Some youth of Ijaw ethnic extraction have called on President Muhammadu Buhari to extend the ongoing probe of the administration of Presidents Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan to include the two terms of President Olusegun Obasanjo, which began in May 1999.
Writing under the Ijaw Youth Council, IYC, on Sunday, its president Udengs Eradiri in a statement said the group is aware Mr. Buhari has decided to probe weapons procurement from 2007 to date
“While we are not against any effort of the President to investigate previous administrations and indeed take steps against the scourge of corruption in the society, we hereby state without equivocation that the period covered by this probe is a suspect,” the group said.
IYC said the probe would make more sense if it begins either from 1960 or at least 1999 when Nigeria became a democracy after years of military dictatorship.
“The President’s decision to leave out the eight-year period covered by the Presidency of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, from 1999 to 2007, suggests that the current anti-corruption crusade is being manipulated to spare some sacred cows.
“We hold that this is unfair and that the tenure of Chief Obasanjo is being exempted because of the role he played in Buhari’s emergence as President,” it said.
The Ijaw group said of all presidents, Mr. Obasanjo is the one who deserves to be probed because according to them, the former President “lacked foresight and failed in the critical job to adequately arm our military, in spite of the huge funds appropriated for defence under him”.
They said if Mr. Obasanjo had adequately funded the military when he was President, the menace of the extremist group, Boko Haram, would have long been dealt with in the early stages.
“It took the administration of Goodluck Jonathan to buy the weapons we need,” they said.
They also argued that the decision to exempt other leaders from the probe, if not corrected, could send out signals that Mr. Buhari may have come up with an anti-corruption crusade designed to protect Nigeria’s “biggest crooks and to deal with perceived enemies”.
“The President should be reminded that some of Nigeria’s biggest corruption-related scandals which culminated in the jailing of some foreign collaborators took place during this period that is being deftly exempted from the current investigation.
“A genuine crusade against corruption cannot take place in this country without touching some of these great scandals that are waiting to be addressed.
“It defies logic that our Dear President by this particular decision, appears to have drawn the curtain on the bribery scandal involving the six billion Dollars Liquefied Natural Gas Contract in Bonny, the KBR and Siemens Bribery Scandal, the Halliburton Bribery Scandal, which involved billions of Naira among others.
“The President should be graciously reminded that while the then Administration looked the other way, the United States Department of Justice fined a Japanese Construction Firm, Marubeni, to the tune of $54.6 million for bribing officials of the Nigerian Government to facilitate the award of the NLG Contract to TSKJ,” IYC said.
They said failure of Mr. Buhari to probe Mr. Obasanjo’s era would portray the President as a man lacking in courage to confront the monster of corruption.
“This is the better thing to do rather than probing a dead man in the person of Late President Umaru Yar’Adua,” they said.
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