Don wants death penalty for corruption
Foremost Professor of Criminology and a member of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Olufemi Odekunle, has called for death penalty against those indicted for corruption in the country.
He made the call yesterday in Abuja at a one-day Policy Dialogue on the State of the Nation organised by the Say No Campaign (SNC) and MacArthur Foundation.
The Don said the evils of corruption has death among its consequences and thus perpetrators of corruption could be likened to murderers, who deserved to be served due justice for their crimes.
“As a Professor of criminology now, I remember then in the 70s and 80s when I was interested in burglary and armed robbery incidences and other associate crimes. Their effects on the society are as bad as they were then and even now. However when one do some calculations, the impacts of corruption in one year is more than the impacts of armed robbery and burglary in 40 years.
“If we can have death penalty for armed robbery and some states have passed laws to have death penalty for kidnapping, why can’t we have death penalty for corruption, whose effects far outweigh the effects of other crimes? You have to break eggs to make omelettes. If corruption is tackled in this country, over 70 percent of our problems would be solved,” he said.
The Executive Director of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre
