Just like prostitution, corruption cannot beeliminated completely from any community-Speaker Dogara

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, says the issue

of corruption is not something that can be eliminated completely out

of any community, just like prostitution and other vices.



Dogara said this when he spoke with some Editors in Abuja recently.

The speaker says he lacks the English word to describe anyone who

thinks he can

eliminate corruption totally.



"I know we have promised to open the books and we will definitely open

the books, certainly. I however don't know in what form the corruption

is said to be. Let me first say that the parliament is not something

that exists outside of Nigeria, and the issue of corruption itself is

not something that can be eliminated completely out of any community,

just like prostitution and other vices.



What you can do is to reduce it to the

barest minimum, to a level that it is almost seen as non-existent.



The advanced countries that we try so much to copy or speak so

glowingly about do have issues with corruption too in spite of what

they have been able to achieve.



It is not that corruption has been eliminated 100 per cent. We have

seen this hydra-headed monster called corruption rearing its head even

in elections of certain jurisdictions.



Clearly the signs are there, but our collective effort is that we

reduce it to the barest minimum. I lack the English word to describe

anyone who thinks he can eliminate corruption totally.



To eliminate it totally will amount to eliminating the totality of the

human race, because no human being is clothed in perfection.



All we can do is to reduce it to the barest minimum. You can imagine a

situation where we have the death penalty against vices like armed

robbery, but as you are shooting them, somebody is busy robbing

somewhere.



So sometimes you can't phantom the nature of the human mind, because

you think that by the time you apply the maximum punishment, people

will run away, screaming if they catch you, they are going to kill

you, I won't do it.



But as they are executing armed robbers, some people continue without care.



Even when they are executing drug traffickers in some countries, more

people are still doing it. So you see it is a battle that we will

continue to fight.



There won't come a day when Nigeria will sit and say we have

eliminated corruption, this is a perfect society, let's work on.



That is one notion we must discard. If we are ever going to achieve

that, then there won't be need for institutions like the EFCC, ICPC or

even the Police. They have been fighting crime since the age of

Nigeria, but there are still crimes.



So the National Assembly is not an institution that exists on its own.

It is part of the society and I cannot say you cannot trace any iota

of corruption to the affairs of the National Assembly.



Honestly speaking, there could be cases, but the point is when we

discover them, they should be properly apportioned punishments.



Not just to express dissent but apportion punishment that is

appropriate; punishment that is capable of deterring others" he said.