By Ayobami Ife, Abeokuta
Former Head of Political Affairs, United Nations – African Union (UN – AU) Mission in Dafur (UNAMID), Prof. Babafemi Adesina Badejo, has rated President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s performance in office in the first one month high, expressing the confidence that he would do far better in many aspects of our socioeconomic life than his predecessor, ex – President Muhammadu Buhari, if he sustained the current tempo.
Apparently referring to the many deft and decisive steps taken so far by President Tinubu towards rebuilding the country, Prof. Badejo said effective and transformational leadership are necessary for the handling of governance issues, ensuring of the rule of law, aggregation of interests and management of resources for the benefits of all as well as engaging in deft movements in nation – states to avoid being victims of predators at the international level.
The Professor of Political Science and International Relations spoke while delivering the maiden inaugural lecture of the Chrisland University Abeokuta, Ogun State recently.
Badejo who noted that he had done some work touching on how the problem of corruption and leadership deficit accounted for over half of the challenges Nigeria contends with, said that the war against corruption had not yielded meaningful results in Nigeria due to “an error of reasoning or misconception” about it.
According to him, “there is an error of reasoning that the fight against corruption starts and ends at the federal level.”
Describing this notion as wrong and a misconception, the Professor said corruption runs throughout the gamut of the nation’s public and private sectors, the business world and the socio – religious realms, stressing that a holistic understanding of this social cancer is key to fighting it.
In his inaugural lecture titled, ‘Interests,’ he lamented that Nigerians and the 1999 Constitution have been too docile and tolerant of corruption, explaining that while the people have not been firm and consistent in demanding accountability from their leaders, the Constitution avoided having a short clause granting citizens access to the declared assets of public officer holders.
And arguing that the immediate past administration “failed woefully” on the war against corruption, he submitted that the fight against the malaise required a concerted effort, commitment and ingenuity as part of a holistic approach to deal with it decisively.
He expressed the pessimism about Tinubu’s capacity to muster enough ‘political will’ to fight corruption, arguing the objective reality on ground would make such a venture a difficult task to embark on.
According to him, President Tinubu can only cherry – pick, noting that the problem is humongous as Corruption has eaten deep into the fabrics of Nigerian society.
Fielding questions from newsmen to substantiate on his position about President Tinubu, Prof. Badejo said, “Tinubu will do by far better than Buhari but not in the area of corruption. When you look at our institutions today, the objective realities that we face are beyond Tinubu.
“At our National Assembly (NASS) today, you remember the saga of ‘off the microphone.’ That exactly is what we now have at the leadership of our National Assembly (NASS), but Tinubu could not stop that because of the various interests involved. And you know, he cannot stop that because he is not making corruption the yardstick of his efforts.
“As Buhari deceived us, Tinubu saw that it is no longer going to sell. So, he is not telling us that ‘I am going to kill corruption before corruption kills us as Buhari sold to us’. That is the point.
“The way out for Nigeria is to pursue a holistic policy and I suggested in the lecture that there is a United Nations’ anti corruption strategy that we signed onto but was never implemented.
If we can go back to deal with that and build the necessary political will, it will be not possible for us to eradicate corruption, but we will reduce it.”
