Ex-President Goodluck Jonathan is now a confused man, running helter-skelter in search of a saviour as he was being haunted by his past. He has shown that he is a cowardly and spineless politician who couldn’t take his medicine as a man. Undoubtedly, Mr. Jonathan is now a completely changed man, totally different from the posture he had adopted immediately after the April presidential elections when he conceded defeat without much ado. The former President is now afraid of his shadow, trying desperately to redefine the spirit of the tranquillity fostered by General Abdusalami Abubakar’s National Peace Committee during and soon after the 2015 General Elections. By so doing, ex-president Jonathan was trying not to accept the inevitable.
It was reported that Mr Jonathan who was holidaying abroad, has suddenly dashed into Abuja to launch a protest over the determination of President Muhammadu Buhari to probe how more than two billion dollars was illegally siphoned from the Excess Crude Account. It was said that he was planning to protest over his extreme and unreasonable suspicion of attempt to blackmail him and his former cabinet ministers and is utterly miserable and displeased with the tag of corruption put on his administration, and worried by the impending probe of the whereabouts of the four-billion-dollars taxes and dividends paid by the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas company between 2009 and 2014.
Mr. Jonathan and some of his ministers are troubled by the inquiry into how the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, under their watch allegedly blew three-point-eight trillion Naira in three years.
Although ex-president Jonathan has lodged his protest with former Head of State, General Abdussalami Abubakar, no meeting was held between him and President Buhari and it was doubtful if such meeting could ever take place considering the fact that the issue may not be open for discussion because it is an event that may never occur in the current war against corrup
The General Abdusalam’s National Peace Committee for 2015 General Elections must by now have outlived its usefulness and its term of reference did not cover intercession by a third party or to dissuade the victor in the presidential elections not to probe the administration of the vanquished.
Therefore, Mr. Jonathan should not be capitalising on General Abdussalami to intervene by requesting President Buhari to stay action on the ongoing probe of his administration. Already the Buhari administration has raised a four-man panel to probe how NNPC spent more than three-trillion Naira in three years and other related issues.
A former minister in Mr Jonathan’s cabinet, Mrs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala claimed that ex-President Jonathan ordered the spending of one billion dollars out of the two-point-one billion dollars withdrawn from the Excess Crude Account to oil marketers as fuel subsidy while another one-billion dollars was used for Jonathan’s electioneering campaigns. All the withdrawals were without the prior approval of the National Economic Council. Against that backdrop ex-President Jonathan could be culpable and might likely face charges of corruption and gross misconduct. He should therefore be advised to stop unnecessary complaints and prepare his line of defence when he eventually becomes a very important guest of the EFCC.
Under ex-President Jonathan the anti-graft agency appeared to be in deep slumber, but with him in its kitty it would become alive to its responsibility and deal with him squarely. Already, three former governors have been dragged to court and are now accounting for their financial stewardship. The arraignment of these top politicians and their cronies is a welcome development as long as due process would be observed. In the previous years, under the administration of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan only lip service was paid to the fight against corruption and the EFCC was used to witch hunt perceived political enemies.
Nigerians were worried because governance at the state level was characterised by corrupt practices with the governors plotting events that charted the course of their bankruptcy. While the governors busied themselves negotiating foreign and domestic loans they were also quick to ensure that the monies ended up in private pockets with little left to cater for the impoverished people.
While majority of Nigerians welcome probes that will bring culprits to book, cleanse the polity and restore sanity in all aspects of governance, it is advisable that thorough investigations are carried out before charging the governors or other culpable officials to court. The Buhari administration will not certainly welcome a situation where people are accused of corruption without sufficient grounds.
In that connexion, Mr Jonathan, who has phobia about probes, should know that trial just for the sake of it, or in order to play to the gallery, definitely will not feature in the current fight against abuse of office. Therefore, Mr. Jonathan should stop expending his energy running from pillar to post seeking to postpone the inevitable. Nobody is after him or any of his ministers, but everybody is determined to join the momentous fight against corruption; and if he is eventually caught in that web there is nothing anybody can do to save him.
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