Govt not fighting corruption, says Obasanjo

By Our Reporter.

Obasanjo

The Nigerian government is not fighting corruption, former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said.

He also identified unemployment as capable of creating disorder in the system. 

Obasanjo spoke on Tuesday at the ongoing 100th Session of the International Labour Organisation Conference in Geneva, Switzerland. 

He said unless the person in power is ready to give his life for corruption, he would not be able to fight it properly. 

The former President also said Nigeria is not growing as widely believed, saying the indices did not suggest growth. 

“If you are going to fight corruption, it is not a one night or one day war. You have to be consistent and persistent with it. I haven’t seen that will of persistency and consistency in Nigeria because the people that are involved in corruption are strongly entrenched. Unless you are ready to confront them at the point of even giving your life for it, then you will give in and when you give in, that is the end of it,” Obasanjo said. 

He spoke on the platform of Club de Madrid. The topic was: “Meeting sustainable societies and social justice.” 

Club de Madrid is an independent non-profit organisation made up of 80 democratically-elected former presidents and prime ministers from 56 countries. 

Former Ecuador President Osvaldo Hurtado; ex President John Kufuor of Ghana, ex-Yemeni Prime Minister Abdul Karim Al Eryani and ex-Prime Minister of Netherlands Wim Kok were on the panel 

Obasanjo traced the emergence of corruption and underdevelopment in Nigeria to oil. He said, “rather than a boom, oil has become a doom” 

He described oil as “one of the misfortunes of Nigeria.” 

“Corruption came in initially with politics at independence when our politicians, after giving you contract ; you gave 10 per cent. They thought that was the way to make money for their party. 

“Ten per cent of that contract is taken to develop the party, for the party fund and all that and then of course it went beyond 10 per cent to 20, to 25 and at times, it grew so large that in fact, when you were given a job, you would just not care to do it; you would share the money or whatever they called it. 

“That was very bad; so when I became president of Nigeria, the first thing I did after my election was to establish an independent body to fight corruption. Now, that body was so effective, in fact two bodies; one was a commission against financial crimes and they were both so effective that ministers of government, the head of the police and the heads of government departments were put in jail. 

However, Obasanjo’s fight against corruption during his tenure was criticised as selective.

On unemployment, Obasanjo said: “We have all heard what my brother from Yemen has said about the situation in the Arab countries and North Africa. I want to underline the situation that will signal red alert for us in Africa. I am worried, I am apprehensive about unemployment in our continent that it has not been taken as seriously as it should be. 

“I give example of my own continent in Nigeria where we have about 120 tertiary institutions. When I was growing up, there was only one university in Nigeria. Today when you include the polytechnics to the tertiary institutions, we have over 200 institutions of learning. Each institution graduates about 3,000 students every year. You have well over 600,000 graduates every year but we are not creating 100,000 jobs every year. That is the issue that worries me and why we are all sitting here. 

“The fuse can be ignited at anytime and if it happens in Nigeria everyone will be affected and I will be the first victim.. The point is that Africa must begin to talk more about job creation,” Obasanjo said.