President Umar Yar’Adua, in his first televised broadcast to the nation, said he had resolved to intensify the war against corruption, because corruption is central to the spread of poverty. He maintained that the corrosive effect of the vice was all too visible in all aspects of our national life. Since the Olusegun Obasanjo government which preceded his had made significant progress in the past, Yar’Adua promised to maintain the momentum.
He added: “Over the past eight years, Nigerians have reached a national consensus in at least four areas: to deepen democracy and the rule of law; build an economy driven primarily by the private sector, not government; display zero tolerance for corruption in all its forms, and finally, restructure and staff our government to ensure efficiency and good governance.”
But there was a kind of self reversal when President Yar’Adua recently appointed Emmanuel Olutokunbo Lulu Enaboifo as Executive Director, Finance and Administration, Nigeria-São Tomé and Principe Joint Development Authority. Enaboifo is a fugitive from justice in the United States. This is because, a US District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, in 1986, convicted him of bank fraud. He was found guilty of “conspiracy to commit bank fraud”.
Many think Nigeria should have appointed a man of integrity to this sensitive sector, given the fact that Nigeria and São Tomé were, at a point, at each other’s throats over allocation of oil blocs.
That was not the expectation of all when, in 1999, Obasanjo and his counterpart in São Tomé and Principe, Fradique de Menezes, set the machinery of the Authority–which was formally inaugurated in January 2002–in motion.
A year after, Sao Tome screamed blue murder when Nigeria bent all the rules of oil bloc allocations to favour a few cronies of Obasanjo. With the appointment of Enaboifo, a wrong signal is being sent to the other country that it would be (fraudulent) business as usual.
This controversial appointment is the subject of our cover story this week. It was written by General Editor, ADEMOLA ADEGBAMIGBE.
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In the same edition, there is an interview with Wale Adedayo, former Chief Press Secretary to the Ogun State Governor. It’s a must-read.
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