Religion, not EFCC, best tool to tackle corruption – Primate Ayodele

The leader of the INRI Evangelical Spiritual Church, Primate Elijah Ayodele, has advised the government to consider what he called ‘religious tools’ to in its fight against financial corruption, instead of the Economic and Financial Commission which always ends up losing cases against corrupt leaders.

Ayodele argued that Christianity, Islam and the traditional religion should be employed in order to make judgment for corrupt leaders immediate, instead of going through the court process which end up leading to waste of state resources.

He explained that for anyone that believes in the traditional way, their gods (Ogun, Sango) should be used to swear them in with curses attached if they become corrupt in office.

He also cited that in the Bible, there are verses that deal with such things which will take effect immediately the political leader defaults; ditto for the Islamic religion.

“Nigeria has gone deep in corruption and it’s becoming impossible to overcome it. This is because political leaders don’t fear the oath they swore to before coming into office.

“They don’t see it as anything anymore because the institutions which are the judges that swore them in are not even strong enough. Corruption has eaten deep into the judiciary too,” he said.

The cleric said going forward, the religious system should be allowed to take over the battle against corruption in Nigeria.

“This should include Christianity, Islam and the traditional religion. There are verses in the bible that can make a corrupt leader get punished immediately. Let them allow men of God that are deep in spiritualism. Punishment of any kind can be invoked on any corrupt leaders at little or no cost.

“In the Quran too, Islamic clerics who are true to Islam practices should be allowed to invoke punishment of corruption on politicians that err. No matter how hard the punishment may be, they deserve it. Even if it has to do with losing parts of their body for being corrupt, let it be.

“Also, for the traditional religion, there are god of iron, god of thunder, Esu, and others that can be used to punish anyone that errs against their oaths.

“With this, fear will be instilled in our political leaders because they know judgment comes immediately they err. No investigation will be needed to carry out these punishments”