Corruption: Negotiate with looters – Bishop Kukah tells Nigerian govt

The Bishop of Sokoto Catholic Diocese, Mathew Hassan Kukah, has advised the federal government of Nigeria to change its tactics in the anti-corruption fight against looters.

Kukah said the government should negotiate with looters of the nation’s treasury in order to recover stolen funds.

The cleric made this known while speaking at the 29th and 30th Convocation lecture of the University of Jos on Friday.

Bishop Kukah explained that some countries had negotiated with corrupt officials to recover stolen funds and it worked for them, hence calling on Nigerian government to adopt the same tactic.

According to him “Fighting corruption as a whole is beyond just recovering stolen funds, although it is necessary to punish treasury looters and corrupt officials, to solve the whole problem would involve tackling it from the roots and that means the institutional framework.

“Investigate what they have stolen, then call them and negotiate how much of it can be recovered, while you put frameworks in place to holistically solve the problem.