From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
OYO State Governor Abiola Ajimobi has said every Nigerian is corrupt in one way or the other either by financial misconduct, attitudinal corruption or the inability to restraint oneself from certain corrupt action.
Reacting to President Muhammadu Buhari’s war against corruption, he told newsmen at the National Secretariat of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Abuja: “We are looking at corruption in a global perspective as against just taking money. If you look at it generally, you will see that virtually every Nigeria is corrupt, virtually everybody is corrupt in one way or the other either attitudinally, financially or socially, and this, we believe should be looked into.
“We believe corruption is more than just taking money, I think it is attitudinal. Anytime you do what you are not supposed to do, is corruption. Sometime you can even enlarge it to mean indiscipline, inability to control yourself, to discipline yourself against selfish tendencies of wanting to take what does not belong to you. Even not doing your job is corruption, for taking salaries monthly and not coming to work and being idle is corruption.”
Governor Ajimobi, who said the current economic crunch in Nigeria, was a global issue, noted: “I think all over the world, there have been what you call technical recession.”
He further stressed that the situation affected government’s ability to meet her obligations like payment of salaries, contractual agreements and projects executions.
“Oyo State has an average of about N5.2 billion monthly wage bills and I think our total income from Federal Allocation is about N2.2 billion. It was obvious that there is no way we could meet our monthly wage bill.
“Despite the harsh economic situation, the Federal Government, Oyo State and indeed the administration of APC have agreed not to retrench any worker, but we will certainly restructure to redirect the staff strength to be more effective.
“In other clime, you should adjust your income and adjust your labour force. If you cannot pay everybody, then you should reduce the workforce or reduce salaries, but because we are a government that believes in generating and creating employment, we refused to do the most appropriate thing to do. So, we now decided that instead of retrenching, we will now restructure,” he said.
Senator Ajimobi, who equally reacted to the rift at the National Assembly, dismissed the report that the APC governors promised to wade into the crisis, explaining that though one of them chipped it in during a meeting with Mr. President, they could not because President Buhari had insisted on his principle of integrity and due process.