Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, former President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Commander of the Armed Forces has disclosed that his successor, President Muhammadu Buhari’s government has not only worsened the level of corruption in Nigeria but has succeeded in chasing investors away from Nigeria by de-marketing the country abroad.
In his new book titled ‘My Transition Hours,’ the former president, who told Nigerians in 2015 that “his ambition to seek reelection as Nigeria’s president is not worth their blood,” added that rather than take Nigeria to the next level, the Buhari-led administration decided to engage in media trials, which also worsened the corruption perception of Nigeria thereby leading to Nigeria’s slip in the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index.
According to him, “The sundry accusations by the new administration will appear to have baited the media. Media trials are entertaining but have little or no effect in fighting corruption and improving the economy. Since I left office, rather than improve on our TI corruption perception record, the situation has worsened with the nation going 12 places backward, becoming number 148 according to the latest CPI ranking for 2014, from 136 in 2014 when I was President. It was bad enough that Boko Haram insurgency continued killing people and ruining businesses but what is worse is when politicians downgrade the economy by de-marketing the country internationally.”
He said what Buhari and his administration failed to realise was that foreign investors are always very sensitive to the utterances of the government. He said in the process of trying to dig a hole for him, the Buhari government ended up digging a hole for themselves and the nation. Hear him, “You should never try to slander your political opponent by destroying your country’s economy. Capital flight intensified and companies started laying off staff. In all this, I hope a lesson will be learned. If you embark on digging a hole for your enemy, you better make it shallow because you might end up in the hole yourself. How do you attract investors you already repelled through your utterances? Investors are an ultrasensitive lot. Money runs away from unstable societies,” which is now the lot of Nigeria.
