Prince Bola Ajibola has said that the issue of corruption in Nigeria has spoilt the country’s name internationally and has blamed the past government and past politicians for dragging the country’s name into the mud.

In an interview with Vanguard, the foremost judge who served on the international Court of Justice at The Hague noted that corruption was a deep-rooted problem in Nigeria and needed to be dealt with using firm hands.

He said: “Corruption is really sad and already endemic in our country.  It is a kind of cankerworm that has eaten deep into our fabrics.    It is an unfortunate act that has debarred many things that we could have done to make progress. It is terribly retarding our progress.    It is very unfortunate that with corruption we are persistently regularly retrogressive. Otherwise, we would have been one of the best nations in the world.”


Prince Bola Ajibola says President Muhammadu Buhari must deal with corruption with firm hands

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Hopefully this new government will correct a lot of those bad situations that we have, because the name of Nigeria stinks to the outside world.    Nobody is really interested in dealing with anything from Nigeria because of the problem of this deep rooted corruption that is still raging among our people.

The new government that we now have is all out to do its best to rid our country of corruption but the situation is very heavy and it is very serious.    When you have so many people bent on dipping their hands corruptly into the purse of the government from all spheres of life in Nigeria, we still have a long way to go.”

The former minister of justice said that President Muhammadu Buhari must deal with corrupt officials in order to send a strong message of seriousness to the world.

He said: “The situation is a very sad one as I have said and it is deeply rooted.    And I mean deeply rooted in the past government and the past politicians.

A good example is this, there are so many politicians that EFCC and ICPC accused of corruption and they are all in court at the moment.    How many of them have we concluded?    How many of them have we convicted? How many of them are in prison? We are only informed about the fact that some have been accused and they have been granted bail and that is the end of it all. The whole thing is being treated with levity. There is the need for a serious action to be taken against these matters of corruption without which the whole thing will go on endlessly and they now consider it to be usual practice rather than for them to desist from this act of corruption.

And it is unfortunate because it is really downgrading our nation.    It is really destroying our nation and a lot of the countries all over the world found that we are seriously and hopelessly enmeshed in corruption and that practice is continuing unabated.    I only hope that this new government of Buhari would take it up seriously and deal with it.”

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On the issue Sambo Dasuki and the mismanagement and misappropriation of fund through the office of the national security adviser, the former attorney general of the federation said he hoped Buhari would act on it.

“Everybody is now watching the issue of Dasuki’s $2.1 billion and I hope he (the President) will, with that, send out the strong signal against those who are destroying the country.

Ajibola said the reason the government was moving slow was because he government had to contend with the issue of corruption.

When you have so many people bent on dipping their hands corruptly into the purse of the government from all spheres of life in Nigeria, we still have a long way to go.

I have listened to a lot of hues and cries about the fact that the government is slow.    How could government not be slow under the present circumstance?    Because the government has a lot of hurdles to overcome in dealing with any problem.

In the midst of it all, unnecessary criticisms are always there and the people are just willing to criticise and not help develop the country.    We only hope that the present government would do its best to ensure that at this time, everything could be done to get rid of corruption in this country.

https://www.naij.com/691704-previous-government-made-nigerias-name-stink-outside-world-icj-judge.html