Claim: “I fought corruption relentlessly” – Muhammadu Buhari, immediate past president of Nigeria.
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Nigeria’s former president, Muhammadu Buhari, on Sunday, May 28, claimed that he fulfilled his electoral promise to rid Nigeria of corruption during his eight-year administration.
Speaking during his farewell national broadcast, Buhari said “Fellow Nigerians, you know how dear the desire in my heart is to rid the country of corrupt practices that had consistently diminished our efforts to be a great country.
“I did pursue this commitment relentlessly, in spite of the expected pushback. I am happy that considerable progress had been made in repatriating huge sums of money back to the country and had also taken over properties illegally acquired from our commonwealth,” he said.
Verification
In 2015 when Buhari was sworn in, his administration recorded progress in recovering looted assets from within Nigeria and abroad.
BattaFiles analysis, however, shows that the actions and inactions of Abubakar Malami, who held the pivotal office of the Attorney-General of Federation for eight years frustrated many cases of corruption.
The first major corruption fight by the administration was the arrest of Sambo Dasuki, then immediate-past National Security Adviser (NSA), who served in ex-president Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.
Dasuki was indicted by an investigative committee on arms procurement for allegedly diverting over $2 billion entrusted in the care of his office. He was later arraigned alongside those who benefited from the funds at different courts in Abuja.
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In 2016, Nigeria’s secret police popularly referred to as SSS raided the homes of senior judges, suspected of stockpiling cash – funds considered to be proceeds of corrupt practices in their residence. Two of the seven judges whose houses were raided, Sylvester Nguta of the Supreme Court and Adeniyi Ademola of the Federal High Court Abuja, were later prosecuted.
While all of these appeared as a good start, the administration soon became mockery of the corruption it claimed to be fighting as many citizens of the country accused the government of selective in its choice of suspects to investigate or prosecute.
In some cases, members of the opposition who decamped to the ruling APC with corruption allegations got appointments in the government and they were forgiven.
To the surprise of many, Buhari’s government in 2021 gave pardon to former governors convicted for corruption – Jolly Nyame, a former governor of Taraba State, and Joshua Dariye, a former governor of Plateau State.
The duo were convicted in May and June, 2018, after their trials lingered for over a decade. Unfortunately, statutory agencies like the EFCC, the ICPC and Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) became cudgel to bludgeon political opponents.
About a month ago, Malami controversially withdrew a N1.84 billion corruption case involving Nicholas Ashinze, a former military aide to ex-NSA Dasuki.
Also, Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perception Index shows that rampant misappropriation and outright theft of humongous public funds was not eradicated under Buhari’s administration.
Verdict: Buhari’s claim that he effortlessly fought corruption is FALSE!
