The Senate Minority Leader, Sen. Godswill Akpabio has called on Nigerian leaders to uphold ethics and morality as part of efforts to curb corruption in the country.
Dr Akpabio stated this on Thursday while delivering a lecture titled “The Nigerian Question: Ethics in an Age of uncertainty,” at the 7th convocation ceremony of Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University (COOU), Igbariam, Anambra.
The senator, who defined ethics as “doing things that is right and moral,” stressed the need to instill ethics and morality in the Nigerian politics to curb corruption.
He commended the Federal Government for fighting corruption but stressed that it should be done across boards.
Akpabio also advised political leaders against cross carpeting, saying it was mostly done in selfish interest.
The senator assured that members of the National Assembly would continue to maintain ethics and good moral behaviour in making laws in interest of the masses.
He praised late Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu for fighting in the interest of the Igbos but argued that the civil war would have been averted if the past leaders did the needful.
“If our past leaders had done the needful without bearing in mind sectional interests, the Nigerian civil war would have been averted,” Akpabio said.
He, therefore, called for the reintroduction of history in secondary schools for students to understand the past and learn from Nigeria’s mistakes for a better future.
According to him, we need to study the history on how Nigeria nearly went into fragmentation through the civil war and how we obtained independence without bloodshed.
“The bloodshed we are seeing in this country wouldn’t have been necessary if our children were taught the history of how we were able to collectively in brotherhood obtain independence without firing a gun.
“We cannot sustain that independence with explosions in the Niger Delta, Boko Haram in the North, Odua Peoples Congress (OPC) in the West and now Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) in the East,” the senator noted.
He advised youths to be morally upright, saying that good moral behavior and hard work always brought success.
Akpabio further charged graduates to be ambassadors of their institutions by maintaining good morals and ethical behaviours.
“With love in the heart of Nigerians, the economic hardship in the country could be reversed,” he stressed.
In a remark, the Vice Chancellor of the University, Prof. Fidelis Okafor commended Akpabio for delivering the lecture and his promise to build a hostel in the institution, charging the students and graduates to imbibe the spirit of morality in their endeavors.
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