Abstract
Corruption has degraded moral virtues like integrity, accountability and transparency in the Nigeria and among most Nigerians. These are in the forms of fraudulent practices such as bribery, embezzlement, mismanagement, misappropriation and misapplication of public funds among some other anti social behavior, unlike the pre-colonial period when we had strong moral values.Today, reverse is the case. However, in order to combat these corrupt practices, President Obasanjo administration inaugurated both Independent Corruption Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) and Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC). In spite of these curative measures, corrupt practices continued unabated.
The paper which adopts system theory and relies on secondary sources insists that since institutional mechanism had failed to stem the tide of corruption in Nigeria, there is need to reinvent preventive mechanism measures, that is, a recourse to one time potent force that inculcates moral values, these are agents of socialization, to checkmate corrupt practices as against curative mechanism in Nigeria. The paper further beliefs that curative mechanisms are incapable of solving corruption in Nigeria as these commissions are too legalistic and that some of their officials are compromising. The paper, therefore, submits that resolving corrupt practices in Nigeria starts through the home to other channels of interaction in life. This other channel of interactions, the paper position is that, they must preach the same virtues of integrity.
The study concludes that with reinventing preventive as against curative measures corruption will fade away from the polity.
