Corruption: With Today’s Leaders, We Were Saints — IBB

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BY EDMOND ODOK – Given the current level of corruption in Nigeria, former Military President, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (rtd) says leaders during their era were saints compared to todays’ public officers and politicians.

According to him, leaders in their dispensation were quite responsible and circumspect in handling assigned duties selflessly knowing that any misstep on their part would have consequences.

To drive home his point, the retired Army General said; “I sacked a governor for misappropriating N300,000. Now there are people, we read in the papers, thank God there are papers to read and social media and so on, who steal N2 billion, N3 billion and nobody is saying they are corrupt; only us because we are military, that is all.”

Speaking in an interview with Trust TV monitored in Abuja, the man, popularly called IBB by admirers and haters alike, said; “I still maintain that we are saints if you compare somebody who is accused of stealing N3 billion to one with N300,000; then I think we are saints.”

However, he admitted that the battle against corruption is a difficult one given the intricacies involved, adding; “I sold an idea but because it came from me, nobody likes it, nobody will like to hear it.”

The Minna-born Army General said to effectively tackle the cankerworm, it is important to; “Identify areas of corruption and attack them from the source. I read in one of the newspapers where a judge was complaining that they are not well remunerated by the public and that is a sure source of corruption.

“Wherever you have a system where you have a lot of control there will be corruption. So what did we try to do? We got the government not to be involved in things like production. Anything to do with ‘I have to come to you and you will always think you are doing me a favour, so maybe I should reciprocate it’, that is the sort of thing.”

“And that is why we introduced freeing the economy; you don’t need a licence to be graded Grade A; your groundnut or cocoa or cotton or whatever it is. You don’t need to go to the Central Bank or to go to banks to get foreign exchange.

“There are Bureaux de Change. They set it up in market areas, where you can easily go and get it. So the sources of corruption have to be identified and attacked,” General IBB said.

On the current economic downturn in the country, IBB explained that his economic policy of liberalisation and government stepping back from the economy were emulated by the Obasanjo and Yar’Adua’s administrations.

The former Military President said both leaders did their best and even the current administration is doing the same though under a different appellation, “but it is all the same (economic) concept.”

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