Former President, Olusegun Obasanjo has slammed the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, describing it as a toothless bulldog.
The elder statesman recalled that though, the EFCC was active during the time of the pioneer Chairman, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, it was shameful that it had now reduced to a lazy and toothless bulldog.
He made this statement while speaking, yesterday, during his 79th birthday celebration, held at Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL), Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.
OBJ, as he’s fondly called, wondered what had happened to the anti-graft agency that led to its present status.
According to him, gone were the days when the people believed that “the fear of Nuhu Ribadu is the beginning of wisdom”.
He said government must avoid any action that could make the agency take a step forward and three steps backward.
Obasajo said, “Honestly, when Nuhu was handling EFCC, he handled it in such a way that people coined the saying that ‘the fear of Nuhu Ribadu is the beginning of wisdom’ and then the question you will ask is, how did we go down? How did we lose that?
“Nuhu Ribadu is still here, he’s still alive. The institution we started together is still there, but what made the institution to become a toothless bulldog? What? And that’s the matter we have to keep looking at, so that we don’t take two steps forward, one step aside and three steps back.”
Obasanjo, who traced birth of insurgency to lack of fairness and justice all over the world, accused institutions, including religious bodies, for failing in their responsibilities towards having a safer society.
He said, “The world is interested in what can be done to stem the tide and I think what we did, yesterday, we made our own contribution in a way that we believe will serve our country, serve our sub-region, West Africa, our region of Africa and indeed the world we live in.
“I summarize that the solution lies in six areas: At home, the community, the church/mosque, the school/college, the state-local, state and federal government – and the international community. At each of these, we should do things and not leave undone what we should do.
“Therefore, people have or they see perceived injustice or perceived grievance and they try to react but, as I said, yesterday, when you have to treat violent extremism and radicalization as an issue, then it costs you more; what we should do, which will be cost effective, wise and cheaper, is to prevent and, if we do what we should do at all those areas, we should be able to prevent.
“One of the things we now have to take seriously is technology because technology impacts on our daily life; it’s built in our homes; it’s in our pocket, and if there are those who want to do anything to make life unbearable for us in terms of security, then we must also use technology as the antidote and the means by which we can ward off what they may want to do against us”.
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