The national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, has said the Goodluck Jonathan administration won a gold medal in corruption.
According to Tinubu, money “ran away” from Nigeria’s coffers faster than Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt during the last administration.
Tinubu said this on Thursday while giving a keynote speech at the presentation of ‘Making Steady, Sustainable Progressive for Nigeria’s Peace and Prosperity: A mid-term scorecard on the President Muhammadu Buhari Administration’.
At the book presentation held at the state house conference center, Abuja, the former Lagos governor said Boko Haram would have taken more territory and more lives would have been lost to insurgency if Jonathan had remained in power.
“The prior government used the public treasury as a private hedge fund or a charity that limited its giving only to themselves,” he said.
“So much money grew feet and ran away faster than Usain Bolt ever could. That which could have been spent on national development was squandered in ways that would cause the devil to blush.
“One minister and her rogues’ gallery picked the pocket of this nation for billions of dollars. While poor at governance, these people could give a master thief lessons in the sleight of hand. In governance, they earned a red card but in corruption l, they won the gold medal.
“It was not that our institutions had become infected by corruption. Corruption has become institutionalised.”
Tinubu said the war on corruption has been won as President Buhari has set an axe to “the root of this dangerous tree”.
“We have much to do to combat this disease. Not only must we track down the takers. In the long term, we must review the salaries of public servants and create universal credits for our people to reduce temptation,” he added.
