Osinbajo, ‘befitting co-pilot’ in running Nigeria — PACAC

The Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC) says Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has established himself as a befitting co-pilot in running the affairs of Nigeria.

PACAC’s Chairman, Prof. Itse Sagay, expressed this view on Friday while speaking with State House correspondents after leading the committee to a meeting with the vice president at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

According to Sagay, the vice president is the supervisor of PACAC’s operations while the Secretary to the Government of the Federation supervises its administration.

“Our operation is supervised by the vice president; so we have to see him regularly to report, we have been doing and this is what we have just done.

“Trying to report what we have done recently; to let him know what we are trying to next few months and to seek his support.

“Also to assure him of our absolute confidence in him not only as our supervisor but at the vice president of this country who has established himself as a befitting co-pilot in the running of this country.

“So, we have confidence in him,’’ he said.

Reacting to allegations that government’s anti-corruption fight was one-sided, he said that available facts showed there was neutrality.

He said that all the three former governors who were jailed were members of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Sagay said that there were many notable people under investigation at different levels—Senate, House of Representatives among others.

“Right now, the ICPC is on this issue of constituency projects—investigating all those who got grants under this project.

“So, it is not limited to a particular party; that statement is false; it is a statement by which the opposition tries to justify its corrupt tendency.

“So, I do not think we should take any serious note of such statement; it is diversionary,’’ he said.

On Transparency International(TI)’s latest corruption index, Sagay said the report about Nigeria was totally inaccurate.

He said that TI did not take into cognisance the fact that in the last four and a half years, tremendous progress had been made in the anti-corruption war.

He said that records of what had been achieved within the period were with ICPC and EFCC for anyone to see.

The PACAC chairman said the committee would continue to work towards executing its mandate.

“We will continue working; the next major we are going to do is to compile the record for the world to see that we are making progress and we also going to start looking at various organizations that have the tendency to be corrupt; where corruption is embedded.

“I will not mention them; but the way ICPC is targeting constituency projects; we are going to target some departments where this is common.

“So that we can try to, if not totally eliminate it, but reduce it so drastically that it will not continue to be become public concern.

“So these are some of the things we are going to do in the next few months,’’ he said.

Sagay said that the committee was also taking the anti-corruption war to states as it had so far visited 13 states with a view to taking the campaign to the grassroots.