Corruption, insecurity threat to Nigeria’s survival –Soetan, ICAN president

THE Institute of Chartered Ac­countants of Nigeria (ICAN), yesterday, threw its weight be­hind the Federal Government’s anti-corruption crusade, while calling for implementation of strategies that cut across all tiers of government.

Newly inaugurated Presi­dent of ICAN, Deacon Titus Soetan, who made the call at a briefing in Lagos, said gov­ernment needs the support of all Nigerians to win the war against corruption as it was the only way Nigeria can record any meaningful progress as a nation.

According to him, govern­ment must strengthen its anti-corruption agencies in a way that ensures that all remote chambers of graft in govern­ment’s ministries, departments and agencies are dismantled.

He said, “in fighting corrup­tion, the judiciary must be alive to its responsibility. Cases of corruption should not only be expeditiously prosecuted and adjudicated upon, but those found guilty should be pun­ished to serve as deterrent to others.

This matter is of great im­portance to all and sundry in the sense that without eradi­cating the endemic corruption we have been made to see in the past few years, the country is unfortunately not going to make any meaningful progress in its developmental efforts.”

Soetan also lamented the ris­ing insecurity across the coun­try, warned it poses significant challenge to investment and entrepreneurship.

According to him, the secu­rity situation has unfortunately deteriorated in the last few years and has worsened global perception of the image of the country.

While commending the ad­ministration’s effort in tackling the Boko Haram insurgency in the North East, the ICAN boss urged government to urgently address rising cases of kidnap­ping and assassinations in other parts of the country to enable it enjoy the trust and confidence of the citizens.

On how to boost the nation’s economy, he called on the Bu­hari government to initiate policies that would provide and promote enabling environment for businesses to operate, stress­ing that the institute was in sup­port of the introduction of the flexible foreign exchange policy by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) even as he advocated ef­fective monitoring.