The present administration in Nigeria is not doing enough to fight corruption. This was the submission of the outgoing Ambassador/Head of European Union Delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Dr David MacRae,
MacRae who spoke during interactive session with journalists in Abuja, also decried high rate of impunity, calling on government to do more in ensuring that those who are found wanting of corrupt practices are punished accordingly.
The outgoing Ambassador said, “Nigeria has to deal seriously with what is known as immunity clause, it seems just few offender are been punish while the real people who commit the offence go away with it.
“It is regrettable that corruption in Nigeria is not going down and it is affecting the entire country, I am not saying that Nigeria is the worst country, you still find so many good things in Nigeria”.
To ensure that people across the nooks and crannies of the country enjoy dividends of democracy, MacRae, canvassed allocation of more funds to states and local governments so that they can embark of projects that will benefit the people.
He spoke further, “So I would like to see an increase in the funding states and the local governments simply because I want to see that money should be better spent and to make it to be better it requires other things to be in place”.
On the judicial process in the country, the Envoy said “I think we need to make a special effort to ensure that Judiciary is functioning correctly so that court cases can be done speedily and effectively.
“Too much seems to be time spent on appeals which are not worth making; I think the whole judicial system is crucial to the issue of impunity. I think one of the problems is taking longer employers, so if you want to tackle some of these issues I think we should make efforts to stop this.”
He also spoke on 2015 election, saying “I think it is regrettable that already in 2012 we are talking about the next election which is to be done in 2015.
“I think may be in the last six or eight months we can start talking about who we want to run but to do it at this time is a little bit of distraction because now is the time when the effort should go into making things happen like delivery services, putting in place infrastructure”.
