President Muhammadu Buhari has created a committee to look at how to fight corruption, an issue he placed as a top priority of his administration.
The seven-member group will advise Buhari’s government on moving forward with the “war against corruption and the implementation of required reforms in Nigeria’s criminal justice system,” said Femi Adesina, a spokesman for the presidency, in an e-mailed statement on Monday.
Nigeria is ranked 136th out of 175 nations in Transparency International’s 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index. As part of that drive, he’s overhauling many of the country’s institutions including the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, an institution that has been accused of diverting an estimated $30 billion since 2009. Nigeria is Africa’s biggest crude producer and biggest economy.
The anti-graft committee will be led by Professor Itse Sagay, a former dean of the faculty of law at the University of Benin. Its other members include academics such as Femi Odekunle, a professor of criminology at Ahmadu Bello University in the northern Nigerian city of Zaria, Dr. (Mrs) Benedicta Daudu, an Associate Professor of International Law at the University of Jos; Prof. E. Alemika, a Professor of Sociology at the University of Jos; Professor Sadiq Radda, Professor of Criminology at Bayero University in Kano State; and Hadiza Bala Usman, a Civil Society Activist and the final member, Professor Bolaji Owasanoye of the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, will double as a member and the committee’s Executive Secretary
The Ford Foundation, MacArthur Foundation and Open Society Foundation have created a $5 million fund to support the committee, Adesina said. Buhari, who took office in May, asked the Finance Ministry on Monday to explain why a $1 billion Chinese loan for a rail line was redirected to other projects.
