Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has called out certain individuals in both the executive and legislative branches of government, asserting that they should be incarcerated due to their past criminal behavior.
Speaking virtually at the Denis Joseph Slattery Memorial Lecture in Lagos on Thursday, Obasanjo emphasized that officials with compromised integrity cannot be trusted to make decisions that benefit the public. According to him, such individuals are unfit for governance and should face the consequences of their actions.
The lecture, held at the Civic Centre on Victoria Island, was organized by the Old Boys’ Association of St. Finbarr’s College. It was attended by several distinguished guests, including former Cross River Governor Donald Duke, ex-football star Segun Odegbami, music producer ID Cabasa, and actor Patrick Doyle.
In his speech titled ‘the imperative for moral rectitude in governance,’ the former President said, the most important demand of anybody involved in governance at any level is “accountability”.
He said, “If you look clinically at the people in government today at both executive and legislative levels, some of them should be permanently behind bars for their past misdemeanour and criminal misconduct.”
“You cannot expect thieves to give good judgement in favour of the owner of the property.”
Obasanjo recalled his shocking experience with corruption, citing how a government official normalised criminal behaviour when confronted.
“The first thing that shocked me when I went into politics was the level of corruption of election officials which was taken as normal,” he said.
“The second was the level of general and criminal misbehaviour which was taken with levity and impunity. We were at a meeting and a man lied and I confronted him, and the next thing he said is ‘It is all politics, Sir’.
“Every bad thing they do is passed on as politics which means politics has no room for morality, principles, rectitude, ethics, good character and attributes.”
“Nigeria needs transformational leaders rather than transactional leaders, truth instead of lies, honesty instead of dishonesty, integrity instead of disintegrity, hope instead of despair, production instead of deduction, inclusion instead of exclusion and marginalisation”, Obasanjo said
Slattery, an Irish-born missionary who sojourned to Ilawe-Ekiti, Nigeria in 1941. In 1943, he was posted to St. Gregory’s College, Obalende, Lagos, as a teacher and games master. Slattery founded St. Finbarr’s College in January 1956 as part of his mission in Nigeria.
He was also the pioneer Chairman of the Nigerian Football Association and a founding member of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ).
He was honoured with the Order of the Niger (OON) by Obasanjo in 2001. He died in July 2003.
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