Former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Wednesday took a swipe at the National Assembly, describing it as a den of corruption by a gang of unarmed robbers who commit more atrocities than judges and lawyers.
The former president who delivered a paper at the First Akintola Williams Annual Lecture in Lagos titled, “Nigeria yesterday, today and tomorrow: Governance and accountability,”
wondered how the National Assembly would be cleansed the same way the judiciary where less corruption take place is being given adequate attention.
“Once you are a member, you are co-opted and your mouth is stuffed with rottenness and corruption that you cannot opt out as you go home with not less than N15m a month for a senator and N10m a month for a member of the House of Representatives. The National Assembly is a den of corruption by a gang of unarmed robbers.’’
“If the judiciary is being cleaned, what of the National Assembly which stinks much worse than the judiciary? Budget padding must not go unpunished. It is a reality, which is a regular and systemic practice. Nobody should pull wool over the eyes of Nigerians. Ganging up to intimidate and threaten the life of a whistle-blower is deplorable and undemocratic, he said.
He also accused the National Assembly of using ‘so-called constituency projects’ as a conduit for corruption.
“These constituency projects are spread over the budget for members of the National Assembly for which they are the initiators and the contractors directly or by proxy and money would be fully drawn with the project only partially executed or not executed at all. The National Assembly cabal of today is worse than any cabal that anybody may find anywhere in our national governance system at any time,” he added.
He accused members of the National Assembly of paying themselves allowances for staff and offices they do not have or maintain.
Arguing that like the judiciary, the National Assembly cannot clean itself, he lamented how the re-current budget of the lawmakers with the so-called constituency projects had ballooned since the inception of the current democratic dispensation.
“Our lawmakers are lawbreakers. They are the accused, the prosecutor, the defenders and the judge in their own case. Most of them conduct themselves and believe that they are not answerable to anybody. They are blatant in their misbehaviour, cavalier in their misconduct and arrogant in the misuse of parliamentary immunity as a shield against reprisals for their irresponsible acts of malfeasance and/or outright banditry,” he stated.
The ex-President urged Buhari to ride on the popularity of current happenings in the judiciary to establish a highly technical team of incorruptible investigators to investigate the so-called constituency projects of the past and the present and bring culprits to book.
He also urged the President Muhammadu Buhari to return the procurement system in the military to what it used to be.
Obasanjo further said three weeks after the process of saving the judiciary began, he learnt that there might be not less than two score of judicial officers having questions to answer.
The ex-President added that when justice was only for sale and could only be purchased by the highest bidder, impunity and anarchy would be the order of the day and none would be safe.
‘‘There is virtually no corrupt judge without being aided by a member of the bar. The Nigerian Bar Association has the responsibility to clean up its own house and help with the cleaning of the judiciary. It is heartening though that some members of the NBA have recently called for judicial reform. Such reform must be deep, comprehensive and entail constitutional amendments as appointment and disciplines of judges are concerned. It must also be said that the good eggs within the judiciary must be proud of themselves and we must not only be proud of them but also protect them and their integrity,” he added.
The ex-president commended “all the foot soldiers in the war against corruption – the different panels of enquiries, the ICPC but particularly the EFCC which is now showing that it is a bull dog that can bite.”
He urged the Judiciary not to frustrate the efforts of the anti-graft agencies “through flimsy technicality and interminable adjournments.’’
