President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been urged to undertake more sweeping reforms in Assets Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) to effectively deliver on its statutory responsibilities.
The appeal came yesterday from a civil rights and anti-corruption group, Empowerment for Unemployed Youth Initiative.
In a statement it issued in Abuja, the group said the anticipated reforms will lay to rest series of unabated allegations of gross corruption and mismanagement of public assets as well as other unwholesome activities being raised against the company in some quarters.
Its national coordinator, Danesi Momoh, and director of research and programmes, Igwe Ude-Umanta, who signed the statement, said President Bola Ahmed should review the appointments of the top management of the company, including the managing director and chief executive officer.
Momoh said, “Since last year, we have been calling the attention of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to the allegations of the happenings of AMCON under the present leadership.’’
He said the allegations of sharp practices in the organisation which predated the present administration have never been “empirically unrefuted” by those who fingered it.
The right group recalled with frustration, its earlier attempts to enthrone transparency in AMCON under the previous administration and the brick walls it encountered due to lack of political will, but expressed the hope that President Tinubu would act as he had done in similar cases.
Momoh claimed that the management of AMCON “is an inherited liability from an administration that condoned corruption and even protected it. We once wrote to former President Muhammadu Buhari over this matter, but we did it only for record purposes, since we knew that his administration allowed public officials to get away with any crime. Of course, he didn’t do anything and we were sad but not disappointed because we expected nothing.
“It is now up to Mr. President to put an end to the mess in AMCON if he wishes to be trusted with his claim to enthrone transparency and accountability in governance and public life. We are encouraged by his antecedents so far and it is our hope that AMCON will be reformed for better performance.”
Momoh said his organisation was aware of a cartel working underground to prevent the president from doing the needful in AMCON.
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