A university don, Professor Musa Adeshina Abdulraheem, has also admonished politicians vying for elective positions including President Muhammadu Buhari, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar among others to conduct public finance in line with Islamic teachings of fiscal prudence. This, Abdul Raheem – an Islamic cleric and professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at Ekiti state University, Ado Ekiti said, would help them to deal with corruption in all ramifications. He gave the counsel in a paper he delivered at a two day workshop on linking good public finance management with Islam teachings organized by Centre for Social Justice (CJS).
“There are laws in this country that encourage people to be transparent, abhor corruption and live up to the guidelines, expectations expected of various offices. However, many of us are found wanting. The Centre for Social Justice has come up with this manual to use religion as a means of creating awareness in people. This is a country that is very religiousis either you are a Muslim or a Christian,” he said. He advised President Muhammadu Buhari, former vice President Atiku Abubakar and other contenders fpr elective posts to strive by upholding probity, accountability and transparency, virtues he said Nigerians expect of their government.
“We would like incoming president and government to observe where outgoing government has made some mistakes especially in the fight against corruption and try to amend. Go out and stamp corruption because if they fail do so, people will draw comparison. Corruption is the bane of this country, it retards progress”, he said. Speaking in an interview with New Telegraph, workshop Convener and Director of CSJ, Barrister Eze Onyepkere said the workshop was part of wider programmes designed to involve faith based groups in the struggle for improvement of fiscal government, transparency and value for money.
“We noticed that all humans’ laws are written in line with religious and moral doctrines. If you look at the Bible, the ten commandments is almost a replication of most society‘s laws today. We note that majority of Nigerians are either a Muslim or a Christian who attends mosque on Friday or church on Sunday. “These people belonging to these groups are at the same time leading Nigerians. We then ask ourselves that why corruption is still this pervasive in our polity if the leaders are people of great faith? Why are we not having value for money? Why is economy being mismanaged? “The whole idea is to point out to Nigerians that, what we have in our constitution like don’t steal, don’t be corrupt is also replicated in the morals teaching. The laws of Muslim and Christian forbids what the normal laws forbids and a such we came up with the idea of producing this manual and using it to ensure good governance.”