......Denies saying ‘stealing isn’t
corruption’
…says his statement twisted out of context by critics for political
reasons
Former President Goodluck Jonathan
as formally responded to the infamous claim that he tended to downplay raging
corruption in his administration by boldly claiming that ‘stealing is not
corruption’. Jonathan Jonathan But in dispelling the claim, Jonathan claimed
that corruption was more prevalent under the President Muhammadu Buhari
administration than under him and dismissed the current anti-corruption fight
as mere media show. The former president boasted: “It is important to note that
despite the many sensational stories, dramatic arrests, seizures and
accusations, many of them false, since I left office, the fact remains that
Nigeria has not made any improvement on TI Corruption Perception Index since
2014. “In fact, the 2017 CPI released in 2018 by TI places Nigeria as number
148, a retrogression in which the nation went 12 place backward. In other
words, Nigeria is more corrupt in 2017 than it was when I handed over to Buhari
administration in 2015. “Some people may be misled with smoke and mirrors but
the TI Corruption Perception Index relies on unsentimental facts and figures,”
he submitted in this book, which seeks to set the records of his administration
straight and debunk false narratives by commentators against his tenure. Scores
his administration high on corruption fight and thump up by TI The former
president paid glowing tributes to the policies and measures his administration
conceived and implemented to check corruption and financial leakages and raised
government revenue during his time. He pointed to the introduction of the
Electronic Wallet Initiative of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, which
effectively checkmated fertiliser scam and save the country up to $192 million
in the first year of its application in 2012. He also praised his
administration for the development and implementation of the Integrated
Personnel and Payroll Information System, IPPIS, which enabled the government
to flush out 50,000 ghost federal workers and saved the country N15 billion
monthly. Jonathan claimed that it was through the effective implementation of
the anti-corruption measures by his administration that in 2014 that brought
positive results to Nigeria and made it to receive the best ever ranking in Transparency
International’s Corruption Perception Index, which ranked Nigeria 136th out of
the 144 countries ranked. “This was an improvement from the nation’s previous
position of 144th in 2013, 139th in 2012 and 143rd in 2011,” Jonathan noted.
Jonathan clarified that he never said that stealing is not corruption, adding
that what he actually said and meant was twisted out of context by his enemies
just to score political mileage and bring down his administration. Jonathan
said, “They claim that I once said that ‘stealing is not corruption’. This is
not true. Following the constant stigmatisation of Nigeria as corrupt, I
invited the leadership of the legislature and the judiciary to a meeting. “In
attendance were the Senate President and his deputy, Speaker of the House of
Representatives, and his deputy, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, the President of
the Court of Appeal, the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, and six states’
Chief Judges from the six geopolitical zones. Also invited were heads of the two
anti-corruption agencies, viz the chairman of the EFCC and the ICPC and I
presided over the meeting. “My thinking was that the head of the executive arm
of government alone could not effectively eradicate the scourge of corruption,
hence the need for that meeting. I personally appealed to them and argued that
an all-inclusive approach could bring about tangible successes in the
anti-corruption fight. “The judiciary, the legislature and the executive arms
of government needed to join forces if we were to end the theft of public
resources and stop corruption,” the former president explained. Jonathan said
it was on the strength of his presentation that the former CJN, Justice Dahiru
Musdaphar, acknowledged that he was of the same opinion. According to Jonathan,
the CJN told him that he had also discovered after going through case files in
the Supreme Court nearly all cases, which should have been properly labelled as
‘crimes of stealing’ and the individuals involved charged as such, were simply
tagged by the prosecutors as ‘corruption’. Jonathan said, “It was on the
strength of the CJN’s submission that I expounded to say that we should stop
calling a spade an agricultural implement. Corruption does not fully capture
the act of stealing. A person can indeed be corrupt without stealing a dime.
“Those who are incapable of comprehending this elevated thought and the
mischievous crowd, go about till date, that I said ‘stealing is not
corruption’. They never bothered to even check the context in which I spoke. If
you ask many of those clinging to that falsehood and mouthing the malicious
misrepresentation, to quote where I said it, they will tell you ‘they only
heard’. “Let me say categorically that I have never said that stealing is good
and that people should steal; neither did the CJN. Stealing is stealing ad
instead of calling it corruption, let us call the thief by his proper name and
not use a blanket word like corruption. He argues: “Corruption encompasses many
things.” Quoting Transparency International, Jonathan said: “Corruption is
defined as the ‘abuse of entrusted power for private gain. “We must not lump
everything together and say stealing is corruption. We must isolate stealing
and make it as plain as day because Nigerians hate thieves. I abhor jungle justice,
but we have witnessed Nigerians show their hatred for suspected thieves by
burning them alive.
Credits: Vanguard