Acting Chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr Ibrahim Magu, has raised alarm that corruption has found its way into the implementation of Federal Government’s National Social Investment Programme (N-SIP).
N-SIP, which was established in 2016 under the office of the Vice President to ensure school feeding for primary school pupils, create jobs for 500,000 job seekers, carryout conditional cash transfer for traders and the poor and enterprise promotion programme, has gulped N450 billion.
But Magu, who insisted that the agency’s fight against corruption is not selective, told the 15th Anti Corruption Situation Room organised by Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA) in Kaduna on Tuesday that corruption has crept into implementation of the programme, while charging civil society organizations to investigate its implementation.
The EFCC boss, who was represented by the Spokesman, Wilson Uwujaren said, “all the crises in Nigeria today boils down to corruption. EFCC is doing everything possible to ensure that stolen resources are recovered and returned. Civil society organizations need to pay more active role especially in the social investment programme.
“Corruption has crept into the implementation of the programme. We want to ensure that we don’t create more crises from a crisis situation. In the anchor borrowers programme, there are people who are bagging sand instead of fertilizer,” Magu said.
The keynote speaker, Prof. Adam Ahmed Abere, who spoke on ‘Corruption and its Threat to Peaceful Coexistence: A Critical Review of Feuding Communities and Management of Scarce Resources’, said all forms of insecurity in Nigeria from Boko Haram, kidnapping, armed banditry xenophobia in South Africa and poor treatment of Nigerians outside the country are all manifestations of corruption over the years.
Abere, categorised cost of corruption into “political, economic, social and environment. Corruption hinders true democracy. Banditry in Zamfara and Katsina states are consequence of mining operations in the two states. The plan is to make the area an ungovernable environment to bring arms in and control the mining activities fully but Federal Government’s ban on mining activities helped to reduce the crises”.
The Executive Director HEDA, Mr Olanrewaju Suraju said that the Anti Corruption Situation Room that has taken place in many parts of the country is designed to facilitate interaction between stakeholders in promoting anti corruption and good governance. “We have ween various feuds Ife – Modakeke, Jukun – Tiv, Zango Kataf crises, that we need to start looking at how we got there.”
The programme was supported by Upright for Nigeria, MacArthur Foundation, National Orientation Agency among others.
