The chairman, House of Representatives committee on Media and Publicity, Alhaji Zakari Mohammed, yesterday accused President Goodluck Jonathan's administration of being selective in its approach to tackling corruption.

Zakari who made this comment during an interview with journalists in Ilorin, Kwara State, said that unless there was a change of attitude by the President, corruption would continue unabated in the nation's oil and gas industry.

He added, "for us in the House and till we are proved otherwise, the will to tackle corruption by the current government looks a bit selective. Unless we go for it headlong, we might not be able to get to where we are going.

"For us, we believe that justice should not be short-circuited. Let the rule of law prevail. We will keep demanding the right thing to be done, even though we might be blackmailed, in the process. The way things are now unless there is a change of attitude, we might not be able to tackle the problem headlong.

"We will pass the PIB with our observations entrenched. We will come out with the law that is sustainable and empowers the institutions to function, rather than the actors in the sector. We don't want to pass a PIB that the country will be at the mercy of individuals, but all key issues that border on making the industry open to investment and employment will be created and revenue generated."

On the recent declaration by President Jonathan to remove the oil subsidy, Mohammed said: "when we get back to the House obviously we will take a position on the matter. In the beginning, we believe and as we have said, if the malpractices and under-the-table dealings are taken off from the oil industry, we will know that even the subsidy issue is sustainable.

"These issues are history now. We just know that corruption is neck deep in the oil and gas industry. Very soon, a public hearing will be called and the issue will be thrashed out. Part of what we intend to embed in the PIB law is to be able to put in place stringent laws to check corruption in the oil and gas industry.

"As for the removal of the fuel subsidy as stated by the president, the House will always make our position known when we get to plenary on Tuesday. Any matter that borders on the lives of the people who happen to be our employers we will definitely take it in tow.

"Unfortunately, I got disappointed in Ruben Abati, the spokesperson of the president, in one of his write-ups, rather than address the issue, he was particular about Zakari Mohammed as a person. He alluded to the fact that I was absent-minded, because I said that the government from all that we saw does not display the strength and will to tackle corruption.

"As a country we have made a lot of mistakes for relying heavily on the oil and gas industry. Everybody that is somebody in Nigeria wants to have something to do with oil and gas. Unless we begin to divest and refocus our attention away from the sector, corruption will be there."