A Human Rights group, the Centre for Human Rights and Social Justice(CHRSJ) has called on President Muhammadu Buhari led-Federal Government and the anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to open up on the actual owner of the apartments in Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, Lagos, where $43.4million was found last Wednesday.
The group, which also called on the federal government to arrest the Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) who earlier claimed the agency ownership of the cash, asked when the private apartment became the depositor bank of NIA after the implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) of the present administration in Nigeria.
In a statement issued and signed by the CHRSJ’s Executive Chairman, Comrade Adeniyi Alimi Sulaiman and a copy of which was made available to PMParrotng on Wednesday, disclosed that no right thinking Nigerian will believe the story of the anti-graft agency surrounding the cash found, saying that such an edifice could not be erected in the heart of Lagos state without the owner.
Comrade Sulaiman stated that it is not possible for any security agent or anti-graft agency to enter a residential building without knowing the real occupant or owner of such building, stating that no whistle-blower would give information of this nature without knowing the actual occupant of such residential building.
CHRSJ also demanded from President Buhari to originate a bill on whistle-blower policy that will be sent to the National Assembly for passage as part of efforts to give legal backing to the public interested policy (Whistle-blower).
The group noted that the way and manner the EFCC has been giving noise to the fight against corruption, made Nigerians to doubt the seriousness of the present government on the fight against the menace of corruption in our land.
The group also stated that every action of the government in Nigeria should be an open activity as democracy detests secrecy and Nigerians have every right to know what is going on in the government so as to make leaders accountable to the governed in line with the ethics of democracy all over the world.
According to the statement; “This is the time for President Muhammadu Buhari to tell the whole world that he has the political will to fight corruption without fear or favour by setting up high powered independent panel of inquiry which will involve the officials of United Nations to investigate and unravel the real owner of N13billion cash discovered in a private residence in Ikoyi, Lagos state. It would not augur well for the Federal Government to say that it does not know the actual owner of the Ikoyi house in question where gargantuan amount of acclaimed illegal fund were discovered.
“The whistle-blower policy is a very good and lofty idea which should not be allowed to die prematurely and President Muhamadu Buhari should do the needful by drafting a bill on it and send it to the National Assembly for quick passage as a matter of urgency on public interest. The fight against corruption should be sustained within the ambit of the law. This whistle-blower policy must be given legal backing and Federal Government should not allow loosing more cases as a result of lack of legal backing for whistle-blowing policy.”
Packaged by Bunmi Oladejo
