PDP, YPP, AAC, ANRP, ACPN Debate on How To Tackle Corruption

With barely one month to the 2019 general election, the People Democratic Party (PDP), Young Progressive Party (YPP), Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party (ANRP), Allied Congress Party of Nigeria and African Action Congress (AAC) have enunciated their plans on how to curb corruption in the country if they win at the polls.

Their representatives explained their strategies at a debate organised by the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) tagged: the ‘Big Debate’ with the theme: ‘Corruption and Accountability’.

Kassim Afegbua, spokesperson for PDP candidate in the presidential election, Atiku Abubakar, said the party would confront corruption and promote the culture of whistle-blowing by protecting witnesses.

"The global definition of corruption is monopoly plus discretion minus accountability. It is the monopoly power of an individual that makes him abuse his discretionary power. What we will do as a government is to ensure that we deny the institutions and agencies fighting corruption of that monopoly power, rather than have a Chairman taken from the Nigerian police as EFCC or ICPC chairman, you will have a board made up of distinguished Nigerians, who have proven record of integrity and accountability, because the history and perception of the Nigerian police, is not one where you can find angels," Afegbua said.

He described Nigeria as a country of sins without sinners, adding that the individuals making commentaries that some persons are corrupt are also unfortunately enmeshed in endemic corruption.

"As a government, once you are able to deal with the issue of abuse of monopoly of power, you will now ensure that there are special courts established to try corruption cases; given full independence to be able to take action and conclusively deal with incidences of prosecution and adjudication of corruption cases," Afegbua added.

The representative of YPP, Olawale Martins, stated that the YPP strategy is centered on the use of ICT.

According to him, "We intend to apply a systematic approach. It is centered on the use of ICT to tackle the problem of corruption. On the issue of budget padding and contract inflation, after an analysis, we discovered that over 90 percent of the current corruption problem we have is as a result of these two sources that we identified, and we will tackle it using external forensic auditing.”

Explaining further, he said before budget goes to National Assembly, they will make sure that it is being watched and audited to ensure that there is no duplication.

"On the issue of contract inflation, we are going to automate the system. The attitude of fighting corruption in this part of the world is like that of bow and arrow, it automates the system, and makes sure that procurement is done electronically. This will reduce drastically the issue of corruption in this country. Official corruption is the main reason why we are where we are today, and the only way to put an end to it is to be able to reduce the human effects."

The presidential candidate of ANRP, Tope Fasua, said his party would use technology to tackle corruption.

He said: "Technology always delivers. One of the things that causes corruption in this country is addiction and psychological problems. In our party's constitution, what we are going to do is to live by example. We are going to declare our assets, leadership by example is great, and technology is very important as well as the psychological tests of people who are running the government is also very important."

Similarly, the presidential candidate of AAC, Omoyele Sowore, noted that technology is very important to curb corruption.

"It's very important that in dealing with corruption in Nigeria, using technology to aid prevention is important. There is what they call block-chain technology with encryption that you can use to avoid corruption. The biggest problem is how we do our transaction in the public sphere, and the lack of transparency in the way we conduct our business,” he stated.

The National Secretary of ACPN, Paul Isamade, who represented Dr. Oby Ezekwesili said ACPN would fight corruption from the roots.

"Corruption exists even inside the churches. The churches encourage corruption in this country. Traditional institutions also aid corruption by giving out awards to corrupt people. Fighting corruption in this country has to take a different dimension. Apart from strengthening the institutions that are empowered to fight corruption, the National Orientation Agency in Nigeria is not doing anything about it,” he said.