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President Muhammadu Buhari, on Sunday, sounded the alarm regarding the 2019 general elections.
He added that corruption threatened the conduct of the exercise and that Nigerians had to resist those who tried to sabotage the polls.
This was in a statement that the president personally signed and obtained by DAILY POST on Sunday.
Buhari wrote: "On February 16, Nigeria will hold a general election. Four years ago, the country experienced its first democratic transfer of power to the opposition since 1999. The vote in a few days will be no less important.
"As president, I have tried wisely exercising the trust that has been given me to fight the problems of corruption, insecurity and an unfair economy. All are important. But among them, one stands above the others as a cause and aggravating the rest. This is of course corruption.
"A political agenda that does not rely on the fight against corruption is doomed to failure. The fight against corruption must be the foundation on which we secure the country, build our economy, provide decent infrastructure and educate the next generation.
"This is the challenge of our generation: the variable on which our success as a nation will be determined. But the interests at stake can make this fight difficult. As a plunder, the corrupt have powerful resources. And they will use them. Because when you fight corruption, you can rest badured that it will resist.
"It may even undermine the February poll and, by extension, our democracy. The Commission on Economic and Financial Crime expressed its concern about money laundering for the purchase of votes. This is the problem of corruption in the broad sense. He illustrates how much he hides in all the cracks of public life, manipulating formal procedures in order to preserve and perpetuate himself; protect personal political and economic interests to the detriment of the common good.
"Indeed, those who criticized my administration's anti-corruption campaign are those who oppose its mission. And although their lawyers can make expensive alibis, they can not escape what binds them: a multitude of documents and barely legal mechanisms (that's the case of Panama Papers, reports from the US Congress, screen companies or offshore bank accounts).
"Corruption corrupts the trust on which the idea of community is based, because one rule for a few and one for all is unacceptable to anyone who works honestly.
"But by intensifying our fight against corruption, we found that corruption innovated to resist the law. This is not the only domain of these Nigerians, but the industry of international corruption: the unsavory companion of globalization.
"Once the facilitators have come in – as they have been in the past – the greed of those with whom they hear is growing. We closed the door for them, but unfortunately there are still people ready to open the windows.
"Concrete progress has been made, but much remains to be done. We repatriated hundreds of millions of dollars stored in foreign banks. These funds were transparently deployed on infrastructure projects and used to directly empower the poorest in society. Much remains to be done by our international partners in France, the United Kingdom and the United States. Yet the hundreds of billions of people who left the country for most of this century are more promising.
"We have obtained high-level convictions, but the most serious cases remain. Lawyers have endless objections to obstruct court proceedings, while their clients hope this will last until a "friendly" president is elected. We must continue to strengthen the legal framework and ensure that the authorities have the investigative powers to sentence them to a sentence. Only then will we begin to neutralize the benefits of corrupt people.
"More ghost workers must be removed from the payroll of the government (nearly $ 550 million was saved through the identification of ghost employees). We can recover more from our whistleblower policy ($ 370 million has been returned since its launch in 2016). More is yet to come. But together we will prevail over corruption.
"A Yoruba proverb says that only the patient can milk a lion. Similarly, the victory over corruption is difficult, but not impossible. We must not flounder in our resolution. I know that many Nigerians would like faster action. I too, but we must follow the procedures and exercise restraint, ensuring that the allegations never replace the evidence. Because it is not Nigeria that we should wish to build.
"There is no doubt that this administration has changed the way we fight corruption. The choice for voters is: are we continuing to advance on this test track against corruption? Or do we go back to the past, resigned to the lie that it is just as we do things? Or that it is just too difficult – too invasive – to repair? I know which one I would choose. That's why I'm still asking Nigerians four years to serve them.
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