By News Writing & Reporting (MAC 201) Group Nine
A Professor of International and Developmental Economics, Dr. Ishmael Ogboru has suggested the death penalty as possible solution to endemic corruption in Nigeria.
Delivering the 57th Inaugural Lecture of the University of Jos entitled “Episiotomy of Nigeria’s Economic Malady: Its Depth and the Way Out”, he said with the failure of various efforts to tackle the problem “the only way out is the death penalty option”.
After analyzing the country’s economic predicament, which he attributed to corruption, Ogboru proposed that Nigeria adopts the death penalty as punishment for corrupt public servants.
He cited China, where, he said, the poverty level reduced from 53 per cent in 1981 to five per cent in 2005 and Vietnam where it reduced from 50 per cent in 1993 to 20 per cent in 2004, as countries where the death penalty had successfully cut down the corruption monster significantly.
He noted that corruption had become a great concern in a rich country like Nigeria, where over 69 per cent of the population live below the poverty line because bribes, mismanagement of funds and inefficiency drain the nation’s wealth.
He further described corruption as an institution that should be closed down completely, suggesting that corrupt politicians be treated as ‘black sheep’ by the society and never celebrated.
He added that government should be people-oriented while the citizens should practice good virtues to free the country of the shackles of corruption.
The Vice Chancellor of Unijos, Professor Hayward Mafuyai, in his comments after the lecture said “corruption is an institution that should not only be shut down, but an institution that must be shut down completely.”
He commended Professor Ogboru for a well-researched lecture and encouraged other professors yet to present their inaugural lecture to work towards it.
