Worried by the court injunction obtained by the Akwa Ibom State government barring anti-graft agencies from investigating its activities, a civil society group has urged the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA to fast track action to vacate such an injunction.
The group, Wadata Media and Advocacy Centre, WAMAC, also urged Civil Society Organisations to join the NBA to remove the injunction to allow relevant agencies to probe some of the state government’s suspected corrupt activities.
The call is contained in a communique signed by the Executive Director of WAMAC, Zubair Abdurrauf Idris, at the end of a town hall meeting in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.
The meeting with the theme, “Tackling corruption in the implementation of constituency projects; fostering workable synergy between media and CSOs in the fight against corruption, sought ways to address the challenge of corruption in constituency projects.
The communique also called on all stakeholders to push for speedy implementation of the ‘whistleblower protection policy,’ to encourage people to give credible information on suspected corruption cases.
While calling on the people, religious and community leaders to be vanguards of anti-corruption through advocacy and reportage of corruption issues and wrongdoings on both conventional and Social Media platforms, the communique urged the traditional and community leaders to be disciplined and transparent in their dealings and avoid falling to the trap of “Politically Exposed Persons.”
On abandoned Constituency Projects by national legislators, the meeting called for the completion of some of the identified projects in Akwa-Ibom State.
The communique urged journalists, the public and CSOs to make use of the Freedom of Information Act to get critical information that will help in the fight against corruption.
The communique in parts, ”The Town Hall meeting in Uyo, Akwa Ibom called for synergy between Civil Society Organizations, the media and anti-corruption agencies to fight Corruption.
“The meeting agreed the synergy between the media and civil society organizations is one of the strongest collaborations that will help the fight against corruption because the CSOs are knowledge-based and the media have the platform and the audience to get across the information for fighting corruption.
“The meeting called on CSO and NBA to fast track and vacate an injunction that prevents anti-corruption agencies from investigating activities of Akwa-Ibom governments.”
Chika Onyesi