By Seyi Babalola
Director of Abuja Social Political Thoughts, Dr Sam Amadi, has described as frightening the increasing influence of some convicted former governors within the President Bola Tinubu administration saying that it is a negative influence on moral probity.
Speaking in an interview, he specifically cited former Delta State governor, Chief James Ibori and Chief Joshua Dariye, two former governors in the Tinubu class of former governors who he said should not be allowed around the president.
Noting that the 37th president of the United States, Richard Nixon was turned into a political orphan after he was linked to high crimes, he disclosed how he had to escape a dinner organized to bolster Senator Orji Uzor Kalu’s bid for Senate President essentially because of the stigma.
Dr Amadi a former chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC spoke in an interview on AIT’s Kaakaki programme on Monday.
He said: “Many of us get worried when we see persons who have been convicted of crimes. Convicted, not alleged like when somebody like Ibori and others are going to the villa and being seen as strategists and advisers?
“All over the world, when Nixon (President Richard Nixon, 37th president of the United States) failed, he was avoided. Talk of people like Orji Uzor Kalu who was convicted and was released because it was a mistrial and I was invited for a dinner where he was going to run for Senate President, I opted out because I don’t think that with due respect that that his profile should fit into the profile of somebody who should be Senate President.
“He might be a very wonderful person, brilliant guy, smart guy who has done a lot of work with Enyimba as governor, but there are certain conducts, convictions people like Dariye and shouldn’t be the persons who a president who is facing scrutiny by the way, these are not the kind of persons who should surround you and make trips like Mecca or Jerusalem and go to the Villa.
“So, the integrity of institutions requires some moral signaling and so the fear of the people is that if we are going to have this coterie of convicted and arraigned criminals who are either convicted or who are facing serious prosecution by state anti-corruption agencies and they are people who are making daily pilgrimage to the villa, it makes us worried as to what is their mission. Why are they the poster child of the administration?
“Is there something cooking that we don’t know? And this is the kind of thing that moral champions should be worried about. A country transforms not by magic or prayer, a country transforms by deliberate decision to recognize some and derecognize others.
“If persons have been convicted of crime, forgery, corruption against public good, they need to take the back bench. They shouldn’t be the moral champions, they shouldn’t be the persons who are seen daily with the president, whose first job as president is to rebuild public morality.
“You have to put it together that a president assembling convicted criminals, not alleged but by court and building strategic themes around them.
“I think we need to now have clarity on public morality. This country has become a republic of fraud. No rules, people don’t obey rules. Why would these boys who have been convicted become the new champions of a new Nigeria? That is terrible with the picture of Dariye, Ibori, all these guys being the closest to the president, it is frightening. It is frightening to us as it suggests something dangerous. That is really bad.”
