Buhari blames Jonathan, OBJ, IBBfor corruption, insecurity

FORMER Military Head of State and presidential
candidate of the Congress for Progressive
Change (CPC) in the 2011 general elections, Gen.
Muhammadu Buhari yesterday took a critical
look at the state of the nation and declared that
corruption and insecurity are fast undermining the future of Nigeria. And tracing where and when Nigeria started
getting it wrong, Buhari fingered the
administrations of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida and
Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, to the current
President Goodluck Jonathan. He alleged that
lack of sincerity on the part of leaders under the administrations of the trio caused the
unimaginable level of corruption and insecurity in
the country. Buhari spoke as the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto,
Dr. Matthew Hassan Kukah declared that no
Nigerian president was ever prepared for the
leadership of the country. According to Buhari, the Federal Government,
since the administration of Babangida to date, is
responsible for the “high level of corruption and
destruction” in the petroleum industry. The former head of state spoke in Kaduna while
receiving leaders and members of CPC led by
House of Representatives member from Funtua/
Dandume Federal Constituency of Katsina State,
Dr. Mansur Abdulkadir, on a courtesy visit
ahead of the forthcoming local council election in the state. According to Buhari, for Nigeria to move
forward and realise its quest for development,
its people must come out with trusted leaders to
steer the affairs of the nation. He lamented that
“there is no country in the whole world where
impunity strives as it is the case in Nigeria”. He said: “The biggest challenge of Nigeria is for
adequate security to be in place and ways in
which we can protect the riches of this country
and provide job opportunities for the youths is
to build more industries as it was before. “Inability of these industries to work has
brought mistrust and corruption to Nigeria.
Therefore, our leaders have to be sincere and
lead with the fear of God and carry all along for
Nigeria to be a better place. “All leaders should stand and keep promises to
the people. We cannot move forward if things
that are supposed to be put in place are not
provided. The money which was siphoned in the
recent pension scam and the petroleum industry
scam must all be brought back into the government’s coffer for good leadership. “Therefore, all those that want the masses to
vote and be voted for should go to the masses
and get their mandate. The era of using money
to bribe the masses or force to get political office
is gone. “A leader who wants to be a good leader must
look at what the needs of the people are, the
suffering, and the humiliation and proffer
solution to those problems, and together we
shall achieve greatness.” Buhari insisted that corruption was
institutionalised in the petroleum sector during
the era of Babangida, Obasanjo and the present
Jonathan administration because they allegedly
had the mind of cheating and pauperising the
masses. He lamented the high level of suffering of the
masses in the country, saying practical steps
must be taken urgently to tackle the situation. In his remarks, the leader of the delegation,
Abdulkadir, said the purpose of their visit was to
wish Buhari happy Eid-el-Fitri celebration and
seek his blessing ahead of the polls. He prayed that Nigeria be blessed with honest
and committed leaders like Buhari to get the
nation out of the woods. Bishop Kukah declared that from Tafawa
Balewa’s era to the present time, all Nigerian
leaders who got into office achieved it by stroke
of luck. Delivering a keynote address at the on-going
52nd Annual General Conference of the Nigeria
Bar Association (NBA), Kukah called for the
removal of Section 162 of the Constitution in the
on-going Constitutional amendment if the
nation must move forward. His words: “No Nigerian president or head of
state has ever been prepared for the leadership
of the country. From the days of Tafawa
Balewa, all Nigerian leaders had always got into
office through good luck, as most of them were
never prepared for leadership. The transition that took place had a terminal point, it was
clearly known and nobody was left in doubt that
everything was put in place to bring Obasanjo to
power from prison, everybody that fought for
the entrenchment of democracy is on the
outside, from the annulment of the June 12 election till now Nigeria has had seven
presidents. “We cannot retain Section 162 of the
Constitution if the nation must move forward.
As long as the access to the resources of Nigeria
is access to do as you like, we would continue to
have violence in the country. Nigeria needs to be
a bit creative and commit itself to human rights. Nigeria is a country with huge resources and
unfortunately a country with a lot of poor
people, one of the difficulties of this country.
Anybody who is the president of Nigeria
deserves our sympathy as the loyalty in Nigeria
has been transferred to tribes and godfathers, and 30 years from now Nigeria will be ruled by
people who have their loyalty to tribe and
godfathers. Nigerians are looking for a messiah,
a messiah is not going to come from another
planet, the Nigerian messiah is among us, who
the messiah is, is what we don’t know so let’s us try to treat one another with some respect.” According to Kukah, “people will be ready to
defend democracy if they see an appreciable
increase in their well being. Nigeria is a nation
that is flying without a black box, Nigeria is a
country without history, I have not found a
Nigerian that can talk about another tribe of the country without the obvious prejudices, what
we face is country where even our heroes and
heroines are largely contested.” In his own remarks, the Attorney-General of the
Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice,
Mohamed Bello Adoke (SAN) stressed the need
to reform the nation’s laws, governance
processes and procedures, which have been
adjudged by some investors to be archaic and unsuitable for driving economic growth if the
country’s quest for economic development and
the concerted efforts must be fruitful. According to Adoke, “Nigeria’s endowment and
potential as an emerging market is not in doubt.
We must however realize that there are other
equally endowed markets that are competing
with us for the attraction of investments. On
Criminal Justice Reforms, we have produced a Draft Administration of Criminal Justice Bill,
Draft Code of Conduct for Public Prosecutors
and Draft Prosecutorial Guidelines to address
some of the challenges in the administration of
criminal justice especially for the Federal Capital
Territory and hope to recommend same as a good practice to states that are yet to enact
similar legislation. These drafts are now
undergoing stakeholder review. “To boost our war against corruption, I wish to
report that the Whistle Blower’s Bill, Stolen
Asset Recovery and Management Bill and the
Anti- Bribery Bill, are at advanced stages of
completion. We have already submitted to the
National Assembly, the Crimes Against Humanity, War Crimes, Genocide and Related
Offences Bill 2012, to implement the ICC statute
and criminalize ICC crimes in Nigeria in our effort
to end impunity; the Terrorism (Prohibition) Bill
2012 to address identified weaknesses in our
anti-terror laws and the Money Laundering (Amendment) Bill 2012 to curb the scourge of
money laundering and specifically criminalize
certain conducts, as well as, satisfy some of the
requirements of the Financial Action Task
Force.”