The Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA Resource Center) and its international partners have set agenda for President Bola Tinubu on anti-corruption in Nigeria.
HEDA and partners urged Tinubu to decisively fight corruption to halt the country’s possible drift into a major economic crisis.
Mr Olanrewaju Suraju, Chairman, HEDA, said this in a communique at the end of a two-day global anti- corruption conference held in Abuja.
Suraju said the call became necessary as reports indicated that Nigeria lost about 60 billion dollars to corruption yearly
The event with the theme: “Nigeria and the Fight against Corruption: Reviewing the Buhari Regime and Setting Agenda for the Tinubu Administration” was organised by HEDA Resource Centre and Centre for Fiscal Transparency and Integrity Watch (CFTI).
The summit came at the 20 years anniversary of the African Union, AU Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption declaration which took place in July 2003.
Suraju said available statistics showed that Nigeria had a debt portfolio of N77 trillion, inflation rate at 23 per cent, GDP at 2.35 per cent coupled with cases of graft by public officials.
He said with the above statistics, a bold step was needed to be taken to block waste, stop corruption and recreate a new public confidence to save the country from social crisis.
The chairman said some of the agenda set for the new government included to fast track the whistleblower law, payment of backlog of royalties by oil companies and anti-corruption courts for speedy prosecution of corruption cases.
He also called for the firm implementation of the public procurement law, and accountability on the part of political actors among others.
According to him, the conference charged the National Assembly to affirm Nigeria’s readiness to join the international Special Task Force on Corruption to enable efficient recovery of illicit funds.
“Participants also listed the retrieval of billions of funds paid to phantom oil subsidy in the past years, oil theft, public funds stolen by political actors and a significant cut in the cost of governance, ” he said.
The chairman noted that there had been no reasons to believe that there was going to be any serious fight against corruption, given the experiences of the past years.
Suraju said there was need to set agenda for constructive Civil Society Organisation (CSO) engagement with the new regime to develop the framework for good governance.
