EFCC leaked Our petition reports to former President Obasanjo and he published it completely in his book, My Watch, says Debo Adeniran, Chairman, CACOL

Debo Adeniran is the Executive chairman of Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL). In this interview with Prestige International Magazine, he opens up on various issues including his organisation’s fight against corruption in Nigeria. Excerpts.

Genesis of Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL):

My name is Debo Adeniran, I’m the executive chairman of Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL). It was set up in 2007 as a child of necessity, not a child of circumstance. We felt there was a need for Nigeria to have a central network that will work across the states of federation to see what it could do to pressurizing authorities especially the anti graft agencies in implementing the laws that set them up. This came up as a result of what we perceived as a persistent level of corruption in the country in the days of former President Olusegun Obasanjo. When president Obasanjo came, we thought that he was going to fight corruption as he promised during electioneering campaign. ICPC did not get up to 20 convictions throughout the period Obasanjo was there. In 2003 and thereabout the issue of Advanced Fee fraud, 419, Yahoo Yahoo came into front burner and had international dimension. Also, illegal bunkering had started in earnest. Those were the things that were described as economic and financial crimes. EFCC was set up, the agency started with Nuhu Ribadu, who was like more ambitious to stamp his feet on the sand of time and he started well only for the politicians to begin to manipulate the activities of EFCC. We believed that he did his own bit within the available opportunity and capacity. When Obasanjo left, we knew that he was not going to solve the corruption problem in Nigeria, that was the reason we carried coffin to signify the end of his regime. Little did we know that we were going to move from frying pan to fire. The first phase of President Yar’Adua was good; he would have been the best president to have fought corruption in Nigeria. He was not physically and physiologically fit to govern, governance was done for him. Within the period he was in power, he was able to charge some former governors to court and we believe he would have done more. Although, there are some former governors that escaped the justice.

On former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration:

 Goodluck Jonathan did not give us any fight against corruption. He allowed everybody to do what he liked. In 2007, at the town hall meeting of CHILDREN project to review myriad of problems confronting child education in Nigeria. We constructed what we call the problem tree and we discovered that the tap root of that tree is corruption. Then, we constructed the solution tree; we found out that the tap root of that solution tree is to fight corrupt leaders. Knowing that leaders are the ones that condone, perpetrate and forgive corruption offences. That was when we decided that we needed to fight corruption that was how CACOL emerged.

On CACOL’s petition to EFCC accusing Obasanjo:

 In November 2007, we did a petition to EFCC accusing former president Olusegun Obasanjo knowing that he was chief account officer, we believed he was answerable to all the corrupt offences perpetrated by his lieutenants. By December we submitted another petition because we discovered that some of the corrupt offences committed by Obasanjo regime were not in the first one that was why we sent another one in December 2007.  We kept on protesting to EFCC that this petition has not been attended to. When Madam Farida Waziri took over as chairman of EFCC, she declared that she did not see any petition against Obasanjo. We took a copy of that petition to EFCC again. She sent somebody from Abuja to receive it; it was received in the full glare of the media. The following day she responded that she had received the petition and that she was going to act on it. Three weeks later she said she had set up a panel to look into the veracity of our claims. About after a year she had received our detailed petition. Our own petition was consolidated by the one written by Orji Uzor Kalu, both were treated together. We asked EFCC to give us discreet of that report; they said they don’t give it out at that stage that they would charge the culprits to court. We later discovered that our petition was made available to former President Olusegun Obasanjo and he published it completely in his book, My Watch, we were amazed that how would EFCC be so unfair to us because we were the ones that filed in the petition and we were the ones that supposed to be replied. They gave it to person we complained about meaning that Olusegun Obasanjo would have influenced the content of that petition. If you look at Olusegun Obasanjo’s My Watch, Volume 3, you will see how he abused us thoroughly thinking that we did not know. He used his position to maneuver the process to achieve his purpose.

On the current economy situation:

What is happening now is expected, the economy has been plundered for more than 16 years. As a matter of fact, for a very long time. Within one year he has put Treasury Single Account (TSA) in place. He has also strengthened the anti graft agencies at least morally. It is like they have unfettered opportunity to do their work. They have been able to touch the hitherto untouchable. That is a way to go. He has been able to block all the drain pipes to the economy. Anybody that has anything to do with public funds is taking extra care not to fall into the net of anti corruption agencies.