A Keyan professor of law, Patrick Liuumba has said that President Muhammadu Buhari surrounded himself with many corrupt people.
Describing the corrupt individuals as thieves, the professor said the president is in the fight against corruption all by himself.
Lumumba, a former director of the Kenya Anti-corruption Commission in an interview with Sahara Reporters said, President Buhari’s lack of support from these individuals around him is the reason the war against corruption cannot be successful.
He said: “I wish President Buhari institutionalizes and ensures that his agenda is bought by others. No matter how good your idea is, it must be sold to others and they must buy into it. That is how you institutionalize the idea. You cannot be a lone warrior in this matter because the children of darkness hunt like a pack of wolves and they will devour you if you are alone.”
In his recommendation, Lumumba said the president must as a matter of urgency, recruit a population of Nigerians that believe corruption is wrong.
He also advised that measurable punishment should be institutionalized for those involved in corrupt practices.
Lumumba said: “When I see the former Minister of Petroleum [Diezani Alison-Madueke] being investigated for corruption, without being a sadiist, I become very happy because her wealth is unexplained. She can’t make that money even if she lives a thousand years. What lacks in Africa is punishment, impunity is alive and well in Africa and we, the electorate, are in the business of celebrating thieves.
“Many of these individuals who are in the position of power don’t want to leave because they are thieves and they are scared that if they leave office, they will be prosecuted, and my view is that they should be prosecuted,” he said.
Lumumba further called on the younger Nigerians to wake up and live up to the expectation of cleansing the nation of corruption.
NAIJ.com earlier reported that a former lawmaker, Junaid Muhammed had told the president that he cannot fight corruption in Nigeria.
Muhammed reacting to the row between the minister of state for petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu and the group managing director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Maikanti Baru, said, the president cannot double as the substantive minister of petroleum.
He said with such it remains impossible for the President Buhari’s administration to put an end to corruption in Nigeria.