By Andy Asemota
The soaring number of Edo State Government’s vehicles recently recovered or said to have been traced to officials and friends of the immediate past administration in the state by the committee set up by the incumbent Governor, Senator Monday Okpebholo, clearly show corruption prevention mechanism virtually broke down in the state under the watch of the former Governor, Godwin Obaseki.
Out of the over 100 missing vehicles that have been tracked by the body, a key member of the NBA, whose will withheld in this piece for neither fear not favour, over 20 were said to be in the possession of the Edo State – born lawyer.
According to the committee, some of the suspects had gone different lengths to cover their tracks hence the resort of the body to various ways to recover the commonwealth of Edo citizens.
Unfortunately, some innocent persons may not doubt be embarrassed or suffer some inconveniences in the process of recovery the assets of the state government. To me, that may be part of the sacrifices we may have to pay for the Edo State that is rising.
The inability of Federal Government ‘s anti-graft agencies to cope with the avalanche of corruption cases in the country pose a major problem to anti-corruption crusade. As the former chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Justice Emmanuel Ayoola, had rightly observed, the main anti-graft bodies appeared to have been overwhelmed by the worsening incidences of corruption and it’s rapid spread.
To tackle the rising cases of official graft, the then chairman of ICPC advocated for a change of strategy. Justice Ayoola, who blamed the absence of credible and effective financial gate keeping for the festering corruption in the country, called for renewed vigilance in the prevention of corruption as a major component in the crusade.
While recommending that corruption prevention mechanisms should be put in place by governments in order to save the enormous costs that go with investigation and prosecution of graft cases, he emphasized that dissipating the nation’s energy on finding out what went wrong after the harm had been done is really counterproductive.
To his end, the NBA-BENIN should therefore take a closer look at the Justice Ayoola’s recommendation and applaud Governor Okpebholo, contrary to it’s chairman stance. The governor has rightly chosen the path of empowering Edo citizens to tame official graft.
Indeed, when the society is empowered to play this noble role, the destructive influence of corruption, which has been the bane of governance, will be reduced.
The Edo State Government deserves commendation rather than condemnation for devising measures to prevent corruption in order to relieve anti-graft agencies the burden of handling too many cases.
Finally, it’s important to call the chairman of NBA-BENIN to order as this will guarantee the success of more giant strides in anti-corruption crusade in the state.
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