CRITICISM TRAILS REPS’ MOVE OVER FOREIGN BANK ACCOUNTS

The House of Representatives is under attacks over moves to allow public officers to operate foreign accounts.

The controversial bill passed the second reading at the house on Wednesday.

Under the extant Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act, 2004, it is criminal for a public officer to operate a bank account outside Nigeria.

The bill sought to amend the law to allow the practice after getting the leave of the Bureau.

In separate interviews, a Second Republic lawmaker, Dr. Junaid Mohammed and a Lagos lawyer, Bamidele Aturu, condemned the moves describing it as “insensitive.”

But a legal luminary and academic, Prof. Yemi Akinseye-George (SAN), who said it is a good move, cautioned the lawmakers to tread carefully.

Aturu said the bill “will encourage corruption. It will encourage public officer to open foreign account and stash away looted funds into the account. That will send a wrong signal to the international community and Nigerians that we are not ready to fight corruption.

“That will be a sad development. It will mean that corruption has destroyed all our institutions. It will strengthen foreign economy at the expense of our economy. It will destroy the foreign investors’ confidence in Nigeria. It will spell disaster. Cottage industries will collapse.”

Mohammed who is the convener, Coalition of Northern Politicians, Academics, Professionals and Businessmen, expressed surprise that the lawmakers who ought to be thinking of laws to improve the lot of long suffering Nigerians were busy seeking for ways of serving their greed.

The ex-lawmaker said the house was only seeking to legitimise what a lot of public officers were already doing surreptitiously.

Mohammed explained that this is happening because corruption, greed and avarice had become the order of the day under the present administration.

He said, “The President as he stands today has no moral right to tell anybody not to own a foreign bank account because he himself has violated the basic principles of transparency by refusing to make his assets publicly.

“The ministers and top ranking government officials all own such accounts either directly or indirectly through their spouses, girlfriends and what have you.

“The members of the House know that no matter what outrage they commit, 80 percent of them are not going to return anyway. They can take their foreign accounts as a memento of their stay in the House of Representatives. No sane society can allow things continue this way”, Mohammed added.