Ex-president of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, has advised President
Muhammadu Buhari to start his anti-corruption fight with himself, the
vice president, the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of
Representatives, before extending same to other Nigerians.
The
former President who described corruption as a ‘hydra-headed monster’
that must not be allowed to live, said the fight against the monster
must begin from the top.
He was a special guest at the Obafemi
Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Osun State, on Friday, during the
institution’s Staff Club’s interactive programme tagged, “Seventh
Roundtable with Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, Reflections of an Elder
Statesman.”
Obasanjo, responding to a question from a student
on his view about the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari,
however, said the president had left no one in doubt that he was willing
to battle corruption.
“The president promised he will fight
corruption. And there is no doubt that he has shown that he is willing
to fight corruption. Corruption is a hydra-headed monster.
“I
believe very much that fighting corruption just has to start from the
top. That is, from the president, the vice president, the senate
president, the speaker of the House, the Chief Justice of Nigeria
(CJN).”
As the former President mentioned the Chief Justice
of the Nation, one of the participants, who was later joined by others,
asked him to include himself and other former presidents in the list of
those to be tried for graft.
In his reaction, he said: “Did I
hear somebody say and you? Oh, you mean and former presidents? Former
presidents have either done their bit when they were in office or they
did not.
“The instruments we are using today (to fight
corruption) were all fashioned out by me when I was in office. We did
not have anything like the instruments (ICPC, EFCC) before. Not only did
I bring up these instruments, I also looked for the right people who
could make the instruments work.
“Nuhu Ribadu was in charge of
the EFCC and then, the fear of Ribadu was the beginning of wisdom. For
ICPC, I specially head-hunted somebody like Justice Mustapha Akanbi to
run it,” he said.
Commenting on Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole
Soyinka, Obasanjo said, “Soyinka is slippery and he is no man to be
trusted. I will trust Wole Soyinka as an “aparo hunter” (partridge
hunter) than trusting him as a political analyst. I have no issues with
him.”
When asked to explain why he refused to release some money
for the National Assembly when he was the president of the country, he
stated that “you don’t know so many things that transpired during my
administration. So many things were not resolved, so don’t attack my
intelligence and personality.”
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