Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the Former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) at a webinar themed: “The sustainability of society” said that corruption is problem and that corruption has impacted negatively on the society and that incompetent leadership has contributed to the degree of corrupt practices in the country.

Read what he said below:

“Morally and religiously speaking, corruption is a problem. But let us look at it from the angle of economics and we begin to understand that it is not just the corruption itself but the type of corruption. 

“Part of the problem we have is incompetence and that is why I keep saying we must pay attention to merit. We have a system called Federal Character and I believe we should have Nigerians from all over the country in public office, but all those Nigerians must be people that are competent. There must be a merit test; a competence test.

“For me, I think the root of corruption is when we begin to de-emphasise merit, competence and performance and so long as we don’t bring the best in this country to do the job and hold them to account, we won’t go anywhere.

“The worst form of corruption we have in this country is nepotism; when people get into positions virtue of personal loyalty, friendship and who they know, rather than what they can actually deliver virtue of their competence for that office. We need people who can deliver for this country, I mean the majority.” – He said