He recalled that in the past, seized assets from officials who could not explain how they got them were returned to them when government was changed.
“Let’s see who will now take back the money from the treasury, and give back to those people, as was done in the past,” the president added. Buhari has pledged to beam the searchlight on cost of governance and weed out possible corruption that exists anywhere. He appreciated members of the committee for the “major sacrifice they’ve made in accepting the assignment to serve the country”. He said: “Some of the elite won’t trust” them and that they “will be alienated, no matter how close you are to them.”
Chairman of PACAC, Professor Itse Sagay, said Nigeria was lucky more than ever to have a person of President Buhari’s credentials as leader of government. “We congratulate you for being a star of the anti-corruption struggle in Africa. You attach a lot of importance to the fight against corruption, and we have tried to achieve the aims you had in mind when you established PACAC,” Sagay said. According to him, the committee trains, builds capacity of anti-corruption agencies, and has helped to develop a programme of non-conviction assets recovery, which is recording great successes. PACAC made some recommendations to the President, in order to move the anti-corruption war many steps forward.
They include re-establishment of the jury system for criminal cases in the country; setting up of a judicial commission on corruption in the judiciary, to be headed by retired judges under the auspices of National Judicial Council, passage of Proceeds of Crime Act by the National Assembly, the setting up of a Presidential Truth and Restitution Task Force and a closer look at the cost of governance to weed out all vestiges of corruption.
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