Okwe Obi, Abuja

An international Organisation, McArthur Foundation, has claimed that over N63 trillion budgeted  for developmental projects by the Federal Government between 1999 and 2018 had been filtered away with no tangible dividend for citizens.

Country Director of the organisation,  Dr. Kole Shettima, stated this in Abuja, yesterday, at the launch of a book: ‘Nigeria: Corruption and democracy in governance’ written by Jide Ojo.

Shettima blamed the development on “pervasive corruption.

“A lot of NGOs are responding to governments failures and corruption is one of them. Between 1999 and 2018, Nigeria has budgeted more than N60 trillion, the managers are politicians and not development partners.  And we have asked what has happened to the N60 trillion budgeted for the Nigerian public and this is just the federal level, the challenge that is facing the country is not one the federal government alone can solve, the challenges facing us as a people or nation requires every one of us to work together in partnership. We can no longer afford to brand ourselves unpalatable names in order to hang the others,” he said.

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He said fighting corruption was herculean as corrupt politicians and civil servants often mobilised resources and witch-hunt anti-graft agencies trying to expose their shady deals.

Shettima, who was represented by Dr. Olaide Oladayo, said those who once championed the course of a corrupt-free society, enmesh themselves in it when elected or appointed into positions of authority. He however said there were many Nigerians who had indicated interest to stem the tide.

The author, Ojo, said he was compelled to write the book because of the level of underdevelopment in Nigerians which had impeded the country’s growth despite its enormous human and natural resources.

“Corruption is one of the major challenges we have as a country. The rationale behind our inability to match the rest of the world can be found in the lack of accountability and corruption challenge.  The panacea to our underdevelopment can be found in our ability to tackle our corruption challenge,” he said.