We’re building institutions to fight corruption -Jonathan •Says Nigeria to be independent of oil from 2021

PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan, on Tuesday, said that he was not prepared to wield the big stick  to get Nigerians do the right thing, saying that he was concerned about building a strong institutions framework that would change the system.
The president, who was speaking at the 51st Independence anniversary lecture on the theme, “Nigeria in Transformation,” which took place at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs auditorium in Abuja, said as current president, he was trying to do things differently with the objective of moving the country forward.
According to him, “as the current president of Nigeria, I said yes, we are moving this country forward and we are trying to do things differently, not by the  president carrying a big stick and breaking the heads of all corrupt people; to be breaking the heads of all civil servants that report to work by 9.00 a.m.”
Buttressing his position, the president argued: “I was told that you rarely see people going to work by 8.00 a.m., even though the period of service is between 8.00 a.m. – 4.00p.m. How many directors come to work by 8.00 a.m.?  “I’m not sure 10 per cent of your directors come to work by  8.00 a.m., not exactly.
“I’m not going to chase them by carrying a big stick, going into the ministries and breaking the heads of the people. But I believe that for us to get to where we want to go, as a nation, we have to build strong institutions and when we build strong institutions, these institutions will drive the process,” he argued.
The president lamented that Nigeria’s oil resources had been a source of corruption in the country, hoping that in the next 10 years, attention would shift from the extractive industry and government would be able to block leakages and run without depending on oil.
According to him: “If you look at the size of Nigeria, all the general imports that come into Africa, about 20 per cent of them come into this country. If we have well-managed ports, the income we receive as a government from the trading activities alone will be enough. But we are still running a deficit budget, because there are a lot of leakages; things are not being done properly.
“Some goods that are supposed to be cleared through Nigerian wharfs are being cleared through other countries and smuggled into Nigeria. We consume all those goods here but we cannot clear them through our wharfs. They have to be cleared through neighbouring countries and they will transfer them through all kinds of means to Nigeria for us to consume.

“If we fix a number of institutions that we must fix, it may be painful, but we have to do that. People will complain that politics is being used, but must be done. By the time these institutions are fixed, I believe in the next 10 years or so, we should be able to run our economy without oil,” he said.
 Source