APC youth leader carpets FG over anti-corruption war

Chikezie, who spoke in an interview with Sunday Trust  in Enugu, also said that given the same opportunity President Jonathan has, former head of state, General Muhammadu Buhari would have fought the corruption monster to a standstill rather than allow it to continue to ravage the entire the nation’s life.He recalled that General Buhari also […]

Chikezie, who spoke in an interview with Sunday Trust  in Enugu, also said that given the same opportunity President Jonathan has, former head of state, General Muhammadu Buhari would have fought the corruption monster to a standstill rather than allow it to continue to ravage the entire the nation’s life.
He recalled that General Buhari also gave a good account of himself as an apostle of anti-corruption when he headed the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) during Abacha’s era. “It’s on record that he never soiled his fingers by embezzling public funds and never spared any of his subordinates who committed fraud,” Chiekezie said.
He said that a leader who keeps a blind eye to corruption even when the disgraceful act was committed under such leader’s nose should be seen as having done a great disservice to the country because “corruption is a reproach to a people.”
Giving an instance of corruption, the APC youth leader claimed that recently, a certain Enugu-based federal government-owned hospital recruited applicants through the backdoor after collecting as much as N250,000 to N300,000 from each of the few handpicked applicants “who never attended any interview before getting employment.”
“A girlfriend to one of the members of the Board of Directors of the hospital organised a secret forum at a popular hotel along Okpara Avenue, Enugu, where the few handpicked applicants paid N250,000 to N300,000 each before they resumed duty at the hospital while other applicants who couldn’t afford such amounts were not even allowed to come,’’ he alleged, and asked, How can a government that tolerates this kind of fraud claim to be tackling corruption?”
He wondered why President Jonathan literally gave a pat on the back to the son of the late head of state, General Sani Abacha, Mohammed Abacha, who ought to have been prosecuted for financial corruption running into millions of dollars he allegedly committed while his father was in office.
He said: “Imagine the federal government saying that it has withdrawn the charges against Mohammed Abacha. The man defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and that’s why the federal government is literally patting him on the back by withdrawing the charges of money laundering. Does it show he has the courage to fight corruption?”
According to Chikezie, the federal government under President Jonathan is not doing enough about tackling corruption, which, he insisted, was the basis of all the country’s socio-political and economic woes.
“The federal government is not doing anything to battle the canker called corruption. “For example, what has the federal government done to probe and punish the Minister of Petroleum, Mrs. Diezani Allison-Madueke in respect of the huge sums of oil money the NNPC did not account for? The government rather decided to start witch-hunting the former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi who blew the whistle. Is that the right way to battle corruption?” he asked.