Mr. Smart Ajaja, a Nigerian rights activist, based in the United States of America, yesterday, said the refusal of former President Goodluck Jonathan to probe alleged multi-million dollars allegedly found in one the nation’s service chiefs, during his tenure was the reason America refused to sell arms to his administration.
Ajaja, who gave insight into how some persons he described as very vulnerable Nigerians abroad serve as fronts to looters of the country’s treasury,said the US govt, which uncovered the money, gave Jonathan term upon which he could get its support.
He said Jonathan refusal to probe a service chief, who he did not name, resulted to the refusal of American government to sell arms to his government.
Ajaja said although some volunteers among the diasporans were willing to assist President Muhammadu Buhari-led federal government to further identify some of the looted funds, the government should do a lot more to block movement of physical cash out of the country.
The activist noted that the corrupt persons could not have transferred most of the looted monies abroad without help of some diasporans but observed that the Bank Verification Number (BVN) policy introduced by the Cenral Bank of Nigeria (CBN), to a great extent, assited in identifying the looted funds.
He urged the federal government to create access to opportunities for the citizens to whip up patriotism and reduce the current incident of terrorism in the country.
He said, “If the government can’t monitor the movement of physical cash out of Nigeria, there is nothing we can do from there because what they do is they have agents they use to transfer these monies out, to put them in banks.
“They have special banks where they put the money but one good thing about the USA which is lacking here is that every human being is a security agent because they put the country first before any thing
“Here, we are very unwilling to give information. One, because of sentiment tied to friendship, bond of brotherhood and association as well as ethnic sentiment but until we abandon that and accept competence as the only tribe in Nigeria, we will not move forward
“I’m in total disagreement that the current war against corruption is one-sided. The political parties are no nations. Nigerians committed fraud against Nigeria and they are being prosecuted as Nigerians so the issue of lopsidedness does not arise. These are alleged criminals and they must be prosecuted to full extent allowed by the law
“I have heard some people talk about abuse of human rights. By spiritual, moral and constitutional standards, stealing is a crime and stealing at that level, when you abuse your position, your office, when you rob the nation, you are imprisoning the immediate generation and generations unborn, especially when it is of such high extent.”
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