Oyo State governor, Abiola Ajimobi has expressed dismay at the inability of successive leaderships in Nigeria, to see corruption as far worse than war, thereby making no attempt to arrest the scourge of corrupt practices in the country.
Ajimobi was speaking through his deputy, Chief Moses Adeyemo, in a speech delivered at the Independent Corruption Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) organised talk entitled “Decreasing patriotism: a big loophole for corruption,” at the parliament building of the state’s secretariat.
He added that if the issue was not properly tamed, corruption had the unenviable tendency of destroying the socio-economic development of the nation. Citing an example from the United States of America, he said that patriots from that country took their obedience to national call even on seemingly insignificant issues of national representation such as their national flag, adding that anyone who assaults that flag, to them, was assaulting the American government.
The governor said that the sense of patriotism started to exit when leaders began to de-emphasise Nigerians. He stated that this manifested during the military era when the government bother less about the governed while the governed took their faith in their own hands. According to him, “People do all manner of things to amass wealth, so as to cater for themselves and their families and corruption set in and at a monumental level,” he said.
