Jonathan Govt Did Not Fight Corruption – Ribadu

There was widespread corruption during the administration of former president Goodluck Jonathan, the pioneer chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nigeria’s anti-graft agency, Nuhu Ribadu, has said.

Naija News reports that Ribadu made the remark at a convocation lecture at the Federal University Dutsin-Ma, Katsina state, northern Nigeria on Friday, June 14.

Ribadu, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Nigeia’s ruling party, also said there was “nothing positively significant” that took place in the anti-graft war under the last administration.

The former EFCC chairman added Nigeria’s national resources were over the years “squandered and largely stolen by those who had the responsibility of managing them” while oil wells were “shared to individuals at will.”

“Years of mindless stealing and waste of public resources has dimmed the light of prosperity that was all over our country at Independence. Little wonder that we now find ourselves in tough economic condition with the attendant security challenges troubling us from all angles,” he said.

Ribadu said previous administrations had, however, put in place stringent measures that would help fight corruption, including the formation of relevant anti-graft agencies.

“The Obasanjo administration also went on to evolve other institutional avenues of fighting corruption by carrying out wide-ranging public service reform and establishing pro-transparency agencies such as the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) and the Nigeria Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI),” he said.

“Nothing positively significant happened in the fight against corruption since then, until the coming of President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015. It is instructive that the Buhari administration rode to power on the back of its promise to tackle corruption which was pervasive under the immediate past administration.”