Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has warned that politicians involved in corruption cannot in any way deliver good governance.
The former president said this during a virtual address at the memorial lecture of Denis Joseph Slattery, held at the Civic Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos.
The lecture, organised by the Old Boys’ Association of St. Finbarr’s College, honoured the late Irish-born missionary who came to Nigeria in 1941.
Chief Olusegun Obasanjo condemned political leaders with questionable integrity, referring to them as “thieves,” and stressed that they are incapable of providing just governance.
“You cannot expect thieves to give good judgement in favour of the owner of the property,” Obasanjo said.
He added that such individuals should be held responsible and jailed for their misconduct.
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“The most important demand of anybody involved in governance at any level is accountability,” Obasanjo remarked, underscoring that leaders without moral integrity cannot make decisions for the greater good. He went further to critique the current political landscape, noting, “If you look clinically at the people in government today at both executive and legislative levels, some of them should be permanently behind bars for their past misdemeanour and criminal misconduct.”
While recalling his personal encounters with corruption, Obasanjo shared how a government official normalized criminal behaviour when confronted.
“The first thing that shocked me when I went into politics was the level of corruption of election officials, which was taken as normal. The second was the general and criminal misbehaviour, which was taken with levity and impunity,” he said.
He further stressed that Nigeria needs “transformational leaders rather than transactional leaders, truth instead of lies, honesty instead of dishonesty, integrity instead of disintegrity, hope instead of despair, production instead of deduction, inclusion instead of exclusion and marginalisation”.
