Obasanjo seeks stronger powers for ICPC
IF the National Assembly gives its nod to President Olusegun Obasanjo's request for some amendment to be effected in the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) law, it may become more effective.
Addressing participants at the opening of a two-day stakeholders' conference on Crime and its Prevention, organised by the House of Representatives, reports disclosed that the President stressed the need for a speedy action on the proposed amendment to the law to make the commission more effective.
Though silent on the details of the proposed amendment request, the President Obasanjo said his government was concerned in the increasing involvement of youths in crimes. He charged the legislature to evolve strong laws that would assist government in curbing the menace.
The President described criminality as a symptom of the decay in the family, the community, school and religious systems, and blamed the situation on the introduction of "new unwholesome values into the society."
"Armed robbers even have religious patrons who pray for them before they go and to whom they give account on returning," Obasanjo said.
He also said that some policemen were known to have hired their guns to robbers, adding that from his experience in prison, crime evolved from tender age.
The president, therefore, charged parents to play their roles properly to stop their children from being criminals and prostitutes.
Because of the growing complexity in crime, he said criminals had evolved their own "territorial areas of coverage beyond which they do not go," adding that a group that goes by the name "Arewa boys" had their jurisdiction in the north.
"We have responsibility for dealing with the issue of juvenile delinquency, the evolution of militia, cultism and people who target our crude oil in the name of bunkering," he said.
The president said the growing violence in the country was the result of protests by some people against his administration's effort to fight past injustices and unfairness.
He said that some Nigerians involved in bunkering used their proceeds to purchase arms with which they fight their way into the crude oil crime.
Only last week, Obasanjo said a cache of 142 AK 47 automatic rifles were apprehended from bunkerers in the Niger Delta area.
"We must do joint intelligence and be engaged in joint operations with our neighbouring countries," he said stressing that criminals in the society must not get any respite nor comfort anywhere in the country.
