Chinazor Megbolu
28 September 2007
Lagos — Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commis-sion (EFCC), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, has said corruption is deadlier than Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (Aids).
Represented by his Chief of Staff, Mr Dapo Olorunyomi, Ribadu said this at the Institute of Directors (IoD) Public Sector Evening in Lagos, adding that corruption as far as he knows, kills far more effectively than Aids, malaria or war, which is why corporate managers must rise up and do something about it.
He said the summary is that corruption has not only produced injustice and a chronic failure to effectively manage international support, it has also led to the squandering of our region's considerable human and natural resources.
"Nigeria, which has made nearly half a trillion dollars from oil in less than five decades, a figure that dwarfs that of international aid to the whole Africa, still has little to show to the extent that today, we face the reality that around 70 per cent of our compatriots live in conditions of dispiriting poverty on income of less than a dollar a day," he said.
He also said there is a strong reason for the masses to address corruption in Nigeria, because there is a naïve hope that the rich can try to live in opulence with lavish homes, fine hotels, excellent hospitals, distinguished schools from which citizens are kept out.
Speaking further, he stated that despite Nigeria's relative oil wealth, the country's basic social indicators place it among the 20 poorest countries in the world.
"It is adjudged for many years albeit unjustifiably as the second most corrupt country on earth by the rating of Transparency International (TI), today, we are 18 on the scale", he said.
Citing example, he said that the refineries and the power sector are just as scandalous as they are mystifying. He added that Nigeria is perhaps the only nation on the globe today that produces oil and still imports about 80 percent of its refined product.
According to him, "the billions that went into the refineries have disappeared. I am not here to regal you with morbid tales of dead institutions but Nigerians truly feel sad when they recall the demise of the national carrier, the Nigerian Airways, the National Shipping Lines and the countless nation assets that have yield the ghost to the ruthless assault of grand corruption".
However, he told those in attendance that when they catalogue so much dysfunctional in the system, the ball will be back in their courts.
"From the ethical failures at Cadbury, through the audit problems at Afribank, remember that we are speaking here of a signature term for the ill health of the corporate corridors of our national life", he said.
The EFCC Chief Executive added that when all these are coupled with the many reports of grand corruption at the state, local council and federal establishment that the EFCC has worked on, the challenge of ethic needs a new renewal.
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