Influential politician and chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has opened up on the 'snake of corruption' swallowing money in government parastatals.
Speaking while receiving the "Man of the Year" Award in Lagos, on Friday night, former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, said the “snake of corruption” swallowing money in government agencies and ministries will kill Nigeria if it is not killed.
The presidential hopeful urged the federal government to fight embark on serious fight against corruption instead of engaging in media warfare or propaganda.
Atiku said: “We must try to identify why, though we have been ostensibly fighting corruption for the past few years, Transparency International, the official global anti-corruption monitoring agency, has not increased our Corruption Perception Index rating.
“Not to belabor the point, but we have to kill the snake of corruption that swallows the commonwealth that should lift our people up from poverty. Whether that snake is in a JAMB office or any other government office, we must kill it or it will kill us
“This month of February 2018, according to the World Poverty Clock, Nigeria has just overtaken India as the world’s capital of extreme poverty. There are more extremely poor people in Nigeria than there are in India, a country that has six times Nigeria’s population.
“When people do not have jobs and the means to start a business are beyond their reach, they are incrementally much more likely to engage in criminal behaviors like terrorism, kidnapping, militancy and armed robbery”.
The former Vice President who has expressed interest in contesting for the presidency in 2019 on the platform of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has also been subject of corrupt investigations in and outside of Nigeria.