Tunji Braithwaite has blamed former president Olusegun Obasanjo and a former military ruler Ibrahim Babangida for making corruption attractive to state governors in the country.
Tunji Braithwaite has teken a swipe at former president Olusegun Obasanjo and a former military ruler, Ibrahim Babangida, for allegedly making corruption attractive to state governors.
Braithwaite who was speaking on the backdrop of recent statement credited to Obasanjo in which the former president lambasted certain state governors over their roles in plunging the masses into poverty.
Obasanjo who spoke at the inaugural conference of the Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy at the University of Ibadan, on Monday, February 1,said some governors have turned themselves to lords in their various states, using their positions to steal from the state’s treasury and misappropriate funds allotted to the local governments.
However Braithwaite in a telephone interview with The Punch on Tuesday, February 2 said Obasanjo’s recent attacks on state governors are unwarranted because he and Babangida made corruption attractive to governors.
He said: “Obasanjo is not saying anything original because when he assumed office in 1999, I warned that the military constitution would make the governors emperors. Governors determine security votes which they do not account for. Since 1999, the military constitution clothes them (governors and president) with immunity against being arrested for criminal misdeeds. Many of them brazenly looted the treasury and got away with it. Obasanjo became rich through this structure.
“Something appears to be driving Obasanjo to be making frivolous statements everywhere. He and Babangida made corruption attractive to governors and they elevated corruption in governance which subsequent presidents and governors are emulating.
Meanwhile, Olusegun Obasanjo has said the prevailing existence of corruption in the country was the reason his administration decided to set up the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC).
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