President Jonathan promise to rid Nigeria of corruption if re-elected

President Goodluck Jonathan said on Monday that his successor would not have any difficulty fighting corruption because of the technology his administration is putting in place to fight the menace.

Addressing party supporters at the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, campaign rally in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, Mr. Jonathan, who is the presidential candidate of the party, promised to end corruption in Nigeria, if given the mandate to run the country for another four years.

“I promise you if you vote for me and I come back and serve this country in the next four years, the next persons that will become the president of this country will not talk about corruption because we are working on technology and we will use technology to block all these areas through which people are corruptly enriching themselves,” he said.

Mr. Jonathan, who has severally accused of condoning corruption, added: “Today we are talking about IT. We are no longer in the analogue generation. So we want to deploy IT to solve problems and I tell you in the next five years nobody will harass the next president for not fighting corruption because I will solve the problem of corruption in this country.”

The presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress, APC, Muhammadu Buhari, had promised during one of his campaign rallies last week that he would jail corrupt leaders.

However, Mr. Jonathan, who assured of his commitment to stamp out corruption, said he would not do so by sending corrupt Nigerians to jail.

He said his administration has prosecuted more people than any past administration in the country.

He said, “But let me assure Nigerians about my commitment and my method of solving the problem of corruption or fighting is not the number of people I tried and jailed.

“In terms of people I tried and jailed, maybe I will give you the statistics on my subsequent outing because I have asked them to give me the comprehensive statistics.

“We have tried more Nigerians. More Nigerians have been jailed within this period, but we followed due process. But I used to tell people that even if I tried 10 million Nigerians and jailed five million Nigerians for corruption, I have not solved the corruption problem.

“For you to stop corruption, you must use modern technology to prevent people from stealing. And that is what we are working on. The oil industry is a good area. We are working very hard. I don’t just want to say certain things. All these people have so much money that they will do everything to stop us.”

Credit: Festus Owete/Premium Times