Heddir What the president is trying to do now is to re-orientate Nigerians. He is trying his best to revamp the economy. You cannot do that without fighting corruption. There are lots of leakages in our system. We should be seen to be transparent. We must be concerned about the future of this country. It is not about having immediate largesse. You cannot do anything in that way. You expect everything to change. But change is a process.
“People are used to the era of impunity when anything goes. Those who were getting free or cheap money in the past, would certainly feel bad because such money is not available again as the leakages have been sealed. Even where there are leakages, there is no money to take. Those, who were not part of that game feel differently. You can excuse them because they don’t have the experience of how government is run. They feel they are in serious difficulties. They do not know that the difficulties are accumulated problems of 16 years or more.
“The conduct of public officers is reasonable now. People have now started conducting themselves properly. Those people who were spraying dollars at naming ceremonies and ‘owambes’, have stopped. People are now cutting their clothes according to their sizes. There is the restoration of law and order now.”
On the claim that the government was selective in its probing, the APC chieftain denied it.
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“There is nothing selective about the probes. It is supposed to be a regular thing. That is why we have the Auditor-General of the Federation. In the states and the local governments, or even in the ministries, departments and agencies, there is an internal auditor. In an ideal situation, they raise enquiries. But once there is monumental fraud, it is discovered. In spite of the process, there must be something beyond what we see in the papers. I don’t think they are selective. These are things that are obvious to all Nigerians and attract attention.
“What is happening about the money of defense contract; it is because of its peculiarity. Many people will not have focused attention on that if not because of the insecurity situation. Because of insurgency, the National Assembly voted huge amount of money for security, the money was approved but there was no impact. Many things happened and people were annoyed and concerned. People want to know why there was no positive improvement in the war against insurgency despite huge money voted for it. Was it because the money was not enough? The soldiers, at that time, were even complaining. At that time, there was no APC. It is not about witch hunting. It is about correcting the wrong irrespective of who is involved.”