Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has finally spoken out on the scandal involving Adbulrasheed Maina.
Obasanjo was speaking at the 2017 Foundation Day Public Lecture titled: “Corruption and the Challenges of the African Child”.
The lecture was organised to mark the 14th anniversary of Dorcas Oke Hope Alive Initiative (DOHAI), in Ibadan, the Oyo state capital.
He said; “Corruption must be punished, and must be seen to be punished.
“Any accomplice in corruption and cover-up and any failure to punish must also earn punishment.
“We cannot afford to have sacred cows in the fight against corruption. The Maina saga should never have been allowed to occur.
“It is not in tandem with the fight against corruption,”
He added; “When I was elected President in 1999, my administration took the issue of corruption very seriously and we established Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission as well as Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, among other anti-corruption initiatives. These institutions were provided the political support needed to fight corruption and they did their best.
“But once we left office, they became very politicised and weakened to the point that they were unable to discharge their duties. In fact, one of the governors, who had been labelled and gone to jail for corruption, was to look for replacement for Nuhu Ribadu (the pioneering chairman of EFCC), and you know the type of replacement he would get.
“There is need to support and strengthen these institutions, especially in the area of prosecution. The law enforcement agencies or the government alone cannot fight corruption. They must be supported by a judiciary that is upright and transparent. It is very demoralising to law enforcement officers when they painstakingly investigate a case and the culprit finds his way around the judiciary to escape.
“Individually and collectively, we have to be mentally restructured. We must change our mind-set as a people. We must all return to our core values of hard work, honesty, integrity, justice, equity, fairness, humanity and communality. In other words, we need to go for more rearmament.
“We cannot continue to celebrate criminals, who enrich themselves from our commonwealth, and think that corruption will disappear. Those who loot the public purse must be seen and treated as undesirable in the community, rather than celebrate them. They should not be made to feel welcomed in our families, religious bodies and societies. If a person strips himself or herself of humanity and dignity by stealing public or private funds, we should not clothe them, respect or admire them.”