Many people are deceiving Buhari on their seriousness on anti-corruption fight- Owuru
Chief Ambrose Owuru, is founder and presidential candidate of the Hope Democratic Party (HDP), he speaks with MEMOYE OGHU on crucial national issues.
It is over three months now since President Muhammadu Buhari resumed from his long medical vacation in the United Kingdom strong and in charge. How would you describe his actions and directions within this period?
I won’t know, you’re a better Judge. We thank God he came back healthy and against the speculations that he was invalid, bedridden or dead.
It’s normal in politics, the opposition may wish you all that. So, we’re very grateful that he’s back, so the game continues. To say about his actions, I don’t think they have been decent in any way.
Buhari is still learning democracy. It’s time for proper pupilage tutelage. The act of governance in a democratic setting is different from when the military rules.
If its military man like Obasanjo, who is sagacious, loquacious one would understand. Buhari is withdrawn, reserved and strict. And so, he is playing a lone game and that’s not too good.
He has been given an opportunity to govern Nigeria in a democratic setting which he has clamoured for, but I’m afraid to say that he is ill prepared.
What I mean is that before he left for the medical leave he was actually in charge, particularly in the anti corruption fight, but since he came back, there has been one scandal after another, denting the anti corruption war, do you agree?
That’s why I said he’s ill prepared for it. He has not looked beyond the lines. I don’t see anything he has changed in any form.
EFCC was established by an act of Parliament but it is wrongly constituted. Police is rated as the worst corrupt organisation in the country, even as corrupt as we are, police is about the most corrupt institution.
And now you set up an anti graft agency to be populated by the police. You go and figure out who is fooling who? PDP set up this sort of thing; you came in, you want to fight corruption more than PDP, review some of these things.
You can’t have the Ribadus, Waziris, Lamordes; all these are police officers and none of them left there without a skeleton in his/her cupboard. Lamorde has just come back and promoted, just like Maina would have been promoted, even after being wanted.
Lamorde has gone back; he’s a commissioner of police somewhere. And you’re sitting there as President. You think this entertainment in the media everyday that these police engage us with, we call EFCC is all Nigerians want to see.
They would dazzle you with headline news. It is when it pleases them that they would remember the next headline to divert our attention.
What are your own policies as a President to fight corruption? So, he’s yet to understand that he’s being fooled and that his government is heading nowhere.
Chief, I want you to comment on the recent wrangling between the EFCC, DSS and NIA over the arrest of their bosses?
That’s an evidence of what I’m saying. The level of corrupt acts of these agencies is alarming and the Presidency is there;
he has not been able to discipline any of them, he has not been able to utter any clear word to reassure Nigerians that he’s in charge of this anti corruption fight.
He can’t leave it to Magu or whoever he is, he’s a police officer. If you’re serious, reconstitute that organisation.
My party recently went to court, we want that organisation reorganised or dissolved. The case is coming up on 19 December.
Are you talking about the EFCC?
Of course. Right here in Port Harcourt, we’ve been able to identify some corrupt prosecutors who use land speculators to sell off people’s properties.
You’re also in court seeking for the dissolution of the Federal Executive Council (FEC). Why do you want the council dissolved?
We’re all fighting corruption. By section 16 of the constitution, corruption is not only left for the government to say what they like. It is constitutional.
We must have a corruption free society. So, our party, even though we’re not in government, we’re part of the government, we have a duty to unearth or bring to focus some of these things.
In the last election, in our view is what I call a civilian coup. It was bought. Up till today, we’re still unraveling where the monies were buried – graveyards, everywhere.
The entire treasury was ripped open and looted for the purposes of the 2015 election. The APC that won may have spent less but also fell back on slush funds they got from anywhere.
That’s why Buhari’s hands are tied. The people that populate his government are PDP and discredited members. He can’t arrest them.
What makes you think that Maina didn’t contribute to that campaign and it’s time to pay back? This is what they did.
So, they violated the electoral laws that stipulated a limit of one billion for every presidential candidate and what we got was trillions of Naira looted and wasted for that election.
In the course of what we’ve been able to do, recently you can hear INEC say they will strictly monitor campaign funds.
This is the purpose of this suit, to reawaken institutions and warn that elections of this nature could be voided on this course. We’re yet to hear from them.
If I remember, you once said the matter would come up on 15th September. Did it come up that time?
It came up but the Judge found every reason to adjourn all the cases, only to take one Boko Haram case. So, we’re waiting; it’s coming up next week.
Currently, everybody is commending INEC for the smooth conduct of the Anambra governorship election. Do you have a contrary view?
I have no contrary view, but it’s not entirely INEC. Electoral reforms for which we have been advocating for is beginning to yield results. The people are becoming more aware.
We had canvassed for card readers which we fought for, there were groups of political parties that went for the card readers; you people read it in the papers.
There were 15, 16 political parties that were in it but 16 prevailed. The other ones, the last minute PDP thought to use them.
They raised the issue of card readers but when they saw it was not in their own best interest, they won’t win elections with it, they sponsored that it should be discarded.
So, we resisted it. Unfortunately, the media keep giving awards to governors who played no role in sustaining democracy, merely referring to us as mushroom political party.
But you must know that when we met at INEC to decide issues, nobody is mushroom. Every political party has one vote. PDP was infact helpless, APC was worst at the time; they were neither here nor there.
John Odigie-Oyegun is not an articulate person, so he could not even convince his colleagues. But we fought on the basis of our own beliefs.
So, we commend INEC, just as we commend Nigerians who believe in democracy and then say that these things should go on because these runoff elections are not the best yardsticks.
We’ll judge INEC on a general election that is very all encompassing. These staggered elections, every material attention is focused on the area. So, you can’t really.
But I think more of this should go to the Anambra people because they are becoming more enlightened, unlike what they used to do. We would have had cases of violence and all manner of things.
Which one would you prefer as a panacea to the myriad of problems, a constitutional amendment or implementation of the Jonathan confab report?
It depends. They all boil down to the same thing, even the confab report. A confab without a constitutional power is worthless; it comes back to the same National Assembly.
So, whatever report they had there, they have presented it to the National Assembly in the last session. Why is the present session not adopting and debating it?
Why are they asking the government that campaigned against it, Buhari that campaigned against it to come and implement it? So, we see that the National Assembly as constituted today is not serious about it.
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You think this entertainment in the media everyday that these police engage us with, we call EFCC is all Nigerians want to see. They would dazzle you with headline news. It is when it pleases them that they would remember the next headline to divert our attention. What are your own policies as a President to fight corruption? So, he’s yet to understand that he’s being fooled and that his government is heading nowhere.
