Owasanoye takes oath of office as ICPC’s new boss

NAN

Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye has been sworn in as the new Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC).

A statement by the commission’s Spokesperson , Mrs Rasheedat Okoduwa, in Abuja on Monday, said the ceremony was performed by President Muhammadu Buhari in the State House. Also sworn in were eight other new Board Members for the Commission.

The Members included,  Grace Chinda (Delta), Titus Okolo (Enugu), Obiora Igwedebia (Anambra), Justice Adamu Bello (Katsina). Others are Olubukola Balogun (Lagos), Hannatu Muhammed (Jigawa), Abdulahi Saidu (Niger) and Yahaya Dauda (Nasarawa).

“President Buhari noted that he was particularly delighted that the ICPC law under which the ICPC  will operate is robust enough to assist government to sanitise the public sector in service delivery, public procurement, diversion of public revenue, deliberate misuse of public funds, and so on.”

The new chairman pledged to eschew, expose and fight corruption. He also said that he was encouraged by the unquestionable, unshakeable and unequivocal stand of the President against corruption, which indicated a very strong political will to fight corruption.

Owasanoye, therefore, promised on behalf of the new members not to disappoint the nation in their assignment. The Senate, had last December, screened and confirmed Owasanoye and other board nominees whose nominations had been pending for over a year. The Chairman would be in office for a tenure of five years, which is renewable only once, while the board members have  a four-year tenure that was also renewable only once.

Owasanoye would be the fourth substantive Chairman of ICPC since its inception and had by the swearing-in taken over the reins of office from the acting Chairman, Mr Musa Abubakar, who is the Commission’s Secretary.