A members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Board of Trustees, Chief Ebenezer Babatope, has cautioned the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration against probing ex-President Goodluck Jonathan.
Babatope said that any attempt to probe the person of Jonathan would humiliate the PDP leader.
Reacting to pressure being mounted on President Buhari to investigate Jonathan, Babatope said that doing so would amount to laying a bad precedent.
He said however that the former President can only be probed “if it becomes brazenly open that a lot of thefts are traced to him, but for now nothing has been traced to him.”
Chief Babatope stressed that those who are calling for the probe of Jonathan “are enemies of this country. Whoever is spearheading the probe may be digging his political grave. Have they found him guilty?
“All the noise we have been hearing is about the security vote. Buhari embarked on such a probe during his first coming as a military leader when he threw all manner of Nigerian leaders into jail.
“The late sage, Pa Obafemi Awolowo, said you must not humiliate your leadership. When you decide to humiliate your leadership, it is not Jonathan that you’re humiliating, it is your values that you are casting aspersions on.”
Also the spokesperson of the Ijaw National Congress, Mr. Victor Burubo, said that it is wrong for anybody to begin the probe of the ex-President.
He said: “I don’t think he (Jonathan) should be probed. In every government, there are people responsible for various functions and when such people are found wanting, they are fished out and probed. It is not the head of the government that should be probed.
“In Buhari’s government, people padded the national budget. Would they now say that Buhari should be investigated? Nobody has said that Buhari should be investigated.”
The presidency had recently said that the anti-graft commission is free to probe Jonathan, adding that Buhari does not tele-guide the EFCC in any way.
Former national security adviser Sambo Dasuki, who is currently in detention, reportedly said that he received approvals from Jonathan to divert huge sums of money meant for the procurement of arms in the war against Boko Haram insurgents. While some want a prospective probe to be limited to former president’s Jonathan government, some countered that it should be extended to all past governments. [myad]
