The former National Coach and a member of FIFA technical committee chief Adegboye Onigbinde have condemned the ways political leaders emerge in the country, saying that most of them are in power through corruption.
Chief Onigbinde in an exclusive interview in his residence at Felele area in Ibadan, why commenting on the reason why he associated with the Yoruba patriotic movement which was a conglomeration of virtually all the members of different political parties in the South West, said that the process of picking our leaders in Nigeria is fraudulent and that was the reason why we are getting what we have now.
He pointed out that Nigerians would know that a particular person is a murderer and a thief yet they will still go ahead and vote for such a person to occupy an exalted position and when he gets there and was behaving abnormally we would then keep complaining.
‘’There is corruption all over the country and most of the people accused of being involved are those in position of authorities and who can be called leaders. This goes to show that the country is now bedeviled with leadership problem over the years. AAs a Nigerian who would want things in a normal way I am worried because this is a big problem confronting the country. Nigeria is a country where you know that somebody is a murderer and a thief and you will still vote for him. So when that person gets to power we would then begin to complain of his behaviour whereas we ought not to have voted for that kind of character.’’
He pointed out that until Nigerians know that they have to examine the person who would lead them critically and make sure that he is a person that is credible and not a dubious character before we can get out of the leadership problem.
He argued that In Nigeria we don’t want those who would do the right thing. ‘’Take for instance, when a man now starts to cleanse the system people cast a lot of aspersions on him. I cannot imagine why some people would wish Buhari dead. This is very sad. You see I feel for Buhari because I am going through a similar thing in my profession. When people agree that you are good in your job but they would not want you around because you will not allow them to steal. I have been going through that for decades.’’ What they have been saying about me is that don’t allow that man he will not allow you to steal.’’
Chief Onigbinde then wondered why people like to do wrong things saying ‘’that is why Nigeria is what it is today. How do you get a proper direction, when Nigeria is a country where a carpenter would be brought to be a chairman of a medical board, for purposes of corruption and hero worshiping? We have a long way to go. My prayer is that God should give Buhari Long life. If Nigerians would allow him, to operate the way he is carrying out, we would have taken a step towards the right direction.
Onigbinde maintained that with the people at the National Assembly, who have held governorship positions in the country and who as well been accused of corruption, the Buhari government may not go far on his anti corruption drive as they would want to in one way or the other want to frustrate him, he said people should not be surprised if they are blocking all his efforts because most of them have skeleton in their cupboard. ‘’Again can we blame them, it is the people who accepted and voted for them who should be blamed because by the time they were dolling out their ill-gotten money people received it without realizing that they were selling their conscience.’’