Nigeria Needs a President that Can Be Trusted With Money – By – Tochukwu Ezukanma

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By Tochukwu Ezukanma | Lagos, Nigeria | March 3, 2023 – ‘ ‘ Recently, Wole Soyinka rightly stated that, “The problem in Nigeria is corruption and only a man free from corruption can save Nigeria. Nobody is a saint but if you look at the three leading presidential candidates, there is one (Obi) you can trust with money. The other two are known for embezzling public fund and that is why they are very rich without any identifiable source of wealth”. Yes, Bola Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar are notorious thieves of public fund that acquired their enormous wealth from looting the public Ï coffers and other acts of corruption. Refreshingly, we are empowered to reject them at the polls on February 25^th, 2023, and elect Peter Obi – “a man free from corruption (that) can save Nigeria” – the president of Nigeria.

Peter Obi has demonstrated that he can be trusted with money. He is a rich man with identifiable and verifiable sources of wealth. After his university education, he went into business; he made his money as a trader. Prior to his involvement in politics, he was already a rich man. So, he got involved in politics, not to steal, but to se rve. And his two terms, eight years, gubernatorial service in Anambra State was exemplary. It was marked by incorruptibility, financial honesty and fiscal discipline. At the end of his tenure, he left office, not asking for pension or gratuity and without a single question to answer from the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC). Reinforcing his credibility is that everything about him is confirmable. There is no question mark about any aspect of his life: name, age, family, etc.

In addition to his senility and dangerous incoherence, the Emi lokan potentate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a spooky, spoofy character. Everything about him is questionable: his age, home state, name, state of health, academic qualification, and schools attended are all falsified. The source of his enormous wealth is embezzlement of public funds. Despite his earlier involvement in crime, before his emergence as the governor of Lagos State, he was not a rich man. As governor, Tinubu reduced Lagos State to his personal fiefdom; ran it like a personal estate, and literally parceled it out to family members and friends and loyalists, and remorselessly misappropriated the state’s funds. His gratuity/pension package is an apogee of cutthroat usurpation. Although, for long out of the office, he retains a stranglehold on Lagos State: he tosses the state governor around like his errand boy, and through his voracious financial stratagems, he continues to milk the state.

Atiku Abubakar is trailed by canards of unspeakable greed and nauseating acts of corruption. The allegations against him include: as the chairman of the Presidential Council on Privatization, he supervised the sale of government corporations to himself through cronies; large scale illegal oil bunkering and arms dealing; involvement in the Siemens 2.8 billion dollars bribe; bank fraud; and money laundering. Atiku’s former boss, the former president, Olusegun Obasanjo has been relentless in his denunciation of Atiku. He casts him as venal: without compunction to break the law, ruin national institutions, and even, mortgage the country to advance his selfish ambitions. He made it clear that Atiku is an incorrigible crook that cannot be trusted with money, and should never be elected the president of Nigeria. Succinctly, he summed it up, “Atiku becoming the president is like hearing that a former armed robber is now your bank manager”

Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar are similar in many ways. They are irredeemable embezzler of public funds, given to stealing everything within reach. They are aspiring to the presidency, but they lack vision, sense of purpose, motivation to serve, and commitment to the public good. To them power offers the opportunity to misappropriate public funds and enrich self, relatives and friends, and entrench the privileges and pretensions of their elite coterie.

Essentially, they represent the same oligarchic forces of greed, corruption and insensitivity, but merely wearing different labels: All Progressive Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The election of either man, as president, will bring about a total moral and ethical collapse of the Nigerian society and compound all her already suffocating problems.

Therefore, on February 25^th, 2023, Nigerians must vote wisely; we must reject these two infamous presidential candidates, Tinubu and Abubakar, and elect “a man free from corruption (that) can save Nigeria”, Peter Obi, the president of Nigeria.

Tochukwu Ezukanma writes from Lagos, Nigeria.

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