Elected on an anti-corruption platform, President Muhammadu Buhari’s frequent missteps are hobbling his own pet agenda. Fresh confirmation of this came at the weekend with anguished calls for decisive action on a probe report on corruption allegations against two top officials, Babachir Lawal and Ayo Oke, submitted to him. Buhari should act fast, flush both men out if they are culpable and hand over their cases to the anti-graft agencies.
The Arewa Consultative Forum, Arewa Youth Forum and Itse Sagay, Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Corruption, voiced the concerns of many Nigerians when they called on Buhari to take swift action on the report.
Indeed, Buhari’s inaction is inexplicable. On August 23, after a three-month delay due to his illness, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, who headed a three-man presidential probe committee, submitted its findings and recommendations to the President. Considering that the basic outlines of the two scandals are already in the public domain and had attracted much odium to the government, the delay in taking action is only causing further damage to the President’s reputation and harming the credibility of the government’s war on corruption.
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