Press Statement
Anti-corruption Bill: Ondo PDP Needs Help To Be Off The Radar Of Ignorance
….Bill ought to have been passed more than a year ago.
The recent pedestrian opposition tactic of the Peoples Democratic Party in Ondo State requires proper enlightenment. The party’s latests attack on the Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu-led administration has exposed its ignorance.
Specifically, the PDP’s claim that an anti-corruption bill is set to be passed by the State Assembly to allegedly protect the Governor and his family from wrongdoings is not only preposterous but laughable. It exposes the level of seriousness of a supposed opposition bereft of ideas, unwilling to obtain facts and self-cabined against information.
The Bill for a law to establish the Ondo State Public Complaints, Financial Crime and Anti-corruption Commission and others connected thereto 2021 was deliberated upon at the level of the State Executive Council, but was stepped down for wider consultations. At the moment, the memo has not received any Exco approval, and has therefore, not been sent to the State House of Assembly. All the same, it is one Bill that shall be pursued to a logical conclusion.
For the records, the Anti-Corruption Bill, when put in place, will serve the purpose of the State, rather than the warped imagination of the grossly deficient opposition. Those who started the formulation of the Law had in mind to decentralize the anti-corruption fight to the federating units of the Nigerian Federation. It suffices therefore, that, the rush to disseminate falsehood appears more important to the opposition PDP than the need for a TRULY FEDERAL NIGERIA.
For the records, the Law has been in existence in Kano State since 2008. Lagos State followed suit by passing the Public Complaints and Anti-Corruption Commission Bill into Law. Aside Lagos in the Southwest, the Law is in operation in Ogun and Oyo States. Interestingly, Oyo is a PDP governed State. Undoubtedly, Ondo PDP needs help.
More importantly, the Supreme Court has ruled that Section 46 of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Act should be construed within the narrow confines of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, the percusor to the establishment of the EFCC – to prevent illicit finacial outflow from Nigeria.
The matter centers on one of the issues of our true federalism. It interrogates the rationale behind a federal agency exercising oversight powers on States under the guise of financial crimes, when each state has its Penal and Criminal Codes dealing with such offences.
The PDP in Ondo State, as usual, failed to do its findings, but hurriedly amplified falsehood and spurious gists to members of the public. While we agree that it is their stock in trade, it is important that this clarification be made in the overall interest of members of the public.
We will continue to do what is best for the people and the state not withstanding the needless and fabricated allegations that are being fed members of the public by the drowning PDP.
Signed:
Donald Ojogo
Commissioner for Information and Orientation
Ondo State
January 6, 2022