Former President Goodluck Jonathan said his successor, President Muhammadu Buhari, not only worsened the level of corruption in Nigeria, but also chased away investors by de-marketing Nigeria abroad.
Jonathan added that rather than take Nigeria to the next level, the Buhari administration decided to engage in media trials, which also worsened the corruption perception of Nigeria thereby leading to Nigeria’s slip in the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index.
The former President said this in his recently published book titled ‘My Transition Hours’.
He said, “The sundry accusations by the new administration will appear to have baited the media. Media trials are entertaining but have little or no effect in fighting corruption and improving the economy.
“Since I left office, rather than improve on our TI corruption perception record, the situation has worsened with the nation going 12 places backward, becoming number 148 according to the latest CPI ranking for 2014, from 136 in 2014 when I was President.
“It was bad enough that Boko Haram insurgency continued killing people and ruining businesses but what is worse is when politicians downgrade the economy by de-marketing the country internationally.”
The former President said the Buhari administration failed to realise that foreign investors are always very sensitive to the utterances of the government.
He said in the process of trying to dig a hole for him, the Buhari government ended up digging a hole for the nation.
Jonathan added, “You should never try to slander your political opponent by destroying your country’s economy. Capital flight intensified and companies started laying off staff. In all this, I hope a lesson will be learned. If you embark on digging a hole for your enemy, you better make it shallow because you might end up in the hole yourself.
“How do you attract investors you already repelled through your utterances? Investors are an ultrasensitive lot. Money runs away from unstable societies.”
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