President Muhammadu
Buhari last Friday said the nation’s laws needed to be strengthened to realistically contend with the miasma of corruption.
The President made the remark at the Osigwe Anyiam-Osigwe Foundation lecture in Abuja.
He said this had become imperative in view of the fact that a number of anti-corruption cases had been rendered inconclusive due to legal limitations.
According to him, the nation must correct the gaps in its legal system that are being exploited to frustrate the process of justice.
He held that dealing with corruption required the collective will of every Nigerian.
“Without our collective will to resist corrupt acts as a people, it will be difficult to win the war.
“We in the leadership will provide the right example. We will not pay mere lip service to corruption. We will eschew it in every aspect of our lives.
“However, we are but few, in a country of more than 170 million people.
“We need the mass army of Nigerians to rise as one man, and stand for probity in both public and private lives.
“It is only then that we can be sure of dealing a mortal blow on corruption, which will engender a better country’’, he said.
The President said Nigeria had been brought almost to her knees by decades of corruption and mismanagement of the public treasury.
“Look at the corruption problem in the country, and tell me how you feel as a Nigerian.
“Our commonwealth is entrusted to leaders at different levels of governance, and instead of using the God-given resources to better the lot of the citizens, they divert them to private use.
“They then amass wealth in billions and trillions of naira, and other major currencies of the world, ill-gotten wealth which they cannot finish spending in several lifetimes over.
“This is abuse of trust, pure and simple. When you hold public office, you do it in trust for the people.
“When you, therefore, use it to serve self, you have betrayed the people who entrusted that office to you’’, he said.