Former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, has asked President Muhammadu Buhari to begin his anti-corruption crusade with himself, the vice president, the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, before extending same to other Nigerians.

Obasanjo, 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 apex of the power pyramid in the country.

He spoke as 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.”

The former president, 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 combat graft.

“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).”

Just as Obasanjo mentioned the CJN, one of the participants, who was later joined by others, asked the former president to include himself and other former presidents in the list of those to be probed for corruption.

Reacting, 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.

Chief Obasanjo, while speaking on the hope of rescuing the abducted Chibok girls, said it had been dashed, declaring that Nigerian leaders should stop deceiving parents of the girls and the nation that they would find them.

He chided the immediate past Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-led Federal Government for procrastinating on the issue, noting that failure to swing into action 72 hours after the girls were abducted about two years ago in Chibok, Borno State, was an impediment to their freedom.

According to him, “searching for the Cbibok girls would be in vain because nobody can bring back the girls, for they are nowhere to be found. Nigerian leaders should stop deceiving the populace as Chibok girls cannot return again.

“The disappearance of the Chibok girls is as a result of nonchallant attitude of the previous leaders who did not switch to action immediately, which constituted impediment to their return.

“Seventy-two hours after the Chibok girls were abducted was too late for their rescue, talk less getting to two years by April. So if any leader is promising bringing back Chibok girls to Nigeria, he is lying. Majority of these girls would have died, while those alive would have been married off, sexual violence and human traffic king would have affected others,” Obasanjo asserted.

Commenting on the 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 posited 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.”

Obasanjo recalled that while he was in office as president, he was threatened with impeachments by the members of the National Assembly for not releasing some money they had appropriated for themselves which he said were odious and for which there were no revenue to back up such huge funds. (Sunday Tribune)

•Photo shows Ex-President Obasanjo.

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