If you must probe, probe past administrations too, Jonathan tells Buhari

President Goodluck Jonathan has asked the incoming administration of Muhammadu Buhari to probe not only the outgoing administration but also other past administrations if it has to carry out a probe.

If it is not done this way, outgoing President Jonathan, who has barely 48 hours to stay in office, says it will be perceived as a witch hunt.

The president, who was speaking during the valedictory session and last day of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday, said this was following the calls from different quarters for the probe of the outgoing government.

“Some people are even calling for the probe of the government, but I think in Nigeria, there are a lot of many things that will be probed, very many things, even debts owed by states and debts owed by this country from 1960 up to this time.

“They say it is Jonathan’s administration that is owing these debts. I believe that anybody that is calling for probe must also ensure that this probe is extended beyond the Jonathan administration.

“Otherwise, to me, it will be witch-hunt. If we are very sincere, it is not only the Jonathan administration that should be probed”, he said.

“A number of things have gone wrong and we have done our best to fix them. The attorney general is aware of massive judgment debts. If we aggregate all of them it is almost going to $1 billion. How did we come to this kind of huge judgment debts? These issues should be probed. How do you allocate our oil wells, oil fields, marginal wells and all that; do we follow our laws? All these should be probed. And I believe all these and many more areas should be looked at”, the president added.

He said his government has had to operate under the harshest of conditions, some of which were politically motivated.

Jonathan attributed the just abating fuel scarcity and the strike action by the oil unions to sabotage.

He noted that as a cabinet, all ministers had done their best despite the challenges faced during their tenure.

“Even though we operated under an extremely difficult situation, maybe because politics in Nigeria is just maturing, we witnessed the longest ASUU strike. I don’t think we have ever witnessed a strike that lasted for six months and we believe that that strike was partially politically motivated, otherwise lecturers cannot troop out for six months. There were the terror attacks, we know Boko Haram predates this administration but immediately after the elections, I believe because of local and external factors, they became very vicious, extremely destructive, killing people and destroying properties.

“Even this last fuel scarcity, to me, one can clearly say it was an act of sabotage. This government has few days to go. That is definitely not the time you expect massive strikes, using marketers and unions, unions asking for increase in salaries at a time oil price have dropped and volumes have dropped.”