Diezani's Trial Excites Oshiomhole, Says War Against Corruption Is Just Beginning

Source: thewillnigeria.com

SAN FRANCISCO, October 06, (THEWILL) – Gov. Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State appears so excited about the London trial of former petroleum minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, saying the war against corruption is just beginning.

“I’m the happiest person because I’ve been in government for seven years without being in power. I was in government, I couldn’t call a Commissioner of Police and talk as a Chief Security Officer; I was haunted by all manners of persons. You kill the snake in Edo, they will put the snake on life support in Abuja and they keep harassing us.

“Now all those venoms are dead and buried. For the first time I’m excited and happy not just for personal benefits, but for the changes I’m beginning to see. They’ve not started scrutinising, just blocking the holes, it’s no longer flowing like before and so the propensity to indulge in those conspicuous habit already curbing themselves.

“People are regaining sanity, human rationality is returning and the idle class that makes money without office or business address, whose only address is an ipad and cell phones with appropriate phone numbers, are all lamenting and not sure of tomorrow,” he said.

Alleging that the immediate past Goodluck Jonathan’s administration ran Nigeria's economy aground, the Edo governor said Tuesday in Abuja that the Jonathan administration wasted about N3.5 trillion borrowed from the pension funds on recurrent expenditures within four years.

On the ordeal of Diezani in London, Oshiomhole said: “The truth is that a lot of money was stolen and what you are seeing is just a tip of the iceberg.

When you imagine what accrues to Nigeria consistently form $140 averaging $108 (per barrel of crude) over a long period of time and yet your treasury is empty and you were running a budget deficit; you were devoting 85 percent of your budget for four consecutive years on recurrent, you were borrowing and you draw the entire pensions fund.

“There have been probes; there have been revelations where whistle blowers have been removed from office; they became guilty for speaking out. I believe time will tell, how much was taken and who was involved. I think what you are hearing now is like appetizer. It is sickening. It used to come from America, now it’s Britain.”

Lamenting further, Oshiomhole said: “You challenge Pencom and Ministry of Finance, you will discover that over N3.5 trillion was drawn down by the previous government from pension funds to support recurrent expenditure. Not to support infrastructure!”

Speaking in the same vein, Zamfara State Governor, Abdulaziz Yari , urged Nigerians to give the Buhari administration all the support, saying money laundering , which used to be an issue in the past had become a thing of the past.

“The practice whereby people put government money into their pockets has become history.

As I watch Obama talking in Kenya that each and every $1 taken, if it is put into public use, it will be good. We should know that this country is our country. We cannot have any other country that we will have the freedom to move around aside from Nigeria. So we are the people that are going to make it a better country, “ Yari said.