Executive Order

RANDOM THOTS

The war is still ongoing; the contentious Executive Order Number 6, recently signed by President Muhammadu Buhari, has been described as this administration’s most potent weapon against corruption. While defending the constitutionality of the Order, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, at a media briefing in Lagos asked those opposed to it to go to court.

According to reports, Executive Order No. 6 of 2018 aims to, among others, restrict dealings in suspicious assets subject to investigation or inquiry bordering on corruption in order to preserve such assets from dissipation, and to deprive alleged criminals of the proceeds of their illicit activities which can otherwise be employed to allure, pervert and/or intimidate the investigative and judicial processes.

In layman language, the order seeks to prevent loot from vanishing or being used to pervert justice while trials of alleged corrupt persons are ongoing in the court. Any ill-gotten funds, especially from the federal till, are to be guarded from misuse and abuse, to this reporter’s simple understanding.

According to the Minister, “The truth is that, having realised the potency of the Order in giving muscle to the fight against corruption, the corrupt and their cohorts have become jittery. They have every reason to be. Henceforth, it won’t be business as usual.” He said the war against corruption is a must-win for Nigeria in order to free national resources for the nation’s development.

This reporter read one James Hadley Chase novel around 35 years ago titled ‘The guilty are afraid’. Why is the average man or woman not crying foul over this new order? Those who have deprived the masses of their entitlements from the nation’s treasury are in for a torrid time; reason for the hue and cry concerning it (order). For a nation that wants to conquer corruption, revoking that order would be counter-productive…basic fact

– Abimbola Akosile