N576bn given as bribes in 2019 alone in Nigeria – Hakeem Alao
*Says one year too early to score Makinde
By Lai Mahmood
Corrupt practices are said to be endemic in Nigeria in spite of all the laws, acts and policies against the social-economic problem as N576 billion was said to be given out as bribes in 2019 alone in the country.
This assertion was made in Ibadan by Engr Oyedele Hakeem Alao, the governorship candidate of Alliance for Democracy in the 2019 general elections in Oyo State, while also saying that it was too early to score the administration of Engr Oluwaseyi Abiodun Makinde in the state.
On a live radio programme in the city, Engr Alao stated that corruption in Nigeria was far from abating as he cited the report of the Transparency International (TI) which, he said, ranked Nigeria as the 146th out of the 180 corrupt nations in the world, emphasizing that corruption in the country had been “increasing higher and higher.”
The Ibadan politician, an international contracting and project management engineer, sadly noted that corruption as kickbacks then in Nigeria in the 60s, 70s and 80s was far better as the ratio was just 5-10 percent unlike today, where “people take the entire contract sum.”
According to Engr Hakeem Alao, corruption is endemic as it has permeated every facet of life in Nigeria, “corruption in the public sector – MDAs, police, army, navy, customs, immigration, etc – has been alarming”.
Substantiating his claim he said that, “a UNDP report in 2019 shows that 30-33% of the Nigerian public officers take bribe and estimated that 117, 000,000 bribes were given annually in Nigeria on one bribe per adult basis which is equivalent to N576bn in 2019 alone.”
“Look at the corruption in Niger-Delta Development Commission (NDDC) where N40bn was distributed among the staff of the commission within just three months. That’s NDDC alone! What about NNPC, the military and others?
“When President Muhammadu Buhari came to power in 2015, a lot of money was voted to fight insecurity and also under our former president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, a huge sum of money was misappropriated under Col Sambo Dasuki as National Security Adviser”.
He said a lot of underlying factors such as abuse and misuse of power, embezzlement, bribery, political robbery, judicial corruption, corruption in schools and religious places, flamboyant lifestyle, greed and lack of contentment, poverty, poor remuneration, electoral corruption, conflict of interests, favouritism and nepotism are serious issues to deal with to reduce corruption and insecurity in the country.
He spoke further that “we’re not winning the fight against terrorism because all the underlying factors are still there, including bad governance, high unemployment rate, inadequate basic infrastructure and lack of basic needs of life.”
Reacting to the clampdown on Revolution Now activists, Engr Hakeem Alao said it was totally wrong for the federal government to have used their powers to muffle the protesters, stressing that the action was undemocratic as he maintained that protests and demonstrations in whatever form, if peaceful, were parts of the fundamental rights of the people and were allowed all over the world.
On the scorecard of the administration of Engr Seyi Makinde in Oyo State, the former guber candidate of Alliance for Democracy in the 2019 election, said he would allow the regime more time before he would critically assess its performance, stating that, “it is too early to say that they have done well or not. But so far, I’ve not seen the kind of activities I expected of the administration,” as he charged the people to always support the government both at the state and the federal level.
