Corruption Emergency

RANDOM THOTS

The corruption pendulum keeps oscillating by the day. As the current administration continues to battle corruption on different fronts, so also the scourge keeps fighting back via other routes.

In another dimension, President Muhammadu Buhari recently declared national emergency on corruption, warning that institutions, agencies and individuals must own the fight to reverse the negative culture of pilfering public funds, or risk plunging the country into turmoil.

According to reports, while signing Executive Order No.6 to further strengthen institutions on curtailing and restricting illicit activities in the country, PMB said, “Like I have said many times, if Nigeria does not kill corruption, corruption will sooner-or-later kill Nigeria.”

“It has thus become necessary to re-kit and re-tool our arsenal to be able to effectively tackle corruption’s perilous counter-attack against the Nigerian State. Accordingly, the Federal Government of Nigeria has declared a national emergency to deal with that crisis. In this regard, the Federal Government in line with its anti-corruption strategy seeks to ensure that justice is not defeated or compromised by persons involved in a case of corruption,” he said.

Corruption has been variously described as the biggest setback to the development process of this nation, and billions of dollars of the commonwealth have been systematically siphoned into private pockets over the years; leading to widespread poverty, hunger and suffering for the less-fortunate citizens, who constitute more than 90 per cent of the total population of the largest black country in the world.

Although many believe that corruption simply cannot be eradicated in Nigeria, a declaration of emergency by PMB sends a strong signal that something will be done officially to tame the monster. But with snide allegations of corruption still trailing some top officials in his cabinet, the battle is far from over…just saying

– Abimbola Akosile