The Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, has said President Muhammadu Buhari’s utterances outside Nigeria was the reason the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, described Nigeria as “fantastically corrupt”.
“What do you expect from the international community when the president of a nation keeps going abroad to say that his people are corrupt?” Mr. Fayose said in a statement signed by his spokesperson, Lere Olayinka.
The governor said it was annoying that President Buhari said he was embarrassed and shocked by Mr. Cameron’s comment, adding that instead of telling Nigerians that he was shocked, the president should apologise to Nigerians for de-marketing the country and his people.
The governor said it was on record that in February this year, President Buhari said in United Kingdom that “Nigerians’ reputation for crime has made them unwelcome in Britain” and went on to warn Nigerians to stop trying to make asylum claims in Britain, saying that their reputation for criminality has made it hard for them to be accepted abroad.
“When a president mounts the podium in foreign lands and gleefully says that his own people are criminals, that they are corrupt and that those abroad should be sent back home, why won’t presidents of other countries brand all citizens of such a country as fantastically corrupt?
“Rather than this grandstanding from the presidency, conceited efforts should be made to redeem the image of Nigeria that the president has destroyed.”
Governor Fayose, who said he was not against the anti-corruption efforts of the federal government, added that all he was saying was that it should be done in accordance with the laws of the country and that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) must stop behaving as if it is above the law.
While describing the remand order reportedly granted to the EFCC to detain the former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode, indefinitely as a show of judicial rascality.
“It is worrisome that some court magistrates, especially in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have turned themselves into allies of the EFCC in its persecution of Nigerians who are opposed to President Mohammadu Buhari’s anti-people policies,” the governor said.
He cautioned court magistrates in the country, especially those in the FCT against the continuous disobedience to the directive of the Chief Judge of the FCT, Justice Ishaq Bello that they should desist from granting remand orders to the EFCC to detain suspects indefinitely, saying; “It now appears that these magistrates are operating as if they are superior to the FCT Chief Judge”.
“In saner climes, anti-corruption agencies don’t go about arresting suspects, detaining them arbitrarily and coercing them to make statements implicating themselves. Rather, anti-corruption agencies must have gotten all they needed to prosecute a suspect before arresting him.
“It is even more questionable that the court order secured by the EFCC to detain Fani-Kayode indefinitely was gotten barely 24 hours after the former minister was granted administrative bail by the same EFCC.
“How can someone be granted administrative bail and while he was trying to meet the bail conditions, the EFCC clandestinely rushed to a magistrate court to secure an order to detain him indefinitely? Isn’t that a clear show of executive rascality?”
