The former Vice-Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and Chairman, Northern Elders’ Forum, NEF, Professor Ango Abdullahi, said yesterday that President Muhammadu Buhari was not fighting corruption as he claimed.
“We have now seen corruption on a massive scale, and nobody is doing anything about it,” he said.
Professor Abdullahi, who spoke with journalists after the opening ceremony of a public lecture on “Education as an instrument for national integration: The northern Nigerian Crisis,” said if President Buhari was committed to fighting corruption, the nation’s prisons would have been full with corrupt politicians.
According to him, the President’s claim to fighting corruption cannot be taken seriously when the chairman of his party openly said that the sins of anybody who joined the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, will be forgiven.
The former Special Adviser to President Olusegun Obasanjo said the classic case of the President’s lack of fight against corruption was that Senator Danjuma Goje whose ‘sin’ was forgiven because he dropped his ambition to be the president of the senate in favour of Buhari’s preferred candidate, Ahmad Lawan.
“The President said he is fighting corruption, but I don’t believe him because if he is fighting corruption, our courts and prisons should be full by now. This is because corruption is everywhere.
“You don’t just pick one case and make it a universal example of fighting corruption. We have just seen the conviction of Orji Uzor Kalu and it is becoming something that the world should know when there are so many people with several billion with them. Those people should be in the same prison as Uzor Kalu.
“In any case, if you want to say that Uzor Kalu has committed an offence, here is a national chairman of a party, the President’s party, who pronounces that, don’t worry how much you have stolen somewhere else, as long as you come and say you are a member of APC, you are forgiven.
”A good example of that is former Governor Danjuma Goje. It was the Attorney General of the Federation himself that went to court to say they were withdrawing the case. And his offences are not different from Orji Uzor Kalu’s and many others that were reported.
“The media is equally guilty in this direction. You journalists are part of the crises that we have because you are not addressing these issues as hard, objectively and fairly.”
Professor Abdullahi said the presidential system of government also encourages corruption, adding that the country should revert to the parliamentary system of government.
“If we are going to restructure Nigeria, we must abandon the Presidential system of government. If you want Nigeria to function as it uses to in 1960, at the point of independence, we should go and reconsider retention of the Presidential system of government, because it is inefficient, it is corrupt and there is no accountability.
“Under the parliamentary system of government, you cannot be a minister until you are elected from your village. So, you are already accountable to your electorate and then, the leader of your party who happens to be President or Prime Minister would make a nomination, which means other members must approve.
”If you are not a good man, you have failed,” he said.
