By Auwal Ibrahim Musa
CISLAC PRESS STATEMENT
The Civil Society
Legislative Advocacy Centre, CISLAC wishes to state that the recently released
report by the Nuhu Ribadu-led task Force is not only a vindication of our long
held position that the Oil and Gas Sector is a cesspool of scandalous,
monumental and shameful corruption, but that the culture of impunity and
conspiracy which this present administration shamelessly displays singularly
provides the added impetus for perpetuating the graft that has become the trade
mark of the sector in Nigeria.
We note without enthusiasm
that the findings of this task force is in no way innovative, neither does it
provide information that is fresh and therefore newsworthy. We are aware of the
sensationalism and melodramatic media hype and theatrics that preceded and has
attended its release.
We however remind Nigerians
that the information is only reminiscent of all three Audit Reports released by
the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, which responsibility
the task force actually only duplicated. It is also not entirely different from
outcomes of the numerous probes by several Commissions and Panels be they
Legislative, Presidential or Ministerial, for which this Administration have
become notorious.
We reiterate that neither
recommendations from NEITI auditors, nor recommendations of this legion of
Commissions and Panels have ever been implemented and all that the Ribadu
Report has done is to re-echo those positions. The details and now notoriously
outrageous figures might be different and the methods adopted by the NNPC may
slightly vary, but the conclusion remains the same: that the oil and gas sector
is cancerously corrupt, manned by incompetent, dubious or sadistic personnel,
led by visionless, insensitive and perfidious overlords and tolerated by a
government enmeshed in a culture of impunity which lacks the moral drive to
muster the will to even attempt to clear the quagmire in which it is actually a
co-traveller.
CISLAC calls on Nigerians
not to be again carried away by the infuriating figures and expend their
precious strength on vetting anger on indicted individuals, firms or groups but
concentrate efforts on the Federal Government to end the culture of impunity by
taking drastic and decisive measures to bring the law to bear and implement
recommendations of all previous panels or commissions, including remediation
recommended by NEITI reports.
We insist that there was
before this report, sufficient information for any government serious about
fighting corruption in the oil and gas sector to act decisively to tackle the
issues by prosecuting offenders, sanctioning firms and firing obviously
compromised officials. The solution is not in multiplicity of panels at the
expense of the tax payer but sincerity of purpose by government and developing
the political will to act.
The issues of corruption in
the oil and gas sector are no longer new neither are the reports of panels. The
media drama, diatribe, hullabaloo and blowing hot are also familiar. What is
lacking is concrete action to do what all Nigerians know needed to be done and
CISLAC has not seen what difference this report will make as long as government
continues to display a sense of helplessness of haplessness.
The canker-worm wasting our
common heritage and the forces insulting our national psyche are not the
figures out there or the players indicted but the government that persistently
does nothing but expend precious time and resources paying people to do the
same things and tell us what we already know and fail to act to bring the
impunity to an end.
We call on the media, civil
society and indeed all Nigerians and friends of Nigeria to refuse to be carried
away by the euphoria of a new report and insist that action be taken by
implementing recommendations of all known reports on this deteriorating and
increasingly embarrassing sector which unfortunately is also the back-bone of
our economy.
Auwal Ibrahim Musa is Executive
Director, CISLAC.
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