Investigations indicated that already some highly placed
persons in Buhari’s camp with military and security backgrounds have begun to
fashion out ways that would facilitate the process.
It was gathered that the man behind the process was a
Director in the All Progressives Congress, APC, Presidential Campaign
Organisation.
His briefs included to liaise with experts in the sector and
other people with rich legal background to work out the template for the new
surveillance policy.
When this is completed, the incoming administration, we
gathered, would further equip the Nigerian Armed Forces, especially the Army
and Navy, as well as the police and the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence
Corps, NSCDC and hand them over the job of protecting the oil pipelines and
other installations both onshore and offshore.
The implication of this however, is that Buhari’s government
would stop the contract with some former Niger-Delta militants or groups like
the Odua People’s Congress, OPC in the South-west region which the Jonathan
administration had awarded such contracts.
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| Tompolo |
The contracts to ex-militants to police Nigeria’s waterways
runs into billions of naira, the money, experts say should have been invested
in the Navy to perform the role.
In the build up to the last general elections in the
country, the media was awash with reports that the outgoing president, Dr.
Goodluck Jonathan awarded a surveillance contract estimated at about N9 billion
to the OPC. OPC leader, Gani Adams severally thanked President Jonathan for the
contract.
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| Gani Adams |
Buhari had Wednesday, during his meeting with Rivers State
chieftains of APC in Abuja warned that his government will not tolerate “an
army within the army or a police within the police” in the country.
He had also, at a forum in Abuja, told Nigerians that he
would upon assumption of office reopen the books of the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation, NNPC for proper auditing in a bid to ensure transparency
in the oil sector of the economy.
Speaking in exclusive interview with Vanguard News, a member
of the Board of Trustees of APC, Chief Sam Nkire said that Buhari would have to
tinker with the contracts if they were not properly awarded.
According to Nkire, the outgoing government of the People’s
Democratic Party, PDP, had a lot of underhand deals with some groups.
“Well, once a government has been swept away, it ceases to
exist. The new government takes charge and whatever it decides to do, becomes
the law. If the government or presidency of Buhari thinks those contracts were
not properly given out or were not given to qualified people, of course, the government
will cancel those contracts.
“And from what I know of the incoming president, he will not
waste a day to cancel those contracts because these are the reasons why
Nigerians rejected the PDP government. Because, they did things that should not
be done. They did things without recourse to the law.
“They did things with impunity and knowing Buhari as a man
who abhors impunity; a man we can say is one of the incorruptible persons, I
will be surprised if he does not revoke contracts that were wrongly awarded if
he sees them”, Nkire said.
Other areas the incoming Buhari’s regime would look into include
the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, an agency
responsible for the regulation of the activities of Nigerian shipping,
maritime, labour and coastal waters and the Federal Inland Revenue Service,
FIRS.
“ Two other agencies Buhari must look into are NIMASA and
FIRS. Stories of corruption in those organizations cannot be ignored. For the
incoming president to be taken seriously in his pledge to fight and win the war
against corruption, he must sanitize these places. They stink,” a reliable APC
source added.
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