The former Minister of Sport, Bala Ka’oje, under the Obasanjo’s administration has alleged that the ruling All Progressive Congress APC, was not helping President Muhammadu Buhari in his fight against corruption.
Ka’oje disclosed this during a recent interview with a news outfit.
He said “To be honest with you, fighting corruption is not easy. The government has been trying the best it can within the past four years but corruption is extremely difficult to identify who and who and where and where corruption is taking place and how.
When asked about the crisis APC was experiencing across states in Nigeria, he said:
“First of all, I will say for us to correct these problems within our polity, the leadership must do things according to the rules. As long as we keep the rules aside, and continue to do things according to our own minds, our own interest, we would continue to have problem within our polity. Again, some of these struggles that you see for political positions and what have you, you shouldn’t be surprise but the problem of corruption also plays a major role. This is because in Nigeria today, the easiest way to become a billion is to take a political office, before you know it, you are a billionaire. Many things are not being done according to the rules. Recently the governors in Nigeria said that the NFIU does not have the power and the legal backing to do what they said they want to do regarding to how the money that belongs to the tiers of government is spent.
“You can imagine how desperate our leadership today, particularly at the state, is looking at itself. If they remember about that the constitution says about the third tier of government, it’s there in our constitution. As far as I can remember, the constitution says that ten percent of what the state gets from the federation account should be redistributed to the number of local government in the state plus what the local government got so that they would be able to develop the rural areas. That is what the Constitution says and I think if that had been followed to the later, and fighting corruption, making sure that nobody takes money that doesn’t belong to him, our local government wouldn’t be in the level that are today.
Also Read:
https://ekohotblog.com/2020/01/10/gov-akeredolu-says-operation-amotekun-wasnt-to-divide-nigeria/
“Our local governments are just graveyards, there is nothing going on, you can’t see one project, year in year out. It’s a very sad story, you can’t say that you will develop the urban centre and neglect the rural areas because majority of the people who even vote for you are from the rural areas and yet they gain nothing for voting for you and bringing you to power to lead them. The resources that is coming from the federation account is for the people, it’s for the local government chairman, it’s not for the governor and it’s not for the President, it’s for the people that they are governing.
“So it’s only when these issues are taken seriously and followed to the later if we want our country to join other countries that are moving forward in the world and even in Africa.
“Corrupt is a monster that cannot die easily, it’s like a dog very difficult to be killed. So, Buhari’s tenure of eight years, I want to be sincere to you, will not be enough to fight corruption.
“It is going to take long time because we have gotten used to it.”
Advertise or Publish a Story on EkoHot Blog:
Kindly contact us at [email protected]. Breaking stories should be sent to the above email and substantiated with pictorial evidence.
Citizen journalists will receive a token as data incentive.
Call or Whatsapp: 0803 561 7233, 0703 414 5611