Kill public official who steals above N1m – TUC

The Custodian April 30, 2014 

The Trade Union Congress has recommended death penalty for public officials who embezzle beyond N1m in order to reduce corruption in the country.

The President of the TUC, Bobboi Kaigama, said this during the fourth lecture series of the Faculty of Environmental Design and Management, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, on Tuesday.

While speaking on the theme, ‘Corruption and challenges in nation-building’, Kaigama noted that Nigeria needed to go tougher in its war against corruption.

He said that leaders had no reason not to declare their assets.

He said, “If the governments and legislators are truly sincere about the fight against corruption in the country, they must go tougher. Any public official, whether at the state or federal level, should be executed. Killing them after confirmation of any embezzlement allegation of more than N1m will lead us to the right path.

“I sincerely recommend an active process of legislation that would support that. It would also serve the nation well to have a law which not only provides for every public office holder to declare his assets on assuming office, but also stipulate that he must repeat the exercise each subsequent year that he is in office and not later than one month after vacating the office. Such declaration should be in at least three newspapers and not just to the Code of Conduct Bureau.”

The TUC boss also advocated that corrupt leaders should be banned from occupying public offices.

He lamented that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission as well as the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission were not strengthened.

Vice-Chancellor of OAU, Prof. Bamitale Omole, said the war against corruption required a collective effort, saying, “countries all over the world have different times along their developmental journeys stared this behemoth squarely and fought it (not to talk to it) with their might collectively.”