Elder statesman and chairman, Northern Elders Council, NEC, Alhaji TankoYakassai has said that the fight against corruption would come to naught as long as what attracts people to corruption remains unblocked.
Speaking exclusively to Nigeria Pilot, he maintained that as long as Nigerian leaders continued to live above their legitimate earnings, the fight against corruption would be a child’s play.
“The problem is not the money recovered or doubt about the actual amount. In any case, anybody who wants to fight corruption should know, first and foremost, how he can we block the way and manner people take into corruption.
“My problem is not with the doubt over funds recovery by government and the need to give out names of those who return looted money to ascertain what actually was recovered from them, but the percentage of the cash recovered to the federal budget,” he said.
Continuing, Yakassai said:“Let’s talk of the cash returned, which is about N115 billionas announced. What is the percentage of the cash and the properties to our N6 trillion budget? It’s small amount of money compared to the budget. Let’s agree that we can use the looted money now even though they said we cannot use it. Supposing we can use the money, it cannot balance up our budget for this year because it’s only about 2/3rd revenue we require to execute the budget. 1/3rd is N1.8 trillion. Now if you put these monies into the budget, it’s still not balanced up.”
Yakassai further argued that “supposing we put the money into the budget what will happen next year when we join those money?
“So the problem is not the money recovered or doubt about actual amount.”
Yakassai noted that “as long as the lacuna remains unblocked, fight against corruption would be a child’s play,” adding that what the present administration should …Read More
Source:: Nigerian Pilot
