The Presidency has given assurances that the war against perfidy and
corruption by the Muhammadu Buhari administration will not stop despite
the strong resistance of the opposition and their actions to thwart the
government’s efforts every day.
“Let me say one thing. Those whose illicit ways of accumulating money have
been stopped will criticise this government but all that will not derail
the unfaltering commitment of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s
administration to the war against corruption,” a presidential spokesman,
Garba Shehu, said in a radio program Hannu Da Yawa on FRCN Kaduna at the
weekend.
Mr. Shehu argued that the president declared rooting out corruption as one
of the cardinal policies of his election campaign.
“He is aware that this was one of the main reasons why Nigerians in their
millions put their trust in him; the main reason they voted him into power
in 2015.
“To keep that trust of ordinary Nigerians who voted him into the office,
he has vowed to give corruption a good fight. He will not let them down.”
Mr. Shehu admitted that so far, the battle to uproot corruption from
Nigeria has not been easy.
“Corruption has been fighting back vehemently, finding accomplices in
various forms and guises. Nevertheless, the Buhari administration will not
relent.”
He said in the program that the days when corruption reigned
indiscriminately in Nigeria are over.
“Nothing will return our country to those sad, old days of wanton thievery
that have plunged us into the economic mess from which Nigeria is
currently recovering. The war against corruption in Nigeria is one of
those clashes between good and evil, where good is determined to triumph.”
He dismissed rumours that members of the governing party, the All
Progressives Congress, APC were being spared, saying that all are equal
before the law.
Highlighting the various measures introduced to promote transparency by
the present administration, Mr. Shehu disclosed that upon directives by
the president, the National Hajj Commission carried out an audit of
accommodation agents in both Makkah and Madina in Saudi Arabia and as
result, a saving of more than $16.7 million is being made by the paying
pilgrims this year.
“Each Hajj pilgrim is being saved between 600 to 1,000 Saudi Riyals, which
is about N60,000-N100,000 from accommodation, money that had lined the
pockets of agents in the past. This year, houses are being rented directly
from owners.”
He commended ordinary citizens for embracing the whistle-blower policy by
“taking extraordinary risks to expose corruption.”
On the ongoing rehabilitation of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport
in Abuja and the relocation of flight services to Kaduna for the six-week
period of the closure, the presidential aide said the government and
people of Kaduna should think hard to devise ways by which the social and
economic benefits brought to Kaduna in this period did not depart the city
with the reopening of the airport in Abuja.
“‘The government of Nigeria has done a big thing for Kaduna. You must show
appreciation to this by supporting the administration.”
Referring to the “massive cash releases for capital projects in excess of
a record one trillion Naira under the 2016 budget,” Mr. Shehu credited the
minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, with the record
of being the first ever minister to ride on all the federal roads across
the nation.
He said in addition to the roads, three of the major projects very dear to
the president which he is determined to execute are the Mambila power
project, the Lagos-Kano, Lagos-Calabar and Port Harcourt-Maiduguri railway
modernisation projects and the new Presidential Initiative on Fertilizer,
which he said is already making an impact by cutting the price of
fertiliser by about fifty per cent.