Lagos Lawyer, Femi Falana has said that Nigerians should own the war against corruption because the menace has reached a dangerous level in the country.
In an interview with Channels, Falana said the ongoing war against corruption deserves encouragement from Nigerians particularly those affected.
He said “The war against corruption that is on-going deserves the encouragement of Nigerians, particularly the victims of corruption – soldiers who were deprived of arms to fight Boko Haram, the people seeking medical attention and could not get, the unemployed masses.
“ Nigerians should own the war because if you simply leave it to government, of course, you cannot remove allegations of prosecutorial selectivity and the rest of them, but Nigerians should insist that there has to be restitution from those who have stolen from our commonwealth, and reduce our people to a poverty stricken lot. Nigerians must be prepared to wage the war much more than the government.
“Corruption in Nigeria is more than what I can tell you. It has reached a dangerous level. In most parts of the world, it is narco-terrorists, drug barons that are associated with moving humongous sums of money round, but what we have in Nigeria is a situation where officials of a modern state, officials of government will invade the central bank of the nation, like armed robbers, and allegedly order that huge sums of money, on one occasion, $37million, in 11 Ghana-Must-Go bags, be taken out of the central bank or you order people to go to the central bank as if you’re operating an ATM machine, to move out huge sums.”
On the Military/Shi’ite Clash, he said “When the killings in France occurred, our President was one of those who condemned it.
“I also expected this time around that our President would have condemned the mindless killings in Zaria. It was uncalled for.
“There must be a civilised way of controlling crowd since we are agreed that people have a right to protest; you must learn to respect that right.
“Unless government comes out to insist that any member of the armed forces or security agencies that causes embarrassment to government or violates peoples rights and the cases go to court and damages are awarded against government, that the officers have to bear part of the responsibility, our armed forces will not respect anything.”