Utomi, Adams task FG on corruption, security

A professor of political economy and management expert, Prof. Pat Utomi and the Aare Onakakanfo of Yorubaland, Otunba Gani Adams, have urged the Federal Government to urgently address the issues of corruption and insecurity.

The duo, who spoke yesterday at different occasions, said that if Nigeria must develop, the issues of corruption and insecurity must be frontally and brutally addressed.

They also said that the two challenges were part of the major reasons discouraging foreign investors from coming to Nigeria. Utomi, while speaking at a press conference organised by the Board of Trustees of Goddy Jidenma Foundation, ahead of the 2019 edition of the foundation’s bi-yearly lecture scheduled to hold in Lagos on November 26, 2019, said Nigeria could successfully address the problem of corruption if there is political will from its leaders.

According to him, “the major problems of corruption come from our public officers and it requires a cultural revival for it to be tackled. This country is yet to find a political class that can tackle the menace, not the one that is mouthing it but corruption is everywhere.”He also challenged the business and professional leaders not to keep accusing the political class of corruption while they themselves are not showing good example.

Utomi, who is also the chairman of the foundation, added that the current democracy Nigeria practises is a farce, noting: “There is nothing that makes it a democracy yet.”

However, in a statement, Adams enjoined the Federal Government to treat the deplorable road networks across the country as a national emergency.He said that the bad state of Nigerian roads was part of the factors fuelling crimes and insecurity.According to him: “Fixing our roads is a sure way of impeding the activities of criminals who have turned their evil enterprise to mega business across Nigeria.”