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Sunday 30 March 2014

Presidency Will Not Cover Up Corruption-Okupe


The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe has declared that the Presidency will never cover up cases of corruption levelled against any individual or institution of government.

According to Okupe, “We wish to reiterate emphatically that President Goodluck Jonathan had never and will never condone any act of corruption no matter from which quarters such may come from”.

“The clarification has become necessary as a result of a mischievous publication by a newspaper which suggested falsely that my response to the planned probe by the House of Representatives on the hiring of a private jet by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation implied that the President was encouraging corruption”.

Okupe said “the true fact of the matter is that it is the House of Representatives that claimed to be in possession of certain documents relating to the leasing of private jets for which they decided to institute a probe”. Accordingly, he said, “The Presidency is not in possession of such papers neither has any petition relating to such issue been received by the Presidency. Therefore the Presidency is not in any position to investigate a matter that it has no fact or presentation on.

“It therefore becomes imperative that that the Presidency awaits the outcome of the on-going investigation by the House of Representatives before it can undertake any reasonable action.
“Just recently, Mr. President endorsed and directed that an alleged non-remittance of about $10 billion into the national coffers by the NNPC be subjected to a forensic audit by reputable international audit firm as suggested by the minister for finance"Okupe said.

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