribunals “to deal decisively with cases of rent seekers who would have collected huge contract sums without delivering such projects to Nigerians, irrespective of how highly placed they are.”
Ugolor condemned the violence in the election in Rivers State and urged the government to bring the culprits to justice.
He urged the incoming administration to positively engage non-violent youths in the Niger Delta who have technical skills and academic qualifications but are jobless.
He also suggested an all-inclusive mechanism for dialogue between the government and all Niger Deltans on policies affecting the region.
