Femi Falana, a senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN), says
corruption cannot be successful tackled when there are policies and programmes
which promote poverty.
He also said African leaders have failed to address the
cause of corruption.
Falana said this on Wednesday in a keynote address at the
8th anti-corruption situation room on the review of the fight against
corruption organised by the Human Rights and Environmental Development Agenda
HEDA in Abuja.
Making reference to Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame and
Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari, the senior lawyer said the implementation
of policies set by those leaders are not enough to tackle corruption.
“With profound respect, both African leaders have failed to
address the root cause of corruption. As no nation can fight corruption outside
its political economy the discourse has to take cognisance of the impact of the
neo-liberal policies being religiously pursued by the majority of African
governments,” he said.
“To that extent, the implementation of the aforementioned
policies cannot seriously tackle the problem of corruption. It is submitted
that corruption cannot be meaningfully fought by governments that pay poor
wages to workers, owe workers and pensioners arrears of salaries and pension
and implement economic programmes that promote poverty and underdevelopment.
“It has to be realised that the progressive withdrawal of
subsidies from social services by the state which is a key component of the
IMF/World Bank sponsored Structural Adjustment Programme has led to mass
poverty in the land. Wealth cannot be created by countries whose economy is
operated to serve the interests of imperialism.
“For instance, two years ago, Rwanda which was spending $2
billion per annum on the importation of second hand dresses decided to develop
her textile industry. Accordingly, the Kagame regime banned the importation of
all second hand dresses from the United States and other Western countries. The
Trump administration kicked against the ban and threatened to impose economic
sanctions on Rwanda. We supported the ban and called on Nigeria and other
African countries to develop their
textile industry. But the call has been ignored to the detriment of the economy
and the dignity of the Nigerian people.”
Falana said the Buhari administration has not mobilised the
people to fight corruption, adding: “As a matter of fact, the federal
government has engaged in budget padding and manipulation.”
He also said the fight against corruption should be linked
to the struggle to free the economy from ”local saboteurs and foreign
vampires”.
He added that Buhari’s promise to lift 100 million Nigerians
from poverty would be impossible to achieve “with the religious implementation
of neo-liberal economic policies which have continued to promote poverty among
the generality of Nigerians”.
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