Government Re-states Commitment
To End Corruption
President
Umaru Yar’Adua has expressed Nigerian government’s commitment to support total
independence of anti-corruption agencies, towards reducing the menace of
corruption.
The President told a delegation
of the Yoruba Council of Elders, who called on him in Abuja that, the support
would be both financial and moral in making corruption unattractive and to
ensure that any one found guilty was sanctioned based on existing laws.
President Yar’Adua said
corruption required a collective effort to eradicate and must be fought in all
facets of national life.
He again stressed the need to
expunge the immunity clause, which shields certain categories of government
officials from prosecution, from the constitution.
Election reforms
President Yar’Adua told the
Yoruba Council of Elders that government would strive to ensure reforms in the
electoral process, in such manner as to guarantee free and fair elections.
He challenged the election
commission, INEC, the police and other security agencies to live up to their
responsibilities of playing a role in conducting fair elections that would be
adjudged transparent as a matter of national prestige.
The President of Yoruba Council
of Elders, Major-General Adeyinka Adebayo said government should address the
issues of youth unemployment, corruption, roads rehabilitation, care for the
aged and the need to fast-track electoral cases, which are still in courts.
General Adebayo had expressed
the council’s support for President Yar’Adua’s government and called for the
removal of the immunity clause from the 1999 constitution, among requests.
PR/ANO
