Buhari’s anti-graft war unspectacular, says Ezekwesili

Presidential aspirant, Oby Ezekwesili, on Wednesday, said that President Muhammadu Buhari has not done any spectacular work in his fight against corruption.

While he was campaigning for presidency in 2015, Buhari’s manifesto was hinged on rebuilding the economy, a  strong anti-corruption war and a fight against insurgency.

Buhari won at the presidential polls ahead of the then incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan, whose tenure had been riddled with allegations of grand scale corruption affecting even the fight against insurgents.

However, three years into his tenure and months before the next general elections, the President, seeking re-election, has been accused of fighting a selective anti-corruption war.

The Allied Congress for Progressives Change candidate said the anti-graft agencies including the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) are being used by the president to pick on members of opposition parties.

“On corruption, President Buhari has not done any spectacular work,” Ezekwesili told Guardian TV.

“What he has done is reduce the fight against corruption to a tunnel vision of EFCC hunting down those who have not joined the APC,” Ezekwesili said.

“We are saying that fighting corruption is a comprehensive approach that looks at reducing opportunities of corruption through the kind of structural changes and systemic changes and policies that change the way that governments acts in an economy.

“President Buhari has lived below the expectation of the integrity that he told us was his significant point or selling point on the basis of which Nigerians elected him.”

Ezekwesili, who plans to unseat Buhari at the 2019 polls, insisted that Nigerians do not have to choose between two evils or choose the lesser evil.

“Nigeria needs to be rescued from the entrenched system of politics that is a cyclical pattern of failure. We cannot be choosing any evil. We don’t need evil to fix the conditions that we have found ourselves. We need the right sets of thoughts in development. We need people with character, competence and capacity, who lead not for themselves but for the society,” she said.

“I want to be that person that challenges this very artificial construct that Nigeria cannot amount to any good. We can fight and get Nigeria to that place of promise that it belongs.”

The Bring Back our Girls convener noted that while there have been gains in the war against insurgency in the North east of Nigeria, the government still hasn’t taken Nigerians to the promised land.

“The North east that was mostly occupied by the terrorist is not occupied to that extent. But people have not been able to all return to their neighbourhoods and communities. Lives have not been restored, we still have millions of our people in IDP camps,” Ezekwesili said.

“This is the Nigeria under the President Muhammadu Buhari where the primacy of the human life has completely been devalued. Life is cheapened.”

She also lamented the poor economic policies of the current government that has led the nation to be named the poverty capital by the World Poverty Clock.

“The economy that was on an average growth of 5-6% was allowed to tank on the back of oil shock, but mostly because of very very wrong policy choices. the economic policy choices of the administration has put the economy in dire straits and that is something that we must fight.

“The lives of Nigerians are not today any better because President Buhari became our president. The primacy of the human life has taken a significant beating.”