The representatives of Nigeria and Ghana to the ECOWAS Parliament say that West Africa sub-regions needs the political will to fight against corruption.
They disclosed this in useparate interviews on Friday at the end of the Joint Committee Delocalised meeting of the ECOWAS Parliament at Ouagadougou.
Rep. Sadiq Ibrahim, a member of the House of Representatives from Nigeria, said that Nigeria needed to be committed in the fight against corruption and look beyond sentiments in dealing with crime cases.
According to him, Nigerians always associate the fight against corruption to discrimination against certain tribes, religions or political parties, which is not supposed to be so.
“If you really want to fight corruption you need the will and commitment which unfortunately till now, I have not seen any of such from any Africa country.
“We (Nigeria) are in the forefront, we are supposed to show examples to other West African countries but we don’t have the will to do that unfortunately.
“The most important issue about fighting corruption is that we are so segmented in our societies by tribes, by religion, by region, by so many other things that divide us,“ he said.
He said that Nigeria had started implementing the Fight Against Corruption ECOWAS Protocol but noted p that while the institutions were on ground, enforcement of some of the laws was needed.
On his part, , Hon Mahama Ayariga, a member of Parliament from Ghana, said that the most important tool to fight corruption was the political will by those in power and the citizens .
“The most important thing is the political will on the part of all of us to fight corruption both those who govern as political bureaucratic elite and those who are governed as ordinary citizen of the
community.
“Who must stand up against corruption and not condone corruption?
That is the first most important thing, the will on the part of all of us both those in government and ordinary citizens to fight corruption.“
He nsaid that the parliament needed to assist the right institutions to fight corruption and make them independent and free from political manipulation from those in authority.
He said that ECOWAS should set up a monitoring mechanisms to check what every country was doing about the protocol and the team must not be restrained from doing its job.
