Support me to fight corruption, Buhari tells National Assembly

From ADETUTU FOLASADE-KOYI, Abuja

The President-elect, General Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday, ap­pealed to the incoming National Assembly to support him in his fight against cor­ruption.

Buhari made the call when he addressed a joint session of the re-elected and fresh mem­bers of the two chambers of the National Assembly, who are currently undergoing a one-week induction programme or­ganised by the National Institute for Legislative Studies in Abuja.

He stressed the need for the executive and the legislature to collaborate on restructuring of the public sector and the bud­geting process to collectively tackle the menace of high recur­rent expenditure at the expense of capital and human develop­ment.

His word: “I am delighted to say that we stand on the thresh­old of history. For the first time in our post-independence his­tory, power is going to be trans­ferred from an incumbent ruling party to an opposition party.

“For a president to be suc­cessful in addressing commu­nity development and general welfare of the various people of the country, he or she would benefit from working closely and in harmony with the leg­islative arm of government. I, therefore, commit myself to working with the legislature as development partners motivat­ed by the desire to deliver good governance.

“Distinguished elected mem­bers of the 8th National As­sembly, we are all aware of the challenges our dear nation has been facing and will continue to do so in the near future. These daunting challenges include, general insecurity and insur­gency that has caused extreme human hardship and destruction of lives; livelihoods that may take us over a decade to rebuild across most of the North-East and some parts of the North- West of the country

“Devastation and environ­mental degradation in the Niger Delta area which must be at­tended to. Decline in revenues due to fall in oil prices, which pose a threat to Government’s capacity to deliver on recon­struction of devastated areas and the new government de­velopment agenda; endemic corruption, which has crippled human and infrastructure de­velopment for decades.

“Poor provision of power supply which has had a crip­pling effect on development of small businesses and indeed, the wider economy; de-indus­trialisation for the past three decades leading to closure of many industries and migration of many to other African coun­tries.”

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