President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been called upon to set up an independent judicial panel of enquiry to probe the allegations of high level corruption in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Ltd, (NNPC) and the World Bank operations in Nigeria.
This advice was given by a pro-democracy group, Journalists For Democracy Rights (JODER).
The group urged the president to immediately set up a judicial panel of enquiry that would have people of proven integrity as members of the panel.
The group added that Nigerians need not just set up a panel, but one that would command public respect.
JODER in a statement issued Thursday and signed by its official, Akinwale Kasali, said corruption is the bane of Nigeria’s underdevelopment and the root cause of violence and extremism which is being experienced in many parts of the country.
The group in a letter sent to the president asked him to appreciate the weight of the illicit practices linked to the NNPC and the World Bank operations in Nigeria which has further battered Nigeria’s image globally and put it in position of disrepute.
JODER urged the President to give hope to local and international observers by addressing the ugly trend by setting up a judicial panel of enquiry that would investigate the series of criminal practices associated with the World Bank officials and the NNPC.
The Minister for Women Affairs, Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye had revealed that Nigerian World Bank officials take 40% from all loans obtained by Nigeria. She also revealed that some members of the National Assembly do demand and receive bribery from loans collected on behalf of 200 million Nigerians while ministers are entitled to 5% of the loan.
JODER noted that the World Bank officials are both Nigerians and their European rogue cartel’s main motive is to keep Nigeria as a satellite state that will never develop, hiding under the pretences of false assistance and development partnership.
On the scandal in the oil and gas sector, the group said the chairman, Dangote Refinery said some NNPC officials have set up refineries in Malta with a plot that would automatically stifle the prospect of oil and gas production and destroy indigenous growth of the industry at the home front. The media group described the two revelations on the World Bank and the NNPC as the ‘biggest scam in African recent history.’