The Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CA-COL), a Lagos-based non-governmental organization, is demanding a probe of Nigeria’s former President Olusegun Obasanjo over allegations of corruption. The group petitioned the National Assembly to look into how the former president acquired his wealth and other reported investments during his term in office from 1999 to 2007.
The group also called on President Umaru Musa YarAdua’s government to call the former president to defend himself against allegations of abuse of office among others. Debo Adeniran is the chairman of the Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders. From the commercial capital, Lagos he tells reporter Peter Clottey that his organization won’t stop until the former president is brought to justice.
“We are urging them to prevail over the official anti-graft agencies in Nigeria to look into the petitions that we sent them and invite the former president to give evidence whether he actually engaged in corrupt practices as it has been alleged by several people, and as we have compiled them in our petition or not. And that if the official anti-graft agencies find him guilty that they should prosecute him appropriately so that we expect the courts to mete out the appropriate punishment on him just as they have done on some other citizens of Nigeria,” Adeniran noted.
He denied having a personal score to settle with the former president as speculated by supporters of Ex-President Obasanjo.
“It is not true that we have anything personal against him. It is because we are victims of his mal-governance, a government that did not consider the opinions of the masses of Nigeria. And that is why we expressed our dissatisfaction with the way the government of the day is handling the case of the former president. We are asking the government of the day including the executive as headed by President Umaru Yar’Adua, the senate and the way they are handling it we are dissatisfied with it,” he said.
Adeniran said it was important that the former president justifies how he suddenly got overly rich after ruling the country.
“They should cause the anti-graft agencies to invite the former president for questioning. Let him justify his sources of wealth. If he can justify it successfully, we have no quarrel with that we will agree with them. We will continue to protest until we get justice,” Adeniran pointed out.
He reiterated his organization’s desire for a probe into how the former president suddenly acquired wealth during his reign.
“We think if the government takes a look into all the allegations that we have put together in the petition it will serve as a deterrent because definitely if they look into the petition they will know that the former president does not have the adequate sources of income that could have given him all the properties, and all the investments that he has made during the period that he was the president of Nigeria,” he said.