After Ousting Them, Tinubu Meets Adamu, Omisore at State House

•US embassy, anti-graft group urge president to unveil masterplan for corruption

Deji Elumoye and Emameh Gabriel in Abuja

President Bola Tinubu, yesterday, met with the ousted former National Chairman of All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Abdullahi Adamu, and erstwhile National Secretary, Senator Iyiola Omisore, at State House, Abuja.

The purpose of the meeting, which ended about 1.30pm remained unclear, coming about a week after their forced resignations, announced during the National Working Committee (NWC) meeting of the party on July17.

In another development, the United States Embassy in Nigeria, together with a leading anti-craft civil society organisation (CSO), African Network for Environmental and Economic Justice (ANEEJ), called on the president to launch a holistic anti-corruption architecture for Nigeria.

Tinubu, who is the national leader of the ruling APC, boasts huge influence in the party and is expected to have a say in who emerges new party leaders.

Although neither Adamu nor Omisore had openly announced their resignation since it became news, the acting national chairman of APC, who was Deputy National Chairman (North), Abubakar Kyari, told journalists after a meeting of the party’s NWC in Abuja that both leaders had resigned.

But yesterday in Abuja at a one-day national dialogue on anti-corruption with the theme, “Enhancing Anti-corruption and Social Inclusive Policy Reform Initiatives in Nigeria Project”, organised by ANEEJ and sponsored by USAID and Palladium, representative of the U.S. Embassy, Deputy INL Director, Walter Quintanilla, pointed out the need for a holistic step to combat corruption in Nigeria.

Quintanilla said, “Transparency and accountability were key to win the war against corruption in Nigeria.”

The U.S. Embassy charged CSOs in Nigeria to join the fight against corruption, while appreciating the effort put in by these bodies in the fight to expose corruption in Nigeria.

Speaking on the side-lines of the event, Executive Director of ANEEJ, Rev. David Ugolor, said the anti-corruption architecture would bring about appreciable results.

Ugolor pointed that there was also need to strengthen the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), adding that it has become imperative for Tinubu to appoint a substantive Chairman of EFCC to allow room for efficiency.

On the essence of the dialogue, Ugolor explained that one of the reasons was to launch the assessment report tagged, “Report of Assessment of the Implementation of Nigeria’s International Anti-corruption Asset Recovery Commitments”, which he said, “ANEEJ has just produced on the London anti-corruption commitment that Nigeria made, and then the Global Forum on Asset Recovery that was held in Washington in 2017, and the report focuses on where Nigeria is on anti- corruption fight.”

The Chief of Party, SCALE-Palladium, Lydia Odeh, said it was understandable that the “issues of corruption had to be addressed in collaboration with stakeholders, whether from government, civil society, development partners and the media”.

In a goodwill message, former Executive Secretary, Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Professor Sadiq Radda, said the searchlight on anti-graft war should be beamed on states and local governments.