Kwara State Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq led a marathon anti-corruption walk across downtown Ilorin on Friday amid renewed calls on Nigerians, especially young people, to shun graft or activities capable of stunting development.
Tagged Nigerian Youths Walk Against Corruption, AbdulRazaq was joined in the over two-hour walk by the Speaker of the House of Assembly Yakubu Danladi; zonal head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Isyaku Sharu; State Coordinator of the National Youths Service Corps Esther Ikupolati; members of the House of Assembly; hundreds of members of the NYSC; artisans; and civil society organisations.
The walk was one of the EFCC’s public awareness programmes to draw attention to the danger of corruption.
AbdulRazaq, who arrived the EFCC office at 7 a.m. and joined the walk from the beginning to the end, repeated President Muhammadu Buhari’s refrain that corruption would kill the country if the country fails to kill the cancer that the governor said was responsible for the slow pace of development.
“We have been walking the talk, now we are walking in support of the war (against corruption). The message is very clear: kill corruption or it will kill us all,” he said.
“We have to do the right thing and be cautious. We have seen what has happened to those that have been in (this) position before us. Nobody wants to live office and be going to EFCC’s office daily. So, we will do the right thing in Kwara State. We appreciate the EFCC, they had earlier given us over N100 million. They have invited us (again) to collect another N200 million (recovered looted funds); they have made a lot of progress.”
The anti-corruption walk was organised by the EFCC in partnership with the NYSC.
Also at the occasion, the Speaker of the state’s House of Assembly, Danladi, said the corruption crusade required the support of all Nigerians to succeed, asserting that graft was deadlier to the society than HIV/AIDS and must be stamped out, especially in Kwara where he lamented how billions of naira had been diverted to private pockets at the expense of the masses.
He also lamented the negative impacts of internet fraud on the country and called on the youths to shun it.
