Tony Edike
15 August 2007
Enugu — FORMER member of the Federal House of Representatives and immediate past chairman, South-South Caucus in the house, Dr. Isio Oguong Udoh, says unless the immunity clauses on the president and state governors are expunged from the Nigerian constitution, the war against corruption will not yield the desired result.
Udoh, who delivered a lecture on "Legislature oversight: Mechanics and strategies for corruption prevention, detection and sanctioning during the swearing-in ceremony of 110 medical graduands of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) yesterday, said corruption would be drastically reduced if the immunity clauses are expunged from the constitution and offenders appropriately sanctioned.
"I beg to state categorically, that corruption prevention is key to winning the war against corruption. Consequently, greater efforts should be committed to corruption prevention in all its ramifications, as part of the mandate of the ICPC, those in the legislature had recognized the greater role of prevention and had therefore given the ICPC a clear mandate, the functions of review of the systems in government agencies to identify the systems that aid and abate corruption and make recommendations to the National Assembly for improvement," he noted.
Udoh, an alumnus of the UNN medical college, contended that as long as the nation continues to allow corrupt persons loot our treasury and cart away billions of naira and dollars, and use same ill-gotten money to pay for the services of Senior Advocates of Nigeria and other very experienced lawyers and even bribing court judges to escape punishment, corruption will strive and the target of meeting the Millennium Development Goals remains a wishful thinking.
Vice Chancellor of UNN, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, who was represented by the Deputy Vice Chancellor Academics, Prof. Moscow Onuoha, charged the graduating doctors to remain good ambassadors of the institution by not only maintaining high professional standards and ethics but also being disciplined anywhere they go.
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