The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to prosecute all corrupt public servants.
NLC President Comrade Ayuba Wabba told The Nation that over half of the states defaulted in the payment of salaries to their workerss underscored the extent to which the political elite had run the country aground.
He said: “Workers and the Nigerian people in general are expectant that President Buhari will have the magic wand to turn our country around and safe us from our political elites, who have taken maladministration and bad governance to new height.
“As organised labour, we are waiting to engage the President as he unfolds his programme. We await his promise to throw open the identities of public officers who participated in the massive looting of our commonwealth, which the President had put at a conservative $150 billion over the last decade alone.’’
Wabba added that NLC was awaiting the arrest and persecution of the former Minister, who was alleged to have stolen $6 billion, adding that Labour would protest the massive corruption and bad governance of the past administration and push for all the stolen wealth be recovered and those involved sanctioned.
He said the fight against corruption must begin from somewhere, adding that the anti-corruption agencies and the National Assembly must support the government’s plan to deal with corruption.
Wabba said: “The feeling and perception of Nigerians is that our anti-corruption agencies are either overwhelmed or do not have the requisite edge to respond to the renewed assault on our collective conscience by those taking advantage of their position to steal and loot our commonwealth without any qualms.”
He lamented that corruption cases being handled by the anti-corruption agencies are taking too long –some having gone on for as long as seven to nine years – are often thrown out, not for lack of merit or points of law but on mere technicalities.
“For Nigerians to regain confidence in our anti-corruption agencies and the judicial process, high profile corruption cases need to be more diligently and competently handled and dispensed with more quickly and timely at the level of the courts. The NLC believes that the National Assembly has a key role to play in ensuring that justice is not only done but truly seen to have been done,” Wabba said.
According to him, one of the most credible ways of doing this is by strengthening the anti-corruption laws so that people who steal the nation’s collective wealth can be brought to justice far much quicker than is presently done.
He argued that corruption would reduce once people know that there is no hiding place for those who perpetuate it and that corrupt enrichment will not necessarily buy them freedom from the long arm of the law.
“Conviction of perpetrators of corrupt practices is how corruption is being tackled in other climes where they have fought it and brought it to a standstill,” the NLC President insisted.
