Obi At Chatham House: We’ll Dismantle Structure Of Corruption In Nigeria

Labour Party presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi, has reiterated his resolve to carry out key reforms including tacking all forms of corruption in Nigerian public institutions if elected in the upcoming general elections.

Obi during his Chatham House engagement on Monday, spoke generally on how he and the running mate, Dr Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, will implement their seven governance priorities, some of which include: securing Nigeria, shifting emphasis from consumption to production by running a production-centered economy, restructuring the polity through effective legal and institutional reforms to entrench the rule of law, aggressively fight corruption, reducing the cost of governance, and establishing an honest and efficient civil service.

Obi said that corruption which has become endemic across institutions and impeding development for over six decades after the country’s independence will be seriously dealt with by his administration to ensure significant progress.

He said that he and Datti are committed to a new politics that is founded on the ethics of servant-leaders with clean and skilful hands.

He said: “We know that unless we change the politics by changing the political leadership, we’re stuck in this terrible state of underdevelopment.”

He said they will reform the institutions particularly responsible for implementing government policies and systems fit for the purpose.

He noted that Nigeria is blessed with abundant human and material resources in various areas but the challenge is poor leadership.

The former Anambra State governor said that he and Datti are simply tools being deployed to restructure and reverse the ugly trends in Nigeria’s system and are ready to deliver on the mandate with uncommon love to lead the country to prosperity desired by all.

“We’re determined to do everything that needs to be done to rescue and lead our country to prosperity, freedom, security and peace. We will use merit to assemble competent Nigerians from all sections of Nigeria to form an effective government of national unity,” Obi pledged.  

According to the Labour Party presidential standard bearer, one of the effective ways to tackle corruption in Nigerian public institutions is to reduce the cost of governance but will be done in such a way that it will not affect diligent and effective civil servants. 

“Reducing the cost of governance in Nigeria is an effective way of fighting institutional corruption. In addition to reducing the cost of governance and streamlining government operations for effectiveness, we will ensure that the reforms we will pursue will not in any way affect the livelihood of our hardworking and efficient civil servants.

“Critical to fighting corruption, we will install a new budgeting system founded on the cardinal principle of public accountability, objective setting and programme implementation. This is against our extant budgetary principles of revenue mobilisation, expenditure allocation, and borrowing without emphasis on monitoring, evaluation and feedback. 

“We will enforce principles of performance, auditing, institutionalized monitoring and evaluation process in service delivery as the primary means of actualizing our mission of a new Nigeria.”

Obi disclosed that they will create an office of review within the office of the presidency to ensure proper monitoring of the budget implementation process.