A Coalition of civil society organisations has concluded plans to embark on a nationwide protest to demand for the immediate resignation or sack of the Minisiter of Water Resources, Prof. Utsev Joseph over gross corruption and ineptitude.
The Coalition which is made up of more than 21 CSOs had, on the 13th of June written to the Minister asking him to resign for his inability to exploit the monumental potentials in his ministry for employment generation and other incidences of graft.
Addressing journalists in Abuja on Thursday, the 19th of June 2024 after an emergency meeting held to fine-tune a response to the letter which was sent to the Minister, the National Secretary for Empowerment for Unemployed Youth Initiative (EUYI) and the Coordinator for the Coalition, Comrade Igwe Ude-umanta stressed that Prof. Joseph Utsev is a misfit who has not done anything to advance the Renewed Hope Agenda of Mr. President, hence the imperative for his resignation.
According to him, “we are deeply disenchanted by the records of a very critical Ministry as Water Resources under the inept leadership of Prof. Utsev. The Ministry of Water Resources remains the only Ministry that has no achievements to add to Mr. President’s meritorious one year in office. Despite the huge potentials for employment generation for millions of unemployed youths, Prof. Utsev has remained clueless and we are disturbed.
“It is our firm conviction that Prof. Utsev should honourably resign and return to the classroom to hone his skills better as he currently has nothing to offer Nigerians and the current administration. His monumental failure has gravely hurt the army of unemployed youth who had hoped to be employed from the ample opportunities in the water resources sector”.
Speaking separately, Dr. Ahmed Bankole, Executive Director, Action Against Corruption Initiative (AACI) and the Secretary for the Coalition decried the insensitivity of the Minister to the plight of Nigerian, accusing him of fraud corruption even in the midst of economic hardships and total lack of expertise.
“Contrary to the mood of the country and the barrage of criticism that this government had to endure from hungry Nigerians, our investigations following a barrage of accusations shows the the Minister is busy acquiring properties in the name of family members and proxies with funds allocated for legacy projects and kickbacks from contractors.
“This primitive accumulation of wealth is not only unhealthy for a struggling economy, it is very shameful, since those cars and houses allegedly purchased can only be from proceeds of corruption. The nest of corruption in kick backs and bribery within the Ministry of Water Resources is a growing threat to the anti-corruption crusade of the Tinubu Government and we shall not fold our arms and let this fester, he noted.
The Coalition therefore announced their unanimous decision to stage a mother of all protests in a few days, to drive home their demands and compel Mr. President to outrightly sack the embattled Minister and have him replaced with a technocrat with the requisite knowledge to drive the Renewed Hope Agenda in the Water Resources sector.
“As a Coalition of over 21 civil society groups with millions of members, we are very passionate about the success of the Tinubu Administration because the destiny of the country lies in it. We are, therefore, going to embark on a nationwide strike, having concluded our plans and made necessary logistics arrangements. There’s no going back as we shall ground all activities at the Ministry of Water Resources until our demands are met”, the Coalition insisted.
