Fighting Corruption and Insecurity
Featured, Politics
By Austin .I Ejenike
THE unadulterated prevalence of corruption and insecurity are two major challenges
facing our nation. On Thursday, Aug. 29, Scroll, an online newspaper held a
conference in Lagos to address the twin issues of corruption and insecurity in Nigeria.
Speakers at the conference are of the view that if these challenges can be purged the
nation will move forward and then implementing any positive proposal in any sector
will progressively yield great results. They expressed the hope that the conference
will not end up as a talk shop, wishing that its outcome should be implemented.
Janet Mba Afolabi, publisher of Scroll Nigeria, which organized the conference, in her
opening remarks, noted that the choice of the theme: “fighting corruption and insecurity”
was because there are the two major challenges facing our country. “There are challenges
that if we can overcome, the country will move forward and everybody will live in
peace,” she said.
Other speakers took their time to discuss the different ways and manner corruption and
insecurity affect all the sectors in Nigeria.
Wahab Shittu, who commended Scroll for choosing such a topic, stating that it is of
paramount importance to all of the country and as a people, that we all agree that
Nigeria is highly blessed in terms of human and natural resources, in terms of diversity
we are great, but the two challenges (corruption and insecurity) threaten the survival of
Nigeria as a nation.
Stating that “corruption and its twin brother impunity are regarded as the elephant in
the room”, he added that “if you look at insecurity, which seems to threaten our
collective freedom and our security and national development, is also a major challenge”.
According to Shittu, statistics presented by the United States Department of State
report 2016, ranked Nigeria third in the list of terrorists countries in the world.
He said Boko Haram ranked the second most savage terrorist group in the world.
The same report also considers Nigeria as a major terrorist group in sub Saharan Africa.
But in the global terrorist index 2017, Nigeria is ranked amongst the five countries with
highest impact of terrorism in the world.
Toun Okewale-Sonaiya, managing director, Wfm917, spoke on corruption and how it
affects women, saying Nigeria as we understand is now the poverty capital of the world’s
poverty clock, adding that corruption and insecurity are two major reasons why we find
ourselves in this situation.
Okewale-Sonaiya also said Nigeria is the fourth most dangerous country for women
when it comes to human trafficking. It is the sixth worst for women regarding customary
practice, which includes female genital mutilation, acid attacks, child and forced
marriage. Nigeria ranks 10th in regards to sexual violence on women, including rape as a
weapon of war and lack of access to justice.
“Women are the main victims of corruption. Women suffer more from corruption due
to the feminization of poverty. Women suffer corruption more than men. Not that men
are not affected by it, but women suffer it the most due to the unequal power relations
between men and women. Corruption as we know limits women’s access to public
resources, information and decision making,” she said.
Said she: “Corruption hinders progress towards gender equality and it also presents
a barrier for women to gain full access to their civic, social and economic rights.
Segun Jegede, former international prosecutor, Human Rights Advocate and Consultant,
says we are not in denial of the existence of the evil rise of corruption and the deadly
effect in all precepts of life in our country. Jegede also said that the destabilizing effect
of corruption takes many forms but the most dangerous and potentially fatal to the
corporate existence of our country is insecurity, adding: “we need to understand the
nature of this ugly vice.”
While stating that there are varieties in defining corruption, speaking broadly, he defined
corruption as an illegal behaviour particularly on those in position of authority. He also
went ahead to define insecurity as a state of being unsafe or unguarded from danger.
In her speech, Agatha Martha, stressed that corruption thrives because there are no
consequences for bad behavior as all you need to do is to have money and you can do
and undo in this country. She emphasized on how we influence and teach our
youth/young ones that all you need in this country is money, saying that’s what we tell
them, but we expect them to act properly.
“We all keep pointing at other people, expecting them to change, but
the change has to start with us because if we don’t fix it, nobody else will,” she said.
Sat Guru Maharaji also known as ‘the living perfect master’, who was present at the
event, talked about how the Nigerian tradition, divine knowledge and how changing
our names would solve 50 percent of the country’s problem. He said: “Until we have
divine knowledge any fight against corruption is just like killing a python with fresh eggs.”
_AUG 30, 2019 @18:49 GMT |
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