Jonathan meets with former ministers over probe

Ex-president Goodluck Jonathan has reportedly summoned the former aides and ex-ministers over impeding probe in the $2,1 bn arms purchase scam. The Punch reports that current investigations of former Jonathan’s aides and calls for his own probe formed part of
the discussion at the meeting. Many of the former ministers are said to be worried that the
anti-corruption efforts of President Muhammadu Buhari seems to be focused solely on those who served in the last administration. However, some leaders of the opposition party asked the incumbent leader not to accept the pressure being mounted on him to investigate Jonathan. According to them, doing so would amount to laying a bad precedent. Chief Ebenezer Babatope, a PDP Board of Trustees member, advised the Buhari-led administration not to probe ex-president, adding that doing so would humiliate the PDP leader. He said Jonathan should not be probed unless “it becomes brazenly open that a lot of thefts are traced to him, but for now nothing has been traced to him.” “The late sage, Pa Obafemi Awolowo, said you must not humiliate your leadership. When you decide to humiliate your leadership, it is not Jonathan that you’re humiliating, it is your values that you are casting aspersions on,” the chieftain said. “Those calling for the probe of Jonathan are enemies of this country. Whoever is spearheading the probe may be digging his political grave. Have they found him guilty? “All the noise we have been hearing is about the security vote. Buhari embarked on such a probe during his first coming as a military leader when he threw all manner of Nigerian leaders into jail.” Jonathan’s staunch loyalists also have expressed dissatisfaction over calls for the probe of the former Nigerian leader. The spokesperson of the Ijaw National Congress, Mr. Victor Burubo, said that it was wrong for anybody to begin the probe of the ex-president.He said: “I don’t think he (Jonathan) should be probed. In every government, there are people responsible for various functions and when such people are found wanting, they are fished out and probed. It is not the head of the government that should be probed. “In Buhari’s government, people padded the national budget. Would they now say that Buhari should be investigated? Nobody has said that Buhari should be investigated.” The presidency recently had said that the anti-graft commission is free to probe Jonathan, adding that Buhari does not tele-guide the EFCC in any way. Former national security adviser Sambo Dasuki, who is currently in detention, reportedly said that he received approvals from Jonathan to divert huge sums of money meant for the procurement of arms in the war against Boko Haram insurgents. While some want a prospective probe to be limited to former president’s Jonathan government, some countered that it should be extended to all past governments.