Buhari swears in 27-year-old female lawyer into ICPC board, urges them to sanitise public service

Ebun Francis|

President Muhammadu Buhari has sworn-in 27-year-old Hannatu Muhammad as a member of the board of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) and urged the members to help sanitise the public service from diversion of public revenue and deliberate misuse of public funds.

President Buhari said, “ I am particularly delighted that the ICPC law under which you 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.”

27-year-old Muhammad was appointed as one of the board members to represent the youth in compliance with the provision of the ICPC Act.

According to the Act, the board shall include “a youth not being less than 21 or more than 30 years of age at the time of his or her appointment”.

The president also swore-in Bolaji Owasanoye, who was screened and cleared by the Senate in 2018, as the chairman of the commission.

Other members are Grace Chinda (Delta); Olubukola Balogun (Lagos); Okolo Titus-(Enugu); Obiora Iqwedebia (Anambra); Adamu Bello (Katsina); Abdullahi Maikanu Saidu (Niger) and Yahaya Umah Daudu (Nasarawa).

The swearing-in ceremony took place at the Council Chamber, State House, in Abuja on Monday.

Speaking at the swearing-in ceremony, the new chairman swore to “eschew, expose and fight corruption” in Nigeria.

He also said that he was encouraged by “the unquestionable, unshakeable and unequivocal stand of Mr. President against corruption, which indicated a very strong political will to fight corruption”, and promised that the new board members would not disappoint the nation in their assignment.