Warri based Constitutional lawyer, Dr. Akpo Mudiaga-Odje has stated that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, is a “hammer House of corruption” that requires the triple touch of spiritual, physical and moral restructuring, even as he maintained that President Buhari’s anti-corruption crusade is very justified to take the country out of the woods.
Speaking to pressmen on President Buhari’s one year anniversary in his office, the Social Commentator on Public Affairs and Publisher said the amount of accusations leveled against the NNPC is mind boggling, saying that there have been gross manipulations and voodoo banking in the Corporation’s accounting system.
The Social Crusader who said that he is in support of unbundling the NNPC, further opined that “we do not have to wait until there is a very serious financial crisis in the country before we put our house together”, calling for a proper investigation into the records of the organization and the problems besetting the Niger Delta region that lays the proverbial golden egg that feeds the nation since 1957 when the Willinks Commission recommended adequate protection for minority rights and protection of their resources.
Dr. Akpo Mudiaga –Odje said for the fight against corruption to succeed in the country, it needs to pass through the due process of Law and placed the whole matter on the super high way of the judiciary even as he maintained that the various investigating agencies must however not do a shoddy job and expect a judge to provide the necessary evidence to convict a suspect.
He stated that the criminal justice system in most States of the Federation, except Lagos State is too slow and gives ample room for legal technicalities,loopholes and thus enable counsel to suspect to exploit and delay the proceedings unjustly and therefore appealed to other States to emulate Lagos State and the Federal High Court Criminal Justice System to speed up prosecution and conviction appropriately.
The Prolific Publisher therefore admonished President Buhari to periodically tell Nigerians how far the anti-corruption war is succeeding by revealing how much looted funds have been recovered and what it intends to do with the funds even if he does not wish to mention the names of those that looted Nigeria’s commonwealth, saying that the world over only have negative impact on the economy.
He expressed regrets that it is chronic corruption that killed the Nigeria Airways Authority and the Nigerian National Shipping lines to the extent that the country no longer have these critical national institutions in existence today, just as the critical East-West link road could not be completed during President Jonathan’s regime in spite of massive funds deployed to the various ministries and Parastatals under the mandate of Niger Deltans.
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