By Our Correspondent
Given the ugly dimension corruption has assumed in the country, the Speaker of the Cross River State House of Assembly Hon. John Gaul Lebo has called for concerted efforts to fight the scourge.
Hon Lebo who made the call recently at the Law Week 2016, organized by the Faculty of Law University of Calabar, observed that corruption had become a hydra-headed monster ostensibly ravaging almost every aspects our national life.
Speaking on the theme ‘’The Role of Lawyers in the Fight against Corruption in Nigeria’’, the Cross River Assembly Speaker argued that the fight against the menace should not be left for government alone because the consequences of corruption affects the society in its entirety.
According to him, corruption was largely responsible for the dwindling of the country’s national image; hence all hands must be on deck to stem the tide and restore the country’s integrity in the comity of nations.
Hon Lebo said that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had been compromised by corrupt politicians in the Nigeria, citing that the Independent Corrupt Practices Corruption (ICPC) act of 2000 remained the best instrument to fight corruption in the country.
He averred that politicians with proven legal background and sound perceptive intelligence tend to bring strong moral fibre to governance, observing that Cross River in the last 16 years was a classic example given the many roles played by politicians with legal inclination.
The Speaker, who did not absolve civil servants and businessmen of complicity, stated that they were more corrupt than politicians and often got away with financial crimes because the anti-grant agencies focused more on political office holders.
As a legislator, he noted that there was a catalogue of good laws that would help bring sanity to the society but only little was done about legal education, a situation he claimed had become a major challenge to the Legislature.