Abdullahi M. Gulloma
For a long time, many have believed that former President Goodluck Jonathan acted in the right manner expected of a reasonable and responsible ex-leader by choosing to remain silent even in the face of financial corruption allegations made by especially some of President Muhammadu Buhari’s appointees against his immediate past administration.
Thus, the attitude adopted by Jonathan, probably, helps to influence Buhari to maintain cordial, not warm, relationship with him. But, as it’s said, what has a beginning must have an end and so it came, this week, an end to Jonathan’s glorious era of silence when he was reported to have faulted the Buhari-led administration for harassing his family members.
The allegations made by the former president were reported by newspapers to be contained in a new book titled: “Against The Run of Play,” written by the Chairman of ThisDay Editorial Board, Mr. Olusegun Adeniyi. The former president also reportedly disagreed with the style adopted by the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari in fighting corruption.
However, all that cordiality between Jonathan and Buhari seems to have vanished into the thin air for the latter, determined to sustain and push the boundaries of his anti-corruption crusade, has closed his mind, eyes and ears to all forms of niceties, cordialities, friendship and relationships that come in the way of his avowed resolve to kill corruption.
Responding to Jonathan’s accusations, a statement issued by Buhari’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, Buhari, Wednesday, said that the claims made by the former president were not true. The statement read in part: “The Presidency is constrained to respond to the banner headline story in a national newspaper of Wednesday, April 26, entitled: BUHARI’S GOVT HARASSING MY FAMILY, SAYS JONATHAN.
“We make bold to state unequivocally that President Buhari harasses nobody; he merely allows the law to take its course. For the umpteenth time, we say that anybody without skeleton in his or her cupboard has nothing to fear about the bared fangs of the anti-corruption initiative. Fear belongs only to those who have abused trust while in office.
“With regard to President Buhari’s anti-graft style, which the former president deprecates, ”given the scale of revelations and recoveries so far by the anti-corruption agencies, it is obvious that corruption had an uninhibited course during our recent past. In any case, time will give the verdict on whose style of fighting corruption ultimately yielded the most dividends.
“For now, President Buhari is resolute and single-minded in the fact that his crusade against graft is not targeted at any individual or group. He firmly believes that national interest must always be placed above personal interest, no matter who is involved.”
And, regrettably for Jonathan, his recently reported dissatisfaction with Buhari’s style of tackling corruption and claim of harassing his family, many of whom, including his wife, are charged for behemoth corrupt practices, could only help to raise the bar of the corruption crusade.
But, more importantly, though unfortunate, too, Jonathan’s outburst, albeit his latest decision to discard the seeming niceties that existed between him and the president, serves to provide the hangmen in this administration, including the EFCC, ICPC, SSS and police, with more and even sharper ‘knives’ for use in ‘slaughtering’ all those who are corrupt and or stand in the way of the anti-corruption war.
