By Amos Mathew, Kaduna
A Lecturer with the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) Kaduna, Professor Christian U. Egwaikhide has said that corruption fight in Nigeria is not successful because all Nigerians are corrupt or beneficiaries of proceeds of corruption.
According to him, Corruption is the bane of Nigeria’s development, as all Nigerians are beneficiaries of it, because If you employ a mediocre, it is corruption.
Professor Egwaikhide who is a Guest Speaker at the10th Professorial Inaugural Lecture Series of the Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna made it known while delivering his lecture.
“Every Nigerian is corrupt because we are one way or the other, beneficiaries. In this country our dreams are corrupted, our knowledge is corrupted, our plans corrupted, even our religions are corrupted, the constitution is corrupted.
“The fight against corruption is politicised, vindictive. Nigeria scores 27/100 out of 180 countries, occupies 144 position. Because our wealth is concentrated in few hands. You cannot give a dog meat to keep for you.
“Nigeria’s legislators abuse the position given to them. We should deemphasize money politics, they should serve and be paid sitting allowance,” he suggested.
The Professor of economics lamented that there is uneven distribution of wealth in the country.
“That is what we call shadow businesses that exist that do not pay tax to government,” he pointed out.
He also spoke on education, where he described education as the key to the future development of any country and also the bedrock of development.
He urged our leaders to see the need to invest in education sector.
“Nigeria’s education system is plagued by a number of challenges which have jeopardized the standards of education in the country,” he stressed.
He highlighted poor funding, decayed and dilapidated infrastructure, irrelevance of the university curriculum to the country’s development, as part of things killing education.
It would be recalled that the present NDA Commandant, Major General Adeniyi Oyebade has organised 7 out of the 10 lectures.
Earlier, the Commandant of Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), Major General Adeniyi Oyebade advised the present cadets of the academy that only dedicated, committed and hard working among them will reach the top of the military profession.
General Oyebade said the academy is committed in making sure that, it’s over Two Thousand Cadets are groomed to be loyal and patriotic in defending the territorial integrity of the nation.
“The moment I took over as the Commandant, my dreams are to make a difference and with the support of all sundries we have achieved a lot. It was challenging, but we all made it a reality from the cleaner to the Commandant”, he stated.
