A former Ambassador of the United States to Nigeria, Mr. Walter Carrington has challenged Nigerians to vote out bad and corrupt leaders in the country.
He insisted that corruption was the cause of insecurity in some parts of Nigeria.
He also said corruption was responsible for other developmental challenges of the country.
He spoke on Monday at the 29th convocation lecture of the University of Ilorin. The lecture was titled, "On the dawn of Nigeria's second century: challenges to a new generation.'
He added that Nigerians should vote out leaders who are corrupt and who did not manage the affairs of the nation well.
He said: "The problem of corruption seems to me, leads to other problems, problem of insecurity and others. The good thing about democracy and the right of people to vote is that the people also have a responsibility to keep those who govern accountable to them.
"A cure must be found for the corrosive cancer of corruption. It is important, it seems to me, to insist that in future election, you demand that corruption be not only an issue to be discussed by that people who seek you vote will tell you exactly how then intend corruption and if the ones in power do not do so, you can use your power to continue to remind them and in the next election, you vote them out of office. That, it seems to me is the only way that can be done in a democracy.
"But it is important to realise that from the very bottom-up, how serious the whole corruption is, my wife always when ever there is a story on television or newspapers about some misdeeds by some elected official, she will say, ‘that will be nothing in Nigeria. They will never even be questioned.’ Whereas in US, they end up in jail for
things that you will not even often question people about.
"So it is extremely important that there will be transparency and that you insist that every all money that comes into the treasure is accounted for so that the people know how there money is being spent. That happens in US," Carrington said.
