President Goodluck Jonathan during a special New Year service at the Dunamis International Gospel Centre, Area 1, Garki, Abuja on Thursday said his administration’s plans against corruption was to strengthen the capability of institutions in order to get rid of the menace.
He added that his idea of fighting corruption was not about arresting suspects and parading them on the local and international television stations.
Jonathan agreed that the two major problems currently facing the country were insecurity and corruption.
The President said his administration is working to tackle the challenges.
According to him, “There are two main problems confronting us as a nation: The issue of insecurity in the North where we have the Boko Haram terrorists and in the South where we have commercial kidnapping. The next thing that people worry about after security is the issue of corruption.
“We are coming out with programmes and plans to clean up. These are things that you don’t just use a magical wand to wave off; otherwise even before I became the President, there wouldn’t have been corruption in Nigeria.
“It is not just about shouting corruption. It is not about looking at one person, arrest the person and show him on television.
“It is about strengthening institutions and coming up with credible plans to make sure that anybody who gets involved with corruption, the system must have a way of detecting him and punishing him.
“Until you put such a system on ground, you cannot talk about eradicating corruption; you will just be celebrating corruption.”
On security challenges, Jonathan said the Federal Government was working hard to restore peace to the country.
The president said the peace enjoyed during the festive period was due to prayers and government’s efforts.
“It happened because you have been praying for this country and the government has also been doing something. We do not need to announce what we are doing.
“With your prayers, we will surely get there. We will continue to come up with programmes that will help the ordinary people.
“The same way we won the war against Ebola, we shall win the terror war.”
Jonathan described 2015 as a turning point in the history of the country because of the forthcoming general elections.
He said, “2015 is a turning point because of the elections. Some people will not mind if half of the country get burnt because of their ambition.
“I always say that we must have a country first, we must have a people first before talking about ambition.
“We must pray that God should give us the wisdom to do things with some decorum and we should not compromise the lives of the people for ambition.
“I always say that my ambition and the ambition of any politician for that matter, is not worth the blood of the smallest Nigerian.”
The president added that no nation could move forward without proper vision.
Credit: www.punchng.com
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