The Oyo State Anti-Corruption Agency (OYACA) has announced that the state has rid its civil service system of corruption through the agency’s activities.
In a statement in Ibadan, OYACA Chairman, Justice Eni Esan, the state capital, on Tuesday, said the main goal of establishing the anti-graft office was to sanitise the public service and maintain zero tolerance for corruption in the state.
She said, ‘Governor Seyi Makinde’s main goal when the board of the state Anti-Corruption Agency was constituted was to sanitise the public and civil servants at all levels and ensure they carry out their responsibilities without institutionalised corruption, through this, we have sent a clear message of zero tolerance for corruption in the state.
‘To achieve this feat, OYACA has handled over six hundred petitions from the public, prosecuting many senior civil servants, securing convictions and operating five branches across the state to provide access for people to submit petitions.
‘The agency has the power to investigate any individual in the state no matter how highly placed, if there is any petition against him from the members of the public’.
While speaking on the independence of the agency, she pointed out that the governor said it on the day of the OYACA board’s inauguration that ‘if a petition is written against anyone, no matter how highly-placed in the state, the agency should investigate such a person’.
‘We have no pressure at all on any case, none at all, I am telling you the facts, You see, we are independent when it comes to our investigations, we can investigate any Individual no matter how highly -placed.
‘If a petition is written against him or her, he even said it on the day he inaugurated the board that if a petition is written against whoever in the state, we should investigate him’, Esan concluded.