Former President of the Christian
Association of Nigeria, Anthony Cardinal Okogie, has advised President
Muhammadu Buhari, to invite suspected looters of the country’s treasury
for talks.
He said the President’s efforts to
retrieve looted funds would be made easier if looters were allowed to
return their loot without castigating them publicly.
Okogie, in an interview with our
correspondent, said it was also cheaper to recover loot through dialogue
than charging suspected public fund thieves to court.
He said, “I agree with the National Peace
Committee that the President should tread softly and should set
criteria that he is going to use. Corruption is endemic in Nigeria. That
is why they are asking for caution: ‘Look at it properly,’” he said.
The cleric urged President Buhari to invite those suspected to have looted government treasury “to speak to their conscience.”
He warned that it would be difficult for
the government to retrieve the loot as the suspects would use their
financial resources to create legal hurdles for their prosecutors.
Okogie said, “People like that, when they
go to court, they don’t look right and left before they do things. If I
have a man like that and I know he has the money, I will weigh the
options; ‘will it profit the nation if I take this man to court. If I
take him to court, he is going to get a lawyer. The lawyer will be
employed with part of the money I am looking for.
“The lawyer will now start to ask for
adjournments and all what not. I may not get this money until after four
years. And the judge too, in the mean time, is getting (part of the
loot); you will not know. He won’t just adjourn anyhow.
“The lawyer will invite his brother (the
judge) to come and get part of the cake until half of it will be gone.
We have to look at the issue from that angle. And you may end up getting
nothing.”
When asked if such would be possible in a sanitised judiciary, he asked, “Is it sanitised?”
According to Okogie, these are the areas
the President ought to have started his anti-graft war by “sanitising
and purifying” the judiciary first. “At least, you will know that
three-quarters of the place is tight, and then you can start (the
probe),” he added.
The fiery cleric, who decried the spate
of moral decadence in the society, stated that it was the responsibility
of the family to bring up the child well.
He lamented that parents were no more
disciplined as before, saying, “These days, they don’t care anymore.
That is not right; that is not how they were brought up.”
Okogie attributed the increasing spate of corruption in the country to declining moral upbringing of children.
He said, “Look at the probe that is going
on now, for example; how can one person manage to get (steal)
one-point-something billion; not even million but billion, and very soon
you will hear of trillions? Where did he get it from? That is how it is
going on, and he is from a family.
“And if his conscience worried him, he
will run to his pastor to say ‘I want to pay tithe — 10 per cent; this
is my tithe.’ The pastor collects the tithe. Seeing that it is huge
money, the pastor will ask him, ‘what can I do for you?’ ”
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