In spite of former leaders’ flaws, Jonathan’s rot is worse
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo and one-time military strongman Ibrahim Babangida delivered a blow to Jonathan individually and in separate contexts, and suggested that his government scandalously encouraged corruption.
The nation’s president, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, had ironically earlier identified corruption as one of Nigeria’s twin problems.
At a special New Year service at the Dunamis International Gospel Centre, Abuja, Jonathan had said: “There are two main problems confronting us as a nation: The issue of insecurity in the North where we have the Boko Haram terrorists and in the South where we have commercial kidnapping. The next thing that people worry about after security is the issue of corruption.”
It is noteworthy that the country has an undesirable international reputation for official corruption, and Jonathan, perhaps unwittingly, reinforced the 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) of Transparency International (TI). The assessment was based on the extent of public sector corruption in 175 countries and Nigeria was ranked 136th. The country scored 27 out of a maximum 100 marks, and was listed as the 39th most corrupt nation in the world. This has happened on President Jonathan’s watch.
Against the background of this ugly picture, Babangida’s interview with the media unit of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) may be appreciated and contemplated. Babangida was quoted as saying, “I don’t have the facts but if what I read in the newspapers is currently what is happening, then I think we were angels.” It is an instructive reflection of corruption perception relating to Jonathan’s tenure. Although Babangida headed a military regime discredited for allegedly institutionalising corruption in Nigeria, it is a statement on the scale of corruption in the country that it could confer sainthood on a Babangida regime that sullied the nation’s moral landscape. So terrible was the corruption and depletion of public treasury in the Babangida era that he once wondered why the nation had not collapsed.
In his own case, Obasanjo lamented: “Our nation is plagued with insecurity, economic downturn, increase in poverty, corruption and impunity in doing things.” He told visiting Southwest women leaders at his Presidential Hilltop Estate in Abeokuta, Ogun State: “Nigeria does not deserve the position it has found itself today.” Although, on the surface, his comments had a matter-of-fact ring, it would appear that he conveniently glossed over his own contribution to the observed regrettable state of the nation, especially in his years as a democratic president and even beyond. The truth is that the Obasanjo administration had its own condemnable dimensions of corruption and impunity.
However, in spite of the shaky platforms on which Obasanjo and Babangida made their observations about the country’s slide, and their own questionable morality in the context of governance, it must be noted that their interventions are not without a redeeming quality. At least, by their negative evaluation of the performance of the Jonathan presidency they helped to further highlight the present rot, which should be viewed as a positive role.
It is remarkable that, while pinpointing the problems of insecurity and corruption, Jonathan boasted: “We are coming out with programmes and plans to clean up. These are things you just don’t use a magical wand to wave off; otherwise even before I became President, there wouldn’t have been corruption in Nigeria.”
The disturbing implication of his reasoning is that the country has been a victim of a chain of corruption-friendly governments. Jonathan should be told that words are not enough. His track record offers little hope to a country in dire need of correction. He has been in the saddle for about six years, and if he had no plans for corruption since, how can he boast one now?
