Top APC Chieftain in Adamawa State, Mark Wosi has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to sack the suspended Secretary to the Government of the Federation Babachir Lawal, the suspended Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme, Prof. Usman Yusuf, and the suspended Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency, Ayo Oke, to save his anti-graft war.
Wosi said from all indications, Buhari was stalling on the issues because the men involved were his loyalists.
Wosi said, “You can’t keep telling us you are fighting corruption while there are corruption allegations against people around you and yet you can’t do anything about it. This only means you are the father of corruption. The integrity of President Muhammadu Buhari is now in doubt with all these fraud cases under his nose.”
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo had on Wednesday, August 23, 2017, submitted to the Presidency the report of the committee that investigated allegations of corruption against Lawal and Oke.
Similarly, a committee set up by the Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, had discovered that frauds to the tune of N919m allegedly took place under Yusuf, who had spent less than a year at the NHIS. The report was then sent to the President on September 4.
While Oke was supposed to have proceeded on pre-retirement leave from August as his tenure ends in November, there has been no official decision by Buhari on allegations against the NIA boss.
In view of this, the Chairman, House of Representatives’ Committee on Justice, Mr. Razaq Atunwa, called on the President to sack and prosecute the affected government officials.
Atunwa, who is representing Asa/Ilorin West Federal Constituency in the National Assembly, said Buhari’s delay in taking action was portraying his government in bad light, adding that the reports on the top government functionaries must not be swept under the carpet.
He said, “If someone has committed a financial crime or fraud, he must not only be dismissed from office but be made to face the music. It is for the court to decide if the person is guilty of that offence or not.”
An APC chieftain in Ogun State, Chief Bode Mustapha, said if the report of the findings indicted the SGF, he would expect the President to immediately act on it.
He said, “We don’t need this kind of suspense now. It is capable of bringing President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration into disrepute.
“He (Buhari) is allowing the Peoples Democratic Party to have a field day in accusing the APC of shielding corrupt people, whether rightly or wrongly. This is a big shame.”
Mustapha said beyond pronouncements, there was a need to strengthen the anti-corruption institutions.
“It is high time the President took the bull by horns. Since he has made pronouncements in the case of the Abdulrasheed Maina (a former chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Pension Reform) by sacking him, he should also do the same thing on Lawal, Yusuf and others.”