The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, has said the fierce competition for power and President Muhammadu Buhari’s unrelenting war on corruption are responsible for an upsurge of violent conflicts across Nigeria.
Shehu said this while speaking to reporters at the National Secretariat of the All Progressives Congress, in Abuja, on Monday.
He explained that competition for power had become fiercer and the stakes had become very high hence the upsurge in cases of violent attacks.
The presidential aide noted that many people, especially the rich and the powerful, had thought the war against graft was a joke until the President with the support of a reformed judiciary, showed no sign of backing down.
Shehu said, “The problem is that the competition for power in the country has become fiercer and fiercer because the stake is very high. I will give you one example. The President has unleashed on the country the war against corruption, the type that had never been seen before. Assets are being recovered from powerful people.
“The President is lucky. He has a judiciary which is transforming itself, which is on the same page with the President in fighting corruption. As I speak to you now, you know that two former state governors are in jail.
“A lot of people thought this war against corruption is a joke, and that the back and forth that has characterized this over time will continue. One of the two cases we are talking about is determined after eleven years of back and forth with lawyers and judges, kicking the ball from this hut to that hut.
“Now, they have descended on the country. A new era and a new aura that is ensuring the conclusion of these cases – a lot of these hash attacks against the President, are coming from people who had become used to lifestyle they can no longer sustain.”
