Ijaw national leader and former Federal Commissioner for Information, Chief Edwin Clark has appealed to the federal government to declare a state of emergency on corruption.
He disclosed this on Wednesday at a lecture organised by the School of Media and Communication, Pan-Atlantic (formerly Pan-African) University, Lagos.
The elder statesman said this was also crucial to the development of the country in all ramifications, saying it was disheartening that corruption had become a way of life not only among the political class, but also in other facets of human endeavours, including families.
“So, something has to be done fast to arrest the situation and reduce the rate of corruption on the land to a tolerance level if Nigeria wants to join the emerging economies around the world in the nearest future”, he added.
On the recent gale of defections of elected political officers, especially federal lawmakers from one party to another, Clark fumed at the development.
According to him, not only is the development immoral, it is also undemocratic and unconstitutional for sitting political officers, who got to offices under a particular political platform to defect halfway into another party, without first resigning their positions.
Clark reaffirmed that the forthcoming National Conference where all sections of the country would have a say in governance, would be a way out of lack of patriotism bedeviling the country.