President-Elect Gen. Muhammadu Buhari has said that corruption was allowed to fester in the country for too long and that he is determined to eradicate the menace.

Buhari also said that lack of weapons, leadership and training were responsible for the protracted war with the Boko Haram insurgents, assuring that he would work closely with neighbouring countries of Chad, Niger and Cameroun to end the menace as soon as he assumes office.

He made the submission, yesterday, in an interview with cable network, CNN, which The Guardian monitored.

On his victory, he said: “I am not surprised because of how we came into the merger. The main opposition parties in Nigeria decided to come together to face the ruling party. It means we had the strength, experienced political parties and politicians across the length and breath of the country. So, it is not surprising.

Asked how the he was going to address the division in the polity, he stressed that there was no such thing, explaining that, “The actual division that I think is worth bordering about is social instability, that is, insecurity, in the North East and the Delta area, which, I think, have been in the country long enough that we know how they started and what stage they are now. We are confident that we will rapidly give attention to security in the country. I believe we will effectively deal with them in few months, when we get into office.”

On how he will deal with the issue of the Chibok girls and insecurity, he noted: “We will register the cooperation of the neighbouring countries, Cameroun, Chad and Niger. Though some efforts were made by the present administration, it wasn’t good enough and was too late, too little.

“We expected that the Federal Government, at least four years ago, to have sat down with these countries to make sure that they don’t allow terrorists free movement across the borders, training of soldiers and movement of weapons. This was only done two months ago. And we have seen the positive side, the way the Chadians, Nigeriens and Cameroonians are virtually fighting the Boko Haram than Nigeria is doing, until recently. So, really, we have seen enough and have enough law enforcement agents to face the Boko Haram squarely.”

He said that the present government scuttled senate proceedings set up to probe the use of funds appropriated to the military, stressing, “the performance of the military was and is still being affected by corruption in the system.”

He maintained that fighting corruption is not too difficult from his experience, noting that, in every ministry and parastatal in Nigeria, there are document containing administrative and financial instructions, but these instructions are ignored because leadership were being held hostage because of their corrupt practices.

“We will make sure corruption is eradicated in Nigeria,” he stressed.

The quest of imposing accountability at every step of leadership is one of the way. The problem is that the laws have been ignored for too long that the cultured of corruption has been developed. That trend has to be arrested immediately.

People must be held accountable at various levels. If we successfully plug those holes of corruption, there can be success that can be utilised to improve infrastructure and invest in agriculture and mining, provide jobs to the unemployed before studies are made for further training in the country.