ICPC TO DEPLOY NAVC MEMBERS TO AGENCIES
The Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Justice Emmanuel Ayoola (retd), said members of the National Anti- Corruption Volunteer Corps (NAVC) will be deployed to government establishments to monitor those government's policies and programmes that tend to encourage vices in the society.
Justice Ayoola, who disclosed this in Owerri during a one-million 'man march and rally organised by the Imo State chapter of NAVC stated that the agency was committed to the task of rendering ineffective those whose lack of integrity had retarded the nation's development.
He noted that to sustain fight against corruption, everybody at all levels must play a leading role in the fight, stressing that government's commitment to the renewed fight against corruption would only manifest if it adequately funded agencies saddled with the responsiblity to fight corruption.
According to him, government's response to the agency's request for the funding and development of the NAVC to make it potent anti-corruption force had not be encouraging. He, said ' the National Assembly, representatives of the people to whom we relied for understanding of the need for mobilization and participation of the people and masses in the fight against corruption have not shown the expected understanding.'
The ICPC boss explained that the fight against corruption is a war that could be won by the people if the present and future generations are not to be condemned to perpetual misery, poverty and shame. 'Corruption stands between the nation's abundant resources and the benefits the people are entitled to derive from them. We must strive to reserve the situation in which corruption has turned the abundance of our resources into a curse.
Justice Ayoola, therefore, warned that ICPC would henceforth withdraw recognition from any NAVC chapter that could not develop projects or participate in projects that would develop its immediate environment. In his address, the state Chairman of the NAVC, Prince Rowland Daddy, advised Nigerian leaders to refrain from corrupt practices, stating that the decadence brought about by corruption especially among the youths called for the attention of those in position of authority to have a rethink and seek to do the right thing.
Daddy, who observed that uniformed public servants, whether volunteered or regularised are recruited to enforce legitimacy, orderliness but frowned at a situation whereby some groups turned around to aid illegalities. 'He said: When some of us stand at the middle of the road extorting money from lawful passers-by sometimes by force with arms procured with the people's taxes while the authorities that send us look the other way as if they are not involved, what do we stand to gain than perforated pockets.'