Stakeholders demand that President Goodluck Jonathan take the corruption accusations serious and act
Some politicians, on Thursday in Lagos, urged President Goodluck Jonathan to initiate the prosecution of all corrupt public office holders to protect his administration’s integrity.
The respondents were reacting to the ongoing war of words between former President Olusegun Obasanjo and members of the National Assembly over allegations that lawmakers have indulged in corrupt practices.
Obasanjo made the allegation in Lagos at the Fourth Conference of the Academy for Entrepreneurial Studies, Nigeria.
He said that many lawmakers at the national and state levels were “rogues and armed robbers”.
The National Publicity Secretary of the Advanced Congress of Democrats, Abraham Braithforth, said that the allegation should not be ignored; adding that prosecution of corrupt leaders was a challenge to Jonathan.
“Corruption has eating deep into the fabrics of the National Assembly both the upper and the lower chambers,” he said. “This is the right time for Jonathan to act and bring corrupt public officers to book.”
The National Public Relations Officer of the KOWA Party, Oluremi Sonaiya, expressed sadness that some legislators embezzled public funds in spite of their jumbo monthly salaries and allowances.
She said that the legislators earned such salaries and allowances to the detriment of the Nigerian masses. “It is even criminal that they are earning such money while we keep hearing that more than 70 per cent of Nigerians live on less than two dollars per day,’’ she said.
Sonaiya claimed that Nigerian legislators were the highest paid in the world and it would be wicked for them to embezzle public funds.
The South-West Secretary-General of the Conference of Nigeria Political Parties, Gboyega Adeniyi, also urged that the allegation be properly investigated and indicted leaders be prosecuted and adequately punished.
“Obasanjo, as a former Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the PDP, knows these people very well,” he said. “So, I trust his words; Jonathan should take this as a challenge and go after corrupt public officers.”
