Omokri: GEJ fired ministers accused of corruption but there are ‘looters’ in this govt

Reno Omokri, former senior special assistant to ex-president Goodluck Jonathan on new media, on Monday said his principal fired two ministers accused of corruption.

Omookri said this in response to the claim of Osita Okechukwu, director general of Voice of Nigeria (VON), who said the former president failed “woefully” during his time in office.

In a statement, Omokri dismissed Okechukwu’s allegations as lacking in facts, saying Nigeria got its best rating by Transparency International in the anti-graft war under Jonathan.

He said there is no evidence that the President Muhammadu Buhari administration is fighting corruption as the country has not improved since the last regime.

Omokri also accused the current administration of shielding government officials accused of corruption.

“It may surprise Mr Okechukwu and his boss to know that the last time Nigeria made progress on Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perception Index was in 2014 under former President Jonathan when we moved eight places from number 144 to number 136 under Goodluck Jonathan,” he said.

“That year marked the most improvement Nigeria has ever made since Transparency International began publishing the annual Corruption Perception Index in 1995.

“Transparency International took note of the Jonathan administration’s e-wallet system that cut out the corruption in Nigeria’s fertilizer procurement system, the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) which weeded out 50,000 ghost workers from the Federal civil service, the cashless policy and the fact that the Jonathan government promptly fired two ministers (Professor Barth Nnaji and Stella Oduah) mentioned in corruption scandals.

“Ever since 2014, Nigeria HAS NOT improved in Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perception Index ranking and has remained 136 in 2015 and are still 136 on the latest CPI ranking released in 2017.

“In the most recent CPI Transparency International said and I quote “some other large African countries have failed to improve their scores on the index. These include South Africa, Nigeria, Tanzania and Kenya.

“With a minister of transport that admitted to spending $500,000 on a one day dinner for Professor Wole Soyinka in your government, with a suspended secretary to the government of the federation who was caught red handed looting funds meant for IDPs and who has not been fired, arrested or prosecuted and with a padded budget scandal that spends borrowed monies on luxuries for favored individuals, you can’t pull the wool over the eyes of Transparency International,” he said

He added that contrary to Okechukwu’s claims, Jonathan’s economic feat made the nation’s economy the third fastest growing economy in the world after China and Qatar, according to CNNMoney.

“Did President Jonathan ‘railroad’ CNN Money? Or did he also railroad the former British Prime Minister, David Cameron, who said on October 12, 2012 as follows “yes, we’ve been hearing about China and India for years …but it’s hard to believe what’s happening in Brazil, in Indonesia, in Nigeria too,” he added.

“The fact remains that under Jonathan, Nigeria experienced unprecedented growth. I leave it to Nigerians to determine what they are experiencing today.”