The presidential candidate of the Action Alliance (AA), Maj. Hamza Al-Mustapha (rtd) has given an insight into how the war on corruption would be prosecuted should he be elected president in 2023.
He spoke as a guest on a Channels Television programme on Tuesday.
Al-Mustapha, who was Chief Security Officer (CSO) to the late Head of State, Sani Abacha, said that the agencies currently saddled with the responsibility of combating corruption were ill-equipped to do so.
He said he would set up necessary structures to make the war on corruption more successful.
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“In Nigeria, I believe institutions primarily managing security, corruption issues in Nigeria are ill-equipped. They are too small; they are not organised properly.
“A situation with this the way I see it, where you call a rabbit to be the chairman of arresting lions, you know it is semantics. The rabbit will be running around the animal kingdom, but the lion will be sleeping the way it wants and nothing will happen.
“You don’t have national economic intelligence agency or your commission. You also do not have a national electronic agency management of your economy to determine data of corruption in terms of management or domestic activities, international trade, movement of your resources, activities in your banks, central bank, ministry of finance, ministry of national planning and in understanding what they do with your resources.
“How come you don’t have the seeming structures and you want to relate with the international community that you cannot drive? Who do they communicate with? So, once they come, they don’t have relevant agencies they are working with in today’s modern world. How can you manage corruption? So, you have to reset the country first.
“So, we have an understanding of two new agencies to come on board and it is bigger. It will go along with the economy,” Al-Mustapha said.
He added that he has the necessary boldness to confront the menace of corruption.
“Boldness in rendering service for Nigeria was, first of all, what fetched the persecution I went through yesterday because I don’t know how you can ask me to paint white [as] black and present black [as] white.
“Many of those who believe they hated my guts were the ones that punished me and call me names,” Al-Mustapha said.