Dr Kolawole Olaniyan, who happens to be a legal adviser, Amnesty International Secretariat, London, during an interview with The Punch, talked on Nigeria’s anti-corruption efforts, and also shared his view on how the repatriated loot should be handled to benefit victims of corruption in the country.
When he was told that loke his predecessors, the current President of Nigeria, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has also begun fighting corruption even in his cabinet, Olaniyan while reacting to this said that it is true that anti-corruption promises, as a rhetorical device, have been a permanent feature of the Nigerian political landscape.
He said,
“Even dictators like Gen. Sani Abacha and Gen. Ibrahim Babangida promised to combat corruption, but ended up being more corrupt than the administrations before them.
This has tragically been the trend since the return of democracy in 1999. In short, Nigerian politics is permeated by the coexistence of anti-corruption promises and the persistence of corruption scandals.”
Further talking, he said that while it may be early in the day to say if there is any hope for a difference, or if the Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s administration will be a departure from the widespread corruption, and impunity which was part of the government of the former President Muhammadu Buhari, the prospects seem dim in Tinubu’s administration.
He said given the troubling reports of corruption involving senior officials of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration, growing poverty, financial crisis, and economic meltdown in the country, then his administration seems incapable of breaking with the sordid past.