LAGOS, Nov. 24 (Xinhua) -- Visiting former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Bin Mohamad blamed the increased level of corruption across the world on bad governance, local press reported on Tuesday.

"No country of the world is completely free of corruption today," Mahathir told the 11th edition of Emmanuel Onyechere Osigwe Anyiam-Osigwe lecture series, which was opened on Monday in Lagos, Nigeria's commercial hub.

"Corruption has become an endemic problem in the world," the News Agency of Nigeria quoted him as saying.

The lecture entitled, "To live in the Way of Honors, Incorruptibility; A Spiritual Premise for Material Well Being", was organized by the Osigwe Anyiam-Osigwe Foundation.

According to him, corruption has eaten so deep into the fabric of most countries because of the failure of the leaders to stem poverty, unemployment and infrastructural decay.

He said most leaders who came into office through corrupt practices always infested clean ones in their cabinets.

Mahathir said the future remained bleak if something urgent was not done to fight corruption in all spheres of human endeavor across the globe.

"With corruption, it becomes difficult for businesses to thrive and developmental projects would remain uncompleted in different locations due to mismanagement of available resources," he said.

He added that Malaysia was able to achieve relative development over the years due to good governance and series of anti-corruption measures put in place.

Former prime minister of Pakistan, Shaukat Aziz,who also spoke at the forum, said the current global financial crisis was far from over.

He said good leadership was in short supply globally, due to corruption.

Aziz said there was the need for countries to resist corruption and embrace peace, harmony and tolerance so as to bequeath better legacies to the younger generation.