NIMASA D-G says anti- corruption war step in right direction
The Director-General of the Nigeria
Maritime Administration and Safety
Agency (NIMASA), Dr Dakuku
Peterside, has described the Federal
Government’s anti-corruption fight as
a step in the right direction.
Dakuku Peterside, NIMASA Boss
In a lecture at the University of
Nigeria, Enugu Campus at the
weekend, Peterside called on Nigerians
to appreciate the unusual courage
displayed by President Muhammadu
Buhari to fight the cankerworm.
He said that countries with impressive
records of development had stringent
anti-corruption regimes to detect and
punish corrupt practices.
In the lecture titled Connected Vision:
Building blocks for a new Nigeria, the
director-general said that the country
stood to gain from strong institutions
rather than strong leaders, saying that
it must rely on the integrity of its
institutions to survive.
On the country’s economy, Peterside
said that past leaders failed to
diversify into other potential lucrative
areas, leading to the consequences
being experienced now.
“Ordinarily, Nigeria’s originating
economic policy framework should
have from the mid 1960s included the
element of diversification from oil by
retaining the initial pride of place
which agriculture enjoyed in our
immediate post-colonial period.
“Even in the context of the so-called oil
boom, the process of diversification
into other lucrative areas like tourism,
solid minerals and human capital
development should have begun
actively from 1970,’’ he said.
Peterside described education the
time-tested mechanism for galvanising
the latent power of a nation to
transform its environment and
develop its economy.
“Natural resource based economies
like ours remain vulnerable because
we calculate our national survival in
barrels of oil and cubic metres of gas.
“On the contrary, human resourced
based economies depend more on the
power of the human mind to create an
alternative economy that is largely
independent of the vagaries in the
international prices of natural
resources and extractive produce.’’
Maritime Administration and Safety
Agency (NIMASA), Dr Dakuku
Peterside, has described the Federal
Government’s anti-corruption fight as
a step in the right direction.
In a lecture at the University of
Nigeria, Enugu Campus at the
weekend, Peterside called on Nigerians
to appreciate the unusual courage
displayed by President Muhammadu
Buhari to fight the cankerworm.
He said that countries with impressive
records of development had stringent
anti-corruption regimes to detect and
punish corrupt practices.
In the lecture titled Connected Vision:
Building blocks for a new Nigeria, the
director-general said that the country
stood to gain from strong institutions
rather than strong leaders, saying that
it must rely on the integrity of its
institutions to survive.
On the country’s economy, Peterside
said that past leaders failed to
diversify into other potential lucrative
areas, leading to the consequences
being experienced now.
“Ordinarily, Nigeria’s originating
economic policy framework should
have from the mid 1960s included the
element of diversification from oil by
retaining the initial pride of place
which agriculture enjoyed in our
immediate post-colonial period.
“Even in the context of the so-called oil
boom, the process of diversification
into other lucrative areas like tourism,
solid minerals and human capital
development should have begun
actively from 1970,’’ he said.
Peterside described education the
time-tested mechanism for galvanising
the latent power of a nation to
transform its environment and
develop its economy.
“Natural resource based economies
like ours remain vulnerable because
we calculate our national survival in
barrels of oil and cubic metres of gas.
“On the contrary, human resourced
based economies depend more on the
power of the human mind to create an
alternative economy that is largely
independent of the vagaries in the
international prices of natural
resources and extractive produce.’’
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