Your column of Friday, October 15 on above subject refers:
Sani Sulaiman, the author seems to think that Nigeria fails to develop because we are being led by old men and women. That is far from the truth. The main reason why we fail to develop is because of corruption which in turn thrives on four pillars: lack of fear of God, lack of fear of the authorities, conflict of interest and impunity.
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Of the four, the fear of God is the most intractable to tackle for even prophets of God could only instill it in just a few people after hundreds of years of preaching. The other three however can be tackled effectively by the rigorous enforcement of the assets declaration law starting with the president, the governors and the LGA chairmen no less.
Like it is said, when fish smells it smells from the head. If all these heads of their respective governments can lead by example by declaring their assets and those of their wives and adult children and hand over to government any assets they cannot account for and demand that all those appointed and or elected under their watch do the same, this would at once eliminate lack of fear of the authorities, conflict of interest and impunity. This would also scare away the moneybags and foster internal party democracy.
Because the society is so rotten, attention should be focused on our anti-corruption agencies and the courts. By the time we do all the above, Nigeria will begin to develop.
Engr. S. I. Sodangi sent this through [email protected]
