The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, has said
\nthat unless and until strong institutions are built and strengthened,
\nNigeria may end up punishing corruption but not fighting corruption.
\nHe spoke on Monday at the launch of a book “Antidotes for Corruption” –
\nwritten by Senator Dino Melaye – in Abuja, where he opined that only
\nstrong institutions can fight corruption in the country.
\nHe said for the war against corruption to succeed, there must be
\ninstitutional reforms that will help put in place measures which will make
\nit near impossible for people to engage in corrupt acts.
\nTo him, corruption as a disease must be treated from its roots and not
\njust the symptoms, and he argued that it is the moral responsibility of
\nall men and women of good will to fight corruption because every
\nindividual pays the price of corruption in the society.
\n“As a country, we ran into a situation where corruption was becoming the
\nnorm, there was this moral cult that we had created that celebrated
\ncorruption,” the speaker stated.
\nAccording to him, “the motivation was always there for corruption, but now
\nwhat is important is not just fighting the old corrupt system. Really, if
\nwe must make progress, our focus should be to replace the old order that
\nwas corrupt with a new order that makes corruption near impossible to take
\nplace.”
\nTalking about Senator Melaye, Dogara said he won’t be surprised\u00a0 by the
\navalanche of criticism that may follow this because “Dino himself is a
\ncombination of so many things. He is highly opinionated, often pugnatious.
\nSo, obviously, he will be a magnet for opinionated criticism as well, he
\nwill not escape that.”
\nTo drive home his point, the Speaker said: “Corruption, for those who are
\nfarmers, is like a tree that grows vigorously. If you end up pruning the
\ntrees and not attacking the roots, there is no way you will deal with that
\nthing.”
\n“So, when those who celebrate the successes of the fight against
\ncorruption in terms of the high profile investigation, high profile
\nprosecution and even detention, they are missing the point because that is
\ndealing with the symptoms of corruption. That is punishing corruption. But
\nhow are we developing remedies that we can apply to ensure that the tree
\ndies?”
\n“Recently, in the labour community, we went for May Day and some of us
\nwere nearly held hostage. You can\u2019t blame the workers. While they were
\nagitating for their rights, agitating for minimum wage, some of us are
\ntalking about living wage. You see, the workers control, perhaps, about 96
\npercent of the budget. In the National Assembly, we have about 92 percent,
\njudiciary and the rest. So, if you don’t make the environment conducive
\nfor those who administer this money not to want to be corrupt, you will
\nend up jailing people.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, has said that unless and until strong institutions are built and strengthened, Nigeria may end up punishing corruption but not…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53375,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n