By Clifford Ndujihe

As the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) bicker over how President Muhammadu Buhari should prosecute the anti-corruption war, former Minister of State for Education, Olorogun Kenneth Gbagi, has said that the president has no option than ensuring logical prosecution of graft cases.

Former MINISTER of State for Education, Olorogun Kenneth Gbagi,

President Buhari has limited his probe of past governments to the immediate past Dr Goodluck Jonathan administration. While the APC okayed the president’s decision, the PDP warned against witch-hunt and urged the president to also beam his searchlight on corrupt former governors and ministers, etc, who served on the plank of the APC.

Speaking on this issue in an exclusive chat with Vanguard, Olorogun Gbagi given the perceived massive looting of the last dispensation only logical trials will assuage Nigerians.

”The only thing that will give us and the greater majority of Nigerians succour is that these persons are brought to book. Not the cosmetic arrangement of just taking people to court, they get lawyers to bail them and they start branding in our eyes the looted wealth. If such arrangement happens under the Buhari government there will be catastrophe. We must see a logical trial. We don’t want to see monkey trials by the EFCC and ICPC. They themselves will have themselves to blame. The Nigerian populace will this time haunt them and the Buhari government will be cut short if we do not come to logical conclusion with the trials. Anybody, who has held public office and has stolen money must be made to return the money.”

However, Gbagi agreed with Buhari’s decision to limit his probe to Jonathan’s regime just as he asked state governors to take up the battle in their respective states. Reason: ”Whatever was done in 1999, there was a president before this president. It was the duty of Jonathan to have probed the government that he took over from. Buhari has no business going to a government which is not back-to-back with him. Whatever negativity there was with regards to the Jonathan’s government will have effect on the Buhari government.”

He also defended President Buhari’s ‘slow approach’ to governance especially his delay in appointing ministers because to get experienced, credible people whose hands have not been soiled need serious search.

Gbagi also disagreed with comments that Buhari came back from his United States of America visit empty handed.

Apart from maladministration and wrong appointments, he linked Dr Jonathan’s loss of the last presidential election to President Buhari to the media and Jonathan’s differences with former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

According to him, the media prepared the minds of Nigerians for Buhari and ‘change’ by painting Jonathan as a total failure.

Speaking on his native Delta State, he urged all Deltans to join forces to ensure that Governor Ifeanyi Okowa succeeded on account of the huge debts he inherited.