Fasheun blasts Buhari, says anti-graft war selective

OLUSESAN LAOYE

In spite of the establishment of the presidential advisory committee on the war against corruption, the founder of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), Dr. Fredrick Fasheun has declared that he is not convinced about genuineness of the ongoing fight against graft by the President Muhammadu Buhari led government. According to him, what the All Progressives Congress, APC, administration is doing is to witch hunt the perceived enemies and the opposition leaders.

Fasheun who disclosed this during an exclusive interview with the Hallmark at his Century Hotel base Okota, argued that the government of President Buhari has dashed the expectations of Nigerians over his intention to probe only the past government of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan. To him this is unfair to Nigerians.

According to him that idea to a discerning Nigerian would not amount to a probe but witch hunting. The few people who have been picked up by the Buhari’s government on account of corruption are the opposition. “In my own personal view, this cannot be regarded as probe because you see people being retired all over the places especially those who have been in the opposition to the government now. Those members are being hunted down, being arrested, searched and being probed. This also does not amount to democracy because democracy is a level playing ground and everybody no matter how big or who has been perceived to have stolen from our common wealth, should be probed.’’

He pointed out that 75% of the rich men in this country have robbed Nigerians of “our treasury.  ‘’Mind you, those who claimed to be rich and also known rich men in the society are rogues who have looted our treasury.’’ He was specific about how the money looted from the nation’s treasury should be recovered when he said ‘’we have the laws, the laws are there, we don’t need to make new laws. The laws on various offences and corruption are lying on the shelves and are gathering dust. What should be done actually is to set up a different body to review our past laws and those laws that have outlived their usefulness should be discarded, but I am sure that many of them would still be useful,’’ he stressed.

‘’The question I keep asking is don’t we have laws against theft, insurgency, lawlessness, impunity, corruption and rape? These laws have been there. Let the new government commit itself to reviewing our laws and make corrections where necessary. That is why we have the legislature.’’

The OPC leader who is also the national chairman of the new Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) expressed his displeasure with Nigerian politicians, saying, that most of the characters in government and in politics don’t love the country. “I have said this several times that most of these characters don’t love the country, they don’t have the love of Nigerian, all they wanted is to be voted in and collect jumbo salaries and allowances, contracts and so on and so forth and expect the next election. They don’t in any way love the country. Once they get into office, the next thing they look for is another election.

‘’You see when the sing song was on and the APC put up General Buhari as the potential President of the country, many people jubilated because they knew his commitment to the fight against corruption but here we are, the net has become very porous. He is mingling with people of shady characters and those who have our money starched in foreign countries, and one now wonders whether our security agencies have gone to sleep.

Where is our SSS? What I am saying is that Buhari must now focus his attention on servants of government. They should be called to order, to hold to their functions as primary responsibility to the nation. Let me tell you there are many Nigerians now outside the country because they are trying to escape the law. We just have to appeal to the foreign government where they have run to, to help us look into their bank accounts and help us retrieve our money.’’

Talking about the general political situation in the country, the OPC founder argued that Nigeria ‘’right now is on auto pilot and the only visible segment of the Nigerian government is the President as represented by President Muhammadu Buhari, who has been going to various places of the world and fighting against known corruption. The legislators who were voted in as soon as they came into office turned the national assembly into a boxing ring and had to be asked to go on holiday. The legislature to me has not been visible for the past three months.  Nigeria is virtually in political doldrums and the sing song of change which Nigerians believed is not there now. The change we have noticed has been in the negative. There hasn’t been any positive change, so, that is my own way of looking at the Nigerian political situation now, he stressed.

Speaking further, he maintained that “the legislators are not doing anything and even the governors are asking for bail out without telling us what they have done with their previous allocations. They said there was no money in the treasury but there was enough money to bail out the governors, who have looted our treasuries.’’