Ex-president criticises anti-graft war

‘Mua’zu, Jega disappointed me’

former President Goodluck Jonathan believes that his family is being hounded by the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.

He said he lost the 2015 election because he was betrayed by the former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Adamu Muazu and some Northern leaders in the party.

Jonathan, who made his feelings known in a book, “Against The Run of Play”, written by the Chairman of ThisDay Editorial Board, Mr. Olusegun Adeniyi, said Buhari could still fight corruption using a different style.

He said: “I feel sad about the way my family is being hounded.”

“Society is like a building. You build it one block at a time. If every president decides to go in to dismantle what his predecessor did, society will never make progress. I expected President Buhari to correct whatever mistakes I may have made and then carry on from there.

“But a situation in which people go into exile for political reasons is not good for us.”

“His style of fighting corruption is different from mine and since most Nigerians apparently prefer his style, it is okay. There are steps you take that will help in retrieving ill-gotten wealth and punish offenders while restoring confidence in the system. But there are also things you can do to damage the system.”

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) got the court to freeze $5,842,316.66 (about N1.7billion) belonging to Mrs Patience Jonathan in Skye Bank. Justice Mojisola Olatoregun on April 6 unfreezed the account. The EFCC appealed but yesterday withdrew its application for a stay of execution of the judgment.

The Presidency declined to react to former president’s claim on the anti-graft crusade.

Presidential spokesman, Mr. Femi Adesina told The Nation that he could not comment on the contents of a book he has not read.

On the 2015 poll, Jonathan said: “I felt really betrayed by the result coming from some northern states. Perhaps for ethnic purposes, even security agents colluded with the opposition to come up with spurious results against me. You saw the way the Inspector General of Police, a man I appointed, suddenly turned himself into the ADC to Buhari immediately after the election.”

“How could we have lost Ondo, Benue and Plateau states if our people were committed to the cause? If you examine the results, you will see a pattern: in places where ordinarily we were strong, our supporters did not show enough commitment to mobilise the voters.”

“What happened was very sad not for me as a person, but for our democracy.”

“Take, for instance, the PDP National Chairman, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu. I believe he joined in the conspiracy against me. For reasons best known to him, he helped to sabotage the election in favour of the opposition

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