Chukwudi Nweje
Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, has accused Europe and America of nurturing and sustaining corruption in the third world. He claimed the provide safe haven for looted funds.
“The bulk of stolen money is warehoused by USA, Britain among others. When you are bringing stolen money, they turn the other eye because they want to use the money for development. Because there is no colonialism again, they encourage criminals all over the world to bring their stolen wealth and keep it to the detriment of our people and generations unborn.”
Falana, who spoke at the launch of “A Compendium of 100 High Profile Corruption Cases in Nigeria’, a book written by Human and Environmental Development Agenda, (HEDA) with support from MacArthur Foundation, to mark the World Anti-corruption Day, in Lagos yesterday, said corruption thrives in Nigeria because the government has failed in its responsibilities.
“The resources of our country were spent in setting up public enterprises in the 1960s and 1970s. Under the General Ibrahim Babangida’s administration, the International Monetary Fund told us that government has no business doing business, so these public enterprises were sold at give-away prices to so-called investors. They bought our assets and engaged in assets stripping and sold them off.”
He also blamed the structure of governance for the prevalence of corruption in Nigeria.
“If we want to fight corruption, we must look at the roots. When you don’t pay workers their salary for months, you are telling the workers to steal. When workers see pensioners, who are not paid and the plight they go through, you are telling them to steal for the rainy day.”
He blamed the political class, who he alleged practise politics devoid of ideology and urged Nigerians to do away with them.
“Lateef Jakande was governor in Lagos State for four years, he lived in his own house in Illupeju. There was no State House gulping millions of naira. Now, we have a gulping N100 billion under this era. So, if you want to know why there is so much corruption and why we are so poor…we must now begin to ask political questions, we must not leave the politics of the country to professional politicians without ideas take us for granted.”
