President Goodluck Jonathan
Jonathan’s tolerance for corruption responsible for terrorism – APC
The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, on Thursday said President Goodluck Jonathan’s tolerance for corruption was partially responsible for the nation’s security woes.
Odigie-Oyegun said this in Abuja while briefing the media on the APC’s plans to tackle corruption if it gets elected in 2015.
He explained that the setback being suffered by the military in the war against Boko Haram was just an example of “how the Peoples Democratic Party at the centre has allowed corruption to eat into the heart of our defence and security agencies.”
According to him, the result of this anomaly is seen in the manner terrorists are taking over large territories and hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens are now living in fear right under the nose of the Jonathan administration.
He blasted the President for making excuses for his lack of political will to fight corruption during his declaration for another term in office.
Odigie-Oyegun, “There was a good reason for this. Corruption built the PDP, and the PDP built corruption into a weapon which it has deployed against all our values and interests as Nigerians.
“It has built its electoral fortunes on corrupting all vital institutions that should give the popular will of our people’s expression. This allowed them to acquire governing mandates with which they accumulated public funds to consolidate their control over state institutions and resources.
“Public officials have developed and sustained chummy relationships with society figures being investigated for corruption and former public officials convicted for corruption have been selectively pardoned by the Presidency.
“Some of these persons, following their pardon, have been appointed to high positions of influence by the PDP administration and offered their platform to contest for high public office.”
Odigie-Oyegun said the issue of corruption was an evil that flourished under state-sponsorship and the patronage of the PDP.
The party leader urged Nigerians to use the forthcoming general elections to vote out the PDP.
According to Odigie-Oyegun, national institutions have been compromised and the continued survival of the country is being threatened.
He observed that the operation of the national budget and the maintenance of the military forces had been so severely compromised by corruption that national development and security had been massively undermined under the Jonathan administration in the last six years.
The opposition leader said using the corruption perception index of Transparency International, Nigeria had maintained a score in the range of 25 per cent and ranked among the bottom level of corrupt countries deteriorating from a bad score of 27 per cent in 2011 to 25 per cent in 2013.
He further noted that evidence of widespread and rampant corruption abounds in our everyday life.
Odigie-Oyegun said it was reprehensible that instead of fighting the scourge, the present administration was busy granting pardon to persons convicted of corruption and hobnobbing with corrupt individuals.
He also blasted the Jonathan administration for failing to secure a single conviction despite the revelation of massive corruption by various probe panels in the National Assembly.
“In the last 16 years, corruption has grown exponentially to the point that the world has come to stigmatize Nigeria and Nigerians as synonymous,” he said.
Odigie-Oyegun listed the various reports of investigation of corrupt practices in the national pension scheme, the power sector, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the Central Bank, government ministries and departments.
He said, “The administration has demonstrated, both in its body language and explicit actions, a disgusting lack of will and competence to arrest and reverse the debilitating grip of corruption on our national life.”
On what an APC-led administration would do if it gets to power, Odigie-Oyegun said, “An APC administration will restore the integrity and capacity of our military to defend our lives and our land, by removing corruption from their management and operations. Do not give the PDP another opportunity to deepen the crisis in our security institutions and hand over the rest of Nigeria to terrorists.”
He also promised that the party would fight corruption with the seriousness it deserved, adding that no corrupt individual or group would be spared in the war on corruption.
>>>http://www.nigeriakey.com/jonathans-tolerance-for-corruption-responsible-for-terrorism/
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