Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, the chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), said on Friday that corruption among the police, military, and civil workers is to blame for the country’s escalating insecurity.
“At face value, insecurity is seen as, and is sometimes treated as, a matter requiring only a military response or reaction, but an in-depth look into its possible root cause(s) shows that corruption is a major contributory factor to the continued existence and propagation of insecurity in the country,” the ICPC Chairman said during a one-day “Policy Dialogue on Corruption and Insecurity in Nigeria” in Abuja.
To effectively battle insecurity, we need the cooperative efforts of Security Agencies (the military, intelligence, Police, Customs, Prisons, and others), as well as Law Enforcement and Anti-Corruption Agencies, according to a clinical diagnosis of the threat of insecurity in the nation.
According to the study and investigation findings of the ICPC, corruption in the public sector both directly and indirectly promotes insecurity and might occasionally amplify it.
He said that the ICPC and EFCC were looking into former military and security officers for misappropriating cash intended for the country’s security.
“Investigations into the costs of military contracts are also proceeding.
A military contractor who collected a total of nearly N6 billion from the Nigerian Army over a period of less than 10 years was recently detained by the ICPC for violating existing laws and receiving the money under dubious circumstances.
The Commission’s recovery from the contractor’s premises of large sums of cash in local and foreign currencies, luxury vehicles, personalized mobile phones, designer watches, including three Rolexes, as well as property documents highlights the widespread corruption in the military procurement industry.
“The ICPC and our sister agency are looking into allegations of misappropriation involving former members of the armed forces and security employees.
As an illustration, a former head of one of the military’s arms transferred N4 billion from the military budget into the accounts of two companies where he is the sole beneficial owner and signatory.
The money was utilized to buy Abuja real estate in the names of friends and proxies.
A few of the properties purchased with his help were also falsely transformed for his use.
The theft of a portion of a special intervention money authorized for security operations by some civil workers in the line ministry, who transferred about N1 billion to four shell firms, is another case that is currently under investigation.
Some of the assets that were diverted were found by a special investigative team led by the NSA and ICPC, including modern buildings in Abuja and more than N220 million in cash. This matter is still under investigation.
Corruption is a threat to funds used to retool and reposition the police as a world-class institution.
The Police Trust Fund, a recently established police special intervention framework intended to end underfunding of the police, is already being investigated by the ICPC for abuse, fund diversion, phony, questionable welfare packaging that is not for the police who are the fund’s beneficiaries, as well as various corrupt practices.
One can confidently assume that, to varying degrees, similar behaviors plague other security services.
The ICPC Chairman stated that the Buhari administration had significantly increased security sector funding over the previous seven years with the help of the 9th National Assembly and questioned why this had not resulted in comparable effectiveness in the fight against insurgency and insecurity, despite the valiant and self-sacrificing efforts of the soldiers, police officers, and other security personnel who work every day to keep Nigerians safe.
“Experts have said that the procurement processes used in the defense industry contributed to the misapplication and theft of funds that contributed to the escalation of instability.
Anti-corruption agency investigations will seem to support this.
What’s worse is that soldiers frequently post on social media about how ill prepared and unmotivated they are.
These difficulties are partially attributable to the Centre for Democracy and Development’s (CDD) admission that, over the past 20 years, about $15 billion has been lost to shady arms deals in the nation.
While the ICPC and EFCC are looking into some of these inconsistencies, according to Owasanoye, the efforts won’t be very fruitful without proactive preventative measures and a review of current procurement standards.
The ICPC Chairman stated, “ICPC has through its research and training arm convened this policy dialogue in furtherance of its statutory mandate to prevent corruption by review of the systems, processes, and practices of agencies of government and to direct improvement where they predispose to corruption.”