“Not Even The Best Lawyer Can Save The Corrupt From Judgment” …Buhari Vows

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President Muhammadu Buhari has raised the alarm that the forthcoming election in the country was being threatened by corruption.

Daily Trust reports that the first round of this year’s election, the presidential and National Assembly polls hold on Saturday.

President Muhammadu Buhari

The president, in an article titled, “corruption threatens Nigeria – and its election”, said corruption threatens to undermine Saturday’s poll and by extension the country’s democracy.

“As president, I have tried to judiciously exercise the trust vested in me to combat the problems of corruption, insecurity and an inequitable economy. All are important. But amongst them, one stands above the others as both a cause and aggravator of the rest. It is, of course, corruption.

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“A policy programme that does not have fighting corruption at its core is destined to fail. The battle against graft must be the base on which we secure the country, build our economy, provide decent infrastructure and educate the next generation.

“This is the challenge of our generation: the variable on which our success as a nation shall be determined. But the vested interests at play can make this fight difficult. By way of their looting, the corrupt have powerful resources at their disposal. And they will use them. For when you fight corruption, you can be sure it will fight back.

“It even threatens to undermine February’s poll and – by extension – our democracy. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has raised concerns over laundered money being funnelled into vote buying.

“This is the problem of corruption…It illustrates how it lurks in all and every crevice of public life, manipulating due process in pursuit of self-preservation and perpetuation; protecting personal political and economic interests at the expense of the common good,” the president said.

Buhari, said those who have criticised his administration’s anti-corruption drive, were those who oppose its mission.

“And though their lawyers may craft expensive alibis, they cannot escape that which binds them together: a raft of documents and barely legal (some clearly illegal) mechanisms – whether that be the Panama Papers, US Congress reports, shell companies or offshore bank accounts.

“Corruption corrodes the trust on which the idea of community is founded, because one rule for the few and another for everyone else is unacceptable to anyone working honestly.

“But as we have intensified our war on corruption, so we have found that corruption innovates to resist the law. This is not the sole domain of those Nigerians, but the international corruption industry: the unsavoury fellow-traveler of globalisation.

“Once the enablers are let in – as they have been in the past – the greed of those they collude with grows. We have closed the door on them, but unfortunately there still remain individuals who are willing to open windows,” he said.

The president, who is seeking a second term, said even though concrete progress has been made, there is still much to do.