Babachir Lawal: Act now, North East Social Accountability in Education Cluster, tells Osinbajo

The North East Social Accountability in Education Cluster has Wednesday called on Nigeria’s acting president, Yemi Osibanjo, to act on the report of the Presidential Committee that investigated the 13 billion naira scandal involving the suspended Secretary of the Government of the Federation Babachir Lawal and former Director-General of National Intelligence Agency, Ayo Oke.

Speaking during a press conference in Abuja, the group’s spokesman, Kabiru Dakata, recalled that President Muhammadu Buhari had on Wednesday April 19, suspended the Secretary of the Government of the Federation for violating legal processes in the award of contracts to companies handling projects under the Presidential Initiative on the North East (PINE) in the internally displaced persons camps across the North East.

The group said since the cardinal principle of the Buhari administration was the fight against corruption, the Acting President should try and live up to that principle,  by making the findings of the committee known to Nigerians which they said, will further justify Buhari’s famous quote of ‘I belong to nobody and I belong to Everybody.’

The group said they believed the findings of the committee would have by now gotten to the President’s table since the due date for the submission was Wednesday, May 3, and the submission of the committee’s report had also been confirmed by the Acting President’s spokesman, Laulo Akande, on Monday, May 8.

In a related development, Senate Ad-hoc Committee on Mounting Humanitarian Crisis in the Northeast had on Wednesday, May 3, submitted its final report in which it indicted Babachir Lawal for bribery and breach of law in the procurement exercise at the Presidential Initiative for the North East (PINE).

It was against this backdrop that the North East Social Accountability in the Education Cluster demanded that Acting President Yemi Osibanjo makes the finding of the committee known to Nigerians, as well as implements its various recommendations.