Ex-president Goodluck JonathanFormer President Goodluck Jonathan is once again, back in the news as his administration is being used as yardstick to measure the performance of Buhari’s anti-corruption fight since coming to power in 2015.
In an exclusive interview with Daily Trust, anti-corruption expert, Prof. Jibrin Ibrahim, said the Buhari administration although deserve no commendation in terms of anti-corruption performance, he however, did much better compared to the government he succeeded.
Ibrahim said prior to Buhari becoming president, the Jonathan administration came to power with a strong belief that it was in power to eat, and not governance.
Responding to questions on whether or not corruption reduced in Nigeria under the Buhari administration in the past five years, he said, “I believe there has been a reduction in corruption in the country since Buhari came into power.”
Speaking further he said, “This is within the context of the government he took over from, the Jonathan administration. We had a government which believed very strongly that it was there to eat, and therefore, they were quite unabashed in terms of their engagement in corrupt practices.
“Of course, when a government is identified as openly engaging in corruption, then public officers are on their own. They feel they have a license to do what they want to do. So, I think in comparison with the previous government, there is an improvement. But that improvement is not as much as Nigerians had expected.
“Buhari was elected on the platform of anti-corruption and people have memory of the actions he took when he was in power previously (1983 to 1985), and therefore thought there would be a massive onsIaught against corruption and that there would be a significant increase in terms of prosecution of corrupt public officials.
On the Buhari administration’s Achilles heel, he said, “I just want to add that there is something which the president feels incapacitated about, as he says repeatedly, that he has to follow the rule of law and that he can’t act the way he acted in 1985. This in a way cripples his capacity to do more than he could have done.”
