Death penalty cannot stop corruption

Corruption is a major factor militating against the development of the country. Precisely, few months back, a section of the labour move¬ment in conjunction with some civil society orga-nizations gathered in Abuja and few other states to push for death penalty for public treasury loot¬ers. While reacting to this new development, part of the populace received the call for death penalty as a wake-up call and viewed it as a right step in the right direction. To them, it will put an end to corruption in the country while others viewed the pronouncement and the Abuja rally as nothing but a cantankerous posture because death penalty itself is out of fashion globally.

According to these people, world crime re¬searchers agreed that, capital punishment has not eliminated crime even economic sabotage or sharp malpractices which were the hallmark of the previous administration in the country. There¬fore, death penalty cannot be the solution to fraud or corruption in the country.
In reality, it is a common notion that man to man exploitation, oppression and suppression are products of neo-liberal economic system.

There¬fore, death penalty will not put an end to looting in capitalist setting like ours.
At a time like this when a nation is in dilem¬ma and depressed over the way and manner both human and natural resources are being managed by the capitalist section of the nation, it calls for serious concern, at least when one considers the high level of poverty amongst the working mass-es. On monthly basis, Federal, State and Local government share money running into billions of Naira through Federation Account Allocation committee (FAAC) aside from internally gener¬ated revenue (IGR) realized on monthly basis, which of course, runs into millions of naira.

Yet, many states cannot embark on capital projects that will transform the society or even sustain payment of workers’ monthly salary, hence, most states are seeking for bailout funds to meet their monthly ob¬ligations, while capital projects embarked upon by previous government are either abandoned or sold out.
Take a cursory look round the country today, there is nothing to show for the oil windfall except high rate of unemployment, decay in social infrastruc¬ture, commercialization of education and outright wholesale of our commonwealth under the guise of privatization which they end up selling to them¬selves and their cronies at very ridiculous prices. Outright looting of the nation’s treasury by public office holders and other civil servants, has become a norm.

Comrade Rufus Olusesan,
Lagos