In what sounded like last warning, Governor Seyi Makinde has asked former public office holders in the state to return state resources in their possession or be quizzed by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).
Noting that by each passing day his administration continued to see evidence of mismanagement of resources by the past administration, Makinde said it was in the interest of those former public officials to cooperate or be reported to the ICPC.
Makinde sounded this warning when the ICPC team led by its Chairman, Professor Bolaji Owasanoye visited him at governor’s office, Ibadan, on Thursday.
He decried that the state government had given enough time to those concerned officials to return the state’s resources which they took but they had failed to heed the state’s pleas.
While noting that the state’s anti-corruption agency will be collaborating with the ICPC in the fight against corruption in the state, he stressed that his administration was not out to witch-hunt officials of the past administration.
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“We are not here to witch-hunt the past administration or individuals. That is probably why you (ICPC) have not seen a lot of petitions coming from us. But as we have progressed, what we have seen is that some of the resources were mismanaged.
“We have been talking to the people involved. If they return those resources, then, we will probably don’t need to come to ICPC because the whole idea is for you to help us recover those resources of state government that had been stolen.
“If they refuse to cooperate, I am just putting them on notice now, then we will come to ICPC for assistance.
“Also, we have anti-corruption agencies, including EFCC and ICPC at the federal level. So, people have asked me why setting up our own agency at the state level?
“I said to them that if the federally allocated revenues are being chased around by the federal agencies, we do generate revenues locally as well.
“We also need to chase after how they are being spent. And quite frankly, if you looked at the federal agencies, they don’t have limitless resources and you have all these corruption tendencies and cases all over the place.
“So, we felt the closer the anti-corruption efforts get to the people, the better the resources we are going to get at the end of the day,” Makinde said.