Buhari To Jail Corrupt Leaders

Presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, Major General Muhammadu Buhari, (retd) has vowed to prosecute and jail corrupt leaders, past and present who embezzled the nation’s money.

He also explained why his administration aborted the metro line rail project embarked upon by the administration of Alhaji Lateef Jakande in Lagos State, saying that the project was halted because it was too expensive.

Buhari, during his campaign at the Lagos City Hall on Wednesday, said: “I am not interested in sending people to jail. When I was in government, those that went to jail were those who did not conduct themselves properly.

“I did not just go to the street to pick anybody and send to jail. But those who have made our country this way, who were interested in the billion of naira while our people roam the streets without jobs will answer for it,” he said.

Buhari said he would replicate his anti-corruption stance when he was head of state to ensure the nation was free of corruption, adding that corrupt public officers would face trial for financial crimes committed in the past and present.

Buhari accused the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, leaders of being corrupt, saying that many of them had been smiling to the bank with public money, while the people were being impoverished.

“It was as if they only came to pauperise the nation and it could be said that during their time, the only places that prospered were the cemeteries and the bank accounts of a thieving elite. People in their thousands died due to poverty, hunger, disease and violent crisis as custodians of the nation’s resources smiled their ways to the bank.

“We all know the problem of this country and we have known them for the past 12 years and it is only now that PDP is becoming aware of them, saying that it will try to solve them. What stopped people of the ruling party from giving the nation electric power? How many years do they need to do that? And after this glaring failure they had the temerity to ask for your votes,” he said.

The former military head of state said that during his tenure as a minister and head of state, he never touched a kobo of public funds, saying that “I say this without pride and with all sense of responsibility and humility, but I challenge anyone in the race for the leadership of this country to make such claim,” he stated.

On the botched metro line project, Buhari said the contractor handling the project had requested for funds which was too exorbitant to continue with.

“As at the time I was in government, the company handling the project requested for N100 million and that is like 100 million dollars now and I could not pay such huge amount of money,” he said.

Buhari said when he got into power, the relatively stable economy which was handed over to the government of Alhaji Shehu Shagari had been badly plundered and that corruption was rife in every sector.

He said the rail line project was meant to cost N100 million which was a whopping sum at that time and the Federal Government was asked to guarantee the loan meant for the project.

“Then, we didn’t know how much debt was on us as a nation and we felt that we should not add another N100 million to it. I had to set up two committees to assess how much we owed and we promised not to take more loans or to devalue the naira but to develop the economy.”

He added that tagging him as an ethnic chauvinist on the basis of cancellation of that project was mischievous and unfair because the first N1 billion he spent when he was heading the Petroleum Trust Fund was on Victoria Island and Ikoyi waterworks in Lagos.

—Kazeem Ugbodaga