Sowore Faults Nigeria’s Anti-Graft War, Vows To End Corruption Using Technology
The Presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), Omoyele Sowore, has faulted Nigeria’s current anti-corruption war and promised to end corruption through the use of technology.
Sowore in an interview on Channels Television’s political programme, Roadmap 2019, said there is no corruption war in Nigeria because of political interference and suffers interference by influential individuals.
“The moment you are in APC, you are sanctified, the moment you are out of APC, suddenly your corruption record makes it to the surface, so that tells you there is no war against corruption.
“We are not delivering consequences on corrupt people, the way it should. They are just playing with our minds.
“In the US, even when you are pleading innocence, there has to be documentation, to show that this is what you said and can be made available to the public. We don’t have that here, that is why I’m telling you that the corruption war in Nigeria is a joke,” he said.
Revealing his plans to tackle corruption, Sowore said he will end corruption using technology and digital tools.
“We will use technology to ensure that so many of the things that we are still hard-coding now will be digitalised, including the contracting system. For example, every form that is signed by a public office holder in Nigeria through the code of conduct bureau should be available to the public.
“Everybody that is on the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), we should be able to search who has a company in the country. So that, when a contract is awarded to somebody and he has a nine-year-old boy in the board of their company, we can find out immediately.
“If somebody is declaring an asset he doesn’t have, when you download them (the digital information), you will be able to question the person and raise the alarm.”
He also stressed the importance of transparency, noting that one of the best solution to Nigeria’s corruption problem is transparency in all levels of society.
According to him, interference, whether political or individual, cannot help Nigeria’s corruption war.