The public presentation of a compendium of 100 high profile corruption cases in Nigeria organized by HEDA Resource Centre with the support of MacArthur Foundation took place at Radisson hotel, GRA, Ikeja Wednesday
The chairman of HEDA, Mr. Olanrewaju Suraju, remarked that the public presentation which was the 4th edition is to mark the annual global anti-corruption day with the theme “To recover with integrity”.
He stated that the Nigerian corruption situation has gone top-notch to impunity as accused persons can buy not just judges but the whole gamut of the justice administration system.
Media houses he said are not left out as they are being reached out to by corrupt persons to shun coverage of their cases if those cases even make it to court.
Speaking on the impact of corruption on the administration of COVID-19 responses of government he said the possibility of obtaining a negative covid-19 test result with the payment of between 10-15 thousand naira is worrisome.
He said public testing centres connive with private centers to withhold test results for up to 10 days against the stipulated 72 hours required for traveling in a bid to frustrate travelers who are forced to patronize the private centres at exorbitant fees.
The chairperson of the occasion, Mr. Dayo Ayoade, stated that the purpose of the anti-corruption day is to bring to light the problem of corruption and how it destroys lives, causes poverty, inequality, and underdevelopment of the society and people. He further stated that corruption is not unique to Africa or Nigeria as every country experiences a form of corruption or another.
The problem of corruption has been with Nigeria all along and with the global context of the COVID19 pandemic which has brought with it economic crises. Its negative effect on Nigeria has brought with it increased cost of living, sliding oil price bringing social unrest coupled with the existing insecurity in the country.
All of these beg the question of what we as a people are doing to tackle corruption in Nigeria as HEDA is contributing its quota in this fight by publishing this compendium on corruption cases. The compendium publicises the inadequacies in Nigeria’s justice system and approach to tackling corruption.
While reviewing the compendium, Mr. Adeola Soetan stated that the book will help to keep track of numerous mind-boggling corruption cases in the country.
He said in Nigeria, corruption has been on for a long time but in recent times has taken on a supersonic dimension with impunity.
He commended the consistency of HEDA in annually publishing the corruption cases compendium.
This fourth edition of the compendium reports 100 high-profile corruption cases most of which are pending at various stages in courts. .