War against corruption: President Yar’Adua backs removal of immunity clause
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Jan 24, 2008, 16:51

President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua has announced in Davos, Switzerland that he fully supports the removal of the immunity from prosecution conferred on the President, Vice President, State Governors and Deputy Governors by the 1999 Constitution.

Speaking at a dinner hosted by the Partnership Against Corruption Initiative in Davos, on Wednesday January 24, President Yar’Adua said that he was confident that these public officials will soon be stripped of their current immunity from prosecution.

“I have confidence that the next constitutional amendment will strip these public officials of this immunity and I am personally in support of that,” he said.

According a press statement issued by his Special Adviser on Communications, Mr Olusegun Adeniyi, the President indicated that he expected the removal of the immunity clause from the constitution to greatly facilitate the work of Nigeria’s anti-corruption agencies, which, he said, have been granted “total and complete independence of action” by his administration.

“One thing I have done is to give them total and complete independence of action. The institutions are directly under me in the Presidency, so when I assumed office, I called their chairmen and told them that they have total independence to go and act within the law: that is the only condition I gave, that everything they do must be within the law establishing them and within the laws of the Federation,” President Yar’Adua said.

He also told his audience that in furtherance of the ongoing war against corruption in Nigeria, the Federal Government will soon introduce new legislation that will make all violations and disrespect for due process punishable by law.

“We now have a situation in which people award contracts without caring whether they have enough money to complete the project and because of this, there are lots of abandoned projects all over the country, in fact some going into billions of dollars. This is the kind of disrespect for established regulations and procedures that feeds corruption.

“Our decision to fight corruption properly and have respect for law, order and due process will now make such acts of omission or commission punishable by law, and that will clean the system and make sure that whatever business dealings government enters into, we have the ability to abide by the covenant we signed. In fact, that is the path of honour, not only for any government but also for companies that are operating in Nigeria,” President Yar’Adua said.

The President said that his Administration will also implement other measures “to ensure that opportunities to commit corruption are reduced to the barest minimum so that anybody, any public official who commits an act of corruption will know he has done it as a deliberate attempt, not because he has an opportunity to commit corruption.”

“One of the responsibilities of leadership is to protect the followers from harming themselves, therefore leaders must shoulder the responsibility of ensuring that they have systems that do not encourage corrupt practices, systems based clearly on the rule of law, regulations and procedures,” he said.

President Yar’Adua commended the Partnership Against Corruption Initiative which was formally launched in 2004 by Chief Executive Officers of global engineering, construction, energy, metals and mining industries to develop multi-industry principles and practices that will result in a competitive level playing field, based on integrity, fairness and ethical conduct.

“The truth is that some companies have benefited materially from corruption, while we, the governments and the nations, are usually at the receiving end, because very few people benefit from corrupt actions. In nations where corruption thrives, the vast majority are shortchanged, so the measures and the steps you are taking really require courage.

“I will like to see this initiative being vigorously pursued and publicized so that in the near future when we are doing business in Nigeria and we see a list of companies which come for competition, we can ask, which are those companies that have acceded to Partnership against Corruption Initiative? These are the companies we will do business with. I think when you push forward and pursue this initiative vigorously, we will reach that point,” President Yar’Adua told the chief executives of the world’s leading multinational companies at the dinner.

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