Anti-graft war:Many Nigerians are now scared of Buhari

Former Minister of State for
Education and Delta State
governorship aspirant, Olorogun
Kenneth Gbagi is a lawyer,
criminologist, industrialist and one
of the founders of the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP). He is
unhappy with the level of stealing
among elected and appointed public
officers, especially in recent times
and wants President Muhammadu
Buhari to ensure that those found
guilty of graft are logically
prosecuted or his regime will be at
the mercy of justice-thirsty
Nigerians. He shared this view in an
interview with Vanguard where he
also spoke on why former President
Goodluck Jonathan lost the last
presidential election and Buhari’s
performance so far among others.

Gbagi, Minister of State,Education
On why Jonathan lost the
presidential polls to Buhari
I am one of the founders of the PDP,
a lawyer and a criminologist, which
means that I have friends and
brothers across the nation. What I
did was to get to the nooks and
crannies of the country to find the
true situation. At the end, my
finding was, it was certain that
Jonathan was not going to return.
This dates back to when Jonathan
and former President Olusegun
Obasanjo’s fight started. It is sad
that that situation was allowed to
play out the way it did.
I tried my best to ensure that the
situation was nipped in the bud
because Obasanjo and I had a
meeting where I saw a clip of what
was going to come out and it turned
out to be that permutation that
Jonathan would lose.
Then, I called my father, Chief EK
Clark, and said this is what is going
to happen. He was in Delta State
that day and he was quickly going to
meet President Jonathan and said
there was need for us to have a
quick meeting.
It is one of the things I respect
Obasanjo for. I said to him at the
end of our meeting that day, ‘please
send for Jonathan to come to this
house and talk to him.’
Obasanjo responded, ‘Kenneth,
Jonathan is the president of this
country. I am not going to send for
him, I will go and look for him.’
That was what happened. Why
didn’t they give him access? Why
didn’t they allow him to do what he
needed to do? In any case, certain
persons in the entire Jonathan
administration constituted an
embarrassment because Jonathan
did not speak to any of his
ministers.
We were the ministers, who did the
ground job that brought Jonathan to
power. Soon after that election,
Jonathan was held hostage. And he
rather picked people of questionable
character at the expense of those of
us who built the house and the
government was hijacked by
criminals. That was the beginning of
the catastrophe and downfall, that
was how we dissipated. We used our
own money to fight in our various
localities for Jonathan to be elected
as president. At the end of it,
people who had nothing to do with
it became the owners of the
government and friends of
government. It was prediction
foretold. The government was not
allowed to breathe. Merit was not
the basis of it and so we lost
direction and everything.
So, when I predicted that Jonathan
was not going to win, it is because I
was stating the fact. People were
deceiving him. Thank God, he finally
accepted that he was caged by the
criminals. With the benefit of
hindsight, I think if Jonathan were
president today, he would think
differently.
On allegations that the elections
were rigged
The election of Buhari was done
three, four years before the actual
election. The persons that worked
Buhari’s case out were mainly the
journalists in Nigeria. They had
moulded the peoples’ mind and
thinking and made Jonathan to look
like total and complete failure. So,
the country and people were
yearning for change because their
mind had been so driven in such a
direction that Jonathan was no
longer the president even though he
was there.
Take for instance, a very stupid
publication about a northern
president dying in office. That was
the rudest shock I had. And that
Buhari was going to die in office.
That was very rude.
The press won the election for
Buhari. They started digging
Jonathan’s loss. It got to a stage
when Jonathan was not the
president but persons in his cabinet
and persons around him. He was
just like a prime minister in a
presidential system of government.
He was not a politician. How he
allowed himself to be taken over by
some miscreants was a very painful
situation.
On the implication of Jonathan’s
loss to the South-South
Jonathan has ended the slot. Given
the geo-political structure of
governance in Nigeria today,
Jonathan has taken a shot at our
slot. Regrettably, the way it all
ended is very sad. A lot is yet to
come out. I am a proponent of we
must get it right.
It is sad that people who have no
business eating breakfast in Nigeria
are eating breakfast, lunch and
dinner at the same time. When such
a situation occurs, the country is not
encouraged, the youths are restless,
the people don’t want to go to
school because they rather believe
that mediocrity, lies, theft, forgery,
etc, is a way of life. It is very sad
that in the months ahead of us we
are going to see a lot of
embarrassing revelations. No nation
thrives in the way and manner these
criminals who held Jonathan to
ransom ran the country.
On Buhari’s decision to limit his
probe of past governments to
Jonathan’s regime
Whatever was done in 1999, there
was a president before this
president. It was the duty of
Jonathan to have probed the
government that he took over from.
Buhari has no business going to a
government which is not back-to-
back with him. The Jonathan
administration is back-to-back with
him.
Wrong
assumptions
Whatever negativity there was with
regards to the Jonathan’s
government will have effect on the
Buhari government. Buhari cannot
be going to the 1999 regime. What
concerns him by law and every fact
of life is this one.
On Buhari’s perceived go-slow
approach
People made a lot of assumptions
that are wrong. When Buhari became
president people expected that as
soon as he gets in he will retire
everybody and send them away. He
didn’t do that. I think he took the
right step. He did not do anything
before he changed the Department
of State Services (DSS) director. As
soon as he changed the DSS director
it means he has a grip on the
security and information gathering
system of the nation and has got
the head and the neck of the
country in his hand. It would have
been senseless going to take a lot of
steps when the DSS director is not
with him.
After that, he has moved to change
the service chiefs. He is looking at
what happened. People are giving
him information and briefing him as
to where they are with affairs. So he
has facts as to how to handle issues.
Having grabbed those issues, is he a
feared man? A lot of people in the
country are quite scared because
they don’t know where we are going.
You can’t go to Buhari and say you
want to offer him money as it used
to be in the past. All those impunity
has gone to the dust. Auditing has
started. All the world leaders have
pledged that they will support and
repatriate Nigeria’s money.
Nigeria is in a state of coma. I pity
the president. I pity some of the
governors, like the governor of my
state (Delta). Government was run
with reckless irresponsibility.
The only thing that will give us and
the greater majority of Nigerians
succour is that these persons are
brought to book. Not the cosmetic
arrangement of just taking people to
court, they get lawyers to bail them
and they start branding in our eyes
the looted wealth. If such
arrangement happens under the
Buhari government there will be
catastrophe. We must see a logical
trial. We don’t want to see monkey
trials by the EFCC and ICPC. They
themselves will have themselves to
blame. The Nigerian populace will
this time haunt them and the
Buhari government will be cut short
if we do not come to logical
conclusion with the trials. Anybody,
who has held public office and has
stolen money must be made to
return the money.
On comments that President Buhari
is being selective in his anti-graft
war by going after PDP people and
leaving those in his All Progressives
Congress, APC
That is not correct. His party was
not in government at the centre. We
are a federation with federating
units. Buhari is the president of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria, which
means his area is that of
government of the federation not
the states or the local councils.
However, when you from Anambra or
any other state have issues with
facts, you take it to the relevant
agencies for prosecution and such
governors or local council chairmen
will be prosecuted.
So it is the governors that should go
back to their predecessors in office
and say you committed so, so and so
offence and take it up.
On impressions that the fight
against Boko Haram is waning
under Buhari
Let us give Buhari and the service
chiefs, DSS Director three months, in
my reckoning, given the fact that a
lot of people who are prosecuting
this war, who are now Boko Haram,
are ex-soldiers, ex-policemen, ex-
navy, ex-air force. Their sponsors
have become so spread all over the
country that it requires tact and
strategy to achieve.