The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, on Friday, criticised those deploying the social media to criticise the efforts of the Federal Government to rid the country of corruption.
He declared that antagonists of the anti-corruption campaign of President Muhammadu Buhari would soon learn a bitter lesson.
The minister lamented that the nation had lost over $400 billion to corruption in the oil sector alone, wondering why some people would deride the anti-graft war when it was obvious that Nigerians were already tired of corruption.
Mohammed stated this while speaking on the “Nexus between Corruption and Underdevelopment of the Nigeria State” at a lecture organised by the Faculty of Arts, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife.
He said corruption had undermined the stability of the country, stressing that if the nation’s leadership did not kill corruption now, the cankerworm would kill the nation.
“I make bold to say that corruption has underdeveloped Nigeria and consigned our people to perpetual poverty. From oil alone, it is said that Nigeria has lost $400 billion to corruption. Now, just imagine what this huge amount of money could have done to our education, health, roads, life expectancy, maternal and infant mortality, etc.
“Let us look at instances of corruption in the various sectors. In the health sector, for example, there is the N1.9 billion special Ebola intervention fund scandal, the $29 million dollar vaccine grants scam and the N300 million unspent health budget scam.
“In the area of security, recall that a former Inspector General of Police is alleged to have acquired assets totalling $150 million, including money stashed in banks, shares in blue-chip companies and 14 luxury buildings,” Mohammed said.
Describing corruption as misuse of entrusted power for private gains, he observed that infrastructural decay across the country, especially in the states, was part of debilitating effects of looted funds.
The minister, however, gave the assurance that the Federal Government would not relent in the fight against corruption, saying that “corruption has started fighting back and it is fighting dirty through sponsored articles in the newspapers and social media.”
Affirming that funds that could have been used to revive the country’s dead refineries had been stolen, he said the Federal Government would not be distracted or intimidated into abandoning the fight against corruption, which he described as a war for the survival of the nation.