Senator representing Enugu North Senatorial District Chukwuka Utazi says that President Muhammadu Buhari was showing a lot of commitment in the fight against corruption.
He said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Abuja on Wednesday.
Utazi, former Chairman, Senate Committee on Anti-Corruption and Financial Crimes, said that since the first term in office of the president in 2015, he had shown commitment in the anti-graft fight by working the talk.
“Since the five years of the presidency of Buhari, he has done a lot by showing that he really meant what he said during his campaign that preceded his election in 2015.
“He is standing up to it. I am a witness because I functioned as the Senate Committee Chairman on Anti-corruption and Financial Crimes for four years and I saw that he is committed and is not playing politics with issues of corruption,” he said.
Utazi said that other areas the president had achieved the result in the fight against corruption included when in 2018, the government ensured that the Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units lifted its suspension of the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) from the group.
“When the Egmont group of financial intelligence unit decided to place a sanction on Nigeria and suspended us from that group in 2017 as a result of lack of a legal framework, I had the courage to sponsor a private member bill that made sure that today we have Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit,” Utazi said.
He noted that the only way Nigeria could get out of the Perception Index by Transparency International (TI) was to make the right decisions by getting a commitment from the leadership of the country.
According to Utazi, everything revolves around the leadership, if the leadership of the country is seen to be positive in the fight against corruption, every other agency will take a cue.
Similarly, Deputy Chief Whip Sabi Abdullahi said that corruption was the function of the difference between what was right and what is wrong.
“Against the background of the present administration, let me say it is one of the major focus of Buhari’s administration.
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“He has stayed on the message so far, so good from 2015 till date. The subject of corruption has not been swept to the background either has it been swept under the carpet.
“For us in the Senate, we are also doing everything we can to resolve issues that we believe are also promoting corruption.
“One of the focus of the National Assembly is to come up with preventive measures to reduce corruption.
“So, within the context of law-making, ours is to look at the weaknesses, loopholes, to strengthen our laws and institutions so that corruption can actually be brought to the barest minimum,” Abdullahi said.
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