DEAR Mr. Odumakin,

I just read in your column, Candid Notes, your article titled, Hopelessness  of our anti-corruption war(2).

I did not read the first part so I wouldn’t know exactly what you said or you did not say there.

I want to agree with your submission in your recent article mentioned above. If what we are seeing now is the pattern the war against corruption will take, then I think the war is lost before it even started. I am of the opinion that corruption should be tackled holistically.

As a trained radiation protectionist, I know that by the time we have a nuclear accident, Radiation Protection has failed. My job as a radiation protectionist would be minimising to the barest minimum the chances that there will be an accident in a nuclear plant. When an accident occurs what I have is an emergency. Therefore the present method of tackling corruption whereby we wait for the person to take the money and we waste more of tax payers’ money to prosecute him is for me rather off the mark because nothing guarantees that under the law the government will recover any monies from that person. The government is losing further instead of conserving what it has. The emphasis therefore is to put down measures that will prevent people from helping themselves with our commonwealth while in public office. I am not advocating that the anti graft agencies be done away with. But if preventive measures are put in place they will handle fewer cases and will be more efficient at doing so, hopefully!

Aside from this, there are other sides of the fight which to me are not being given the requisite attention. I will just mention them here in passing so you can think about them and perhaps develop them into an article at your own time.

1. What values do we hold dear as a nation? What characterises an ideal patriotic Nigerian? What I see today is that the positive is not being stressed. We are not celebrating men and women of integrity among us. We are focusing too much on the negative. One would have thought that the national conference would touch on a matter like this but it seems to me that it did not. If this is done everybody will have something to live up to including our children who I always love to refer to as world changers of the future rather than leaders of tomorrow. A proper definition of our core values and of who an ideal patriotic Nigerian will then form the basis of our National Awards which has been badly bastadised in the sense that people  are given these awards due to positions they occupy or simply because of their affiliation with a ruling political party.

Restructuring of Civil service

2. The civil service needs to be restructured to ensure that the system works. The ground rules or proper procedures should be clearly stated. Why should I follow up my file from table to table? People should just do their work. One should be contacted to go get the result of whatever papers one has submitted. There is no reason why the civil service cannot be as efficient as the private sector.
3. Our educational system must be re- oriented to solve problems that are peculiar to Nigeria.

Creativity has to be encouraged so that graduates not only stand on their own without relying on government for jobs, but are conscious of the fact that they are making positive contribution to the nation. Nobody from outside this country is interested in seeing that Nigeria develops. That is the bitter truth. This must be the concern of Nigerians. We the Nigerians must take the bull by the horns and ask ourselves what kind of Nigeria we want to see in ten, twenty years, etc and come up with our roadmap on how to get there. Patriotism should be taken as a subject in our Primary and secondary Schools.

4. The judiciary needs a total overhaul to ensure speedy dispensation of justice. Some of our archaic laws need to be done away with. I guess this is where the National Assembly also comes in.

My humble submission is that in fighting graft nothing short of a holistic approach will work. This means the present administration must come up with a well articulated policy on anti-corruption war.

Keep up the good work!

Sincerely,

Solomon Yero, Abuja