Oyedepo, Buhari’s Aide in war of words over corruption inde…As Nigeria’s ranking worsens under Buhari
By Ridwan Adekunle
The founder and President of the Living Faith Church, Bishop David Oyedepo and the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina are embroiled in a war of words over the spate of corruption in Nigeria.
Oyedepo had described Buhari’s government as the most wicked and corrupt in the history of Nigeria.
This is just as the corruption index ranking under the current administration, based on the Corruption Perception index, has greatly worsened as Nigeria moved from 149 to 154 among 180 countries.
Speaking during a church programme tagged, Special Prayer for The Nation on Monday, June 13, 2022, Oyedepo had lamented the deep suffering unleashed on Nigerians by official corruption.
According to the cleric, the Federal Government claimed to be fighting corruption, but its officials are very corrupt.
He said the N80 billion allegedly stolen by the Accountant-General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, would be enough to meet the demands of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
But in a tweet on Tuesday, Adesina said Bishop Oyedepo’s comments were borne out of his blind hatred for President Buhari.
The tweet reads, “The bishop at Ota can’t even get his facts right. Blinded by hatred for PMB, he says Auditor-General stole N80bn.
“Pity! He doesn’t know the difference between Accountant-General (only alleged) and Auditor-General. Like OBJ said long ago, we should begin to ordain our own bishops.”
Corruption Perception Index disfavours Buhari’s government
The country’s corruption perception index ranking has worsened, dropping from 149th to 154th place among 180 countries.
This was revealed by Transparency International’s (TI) Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI 2021).
Transparency International, the leading civil society organisation working to end corruption worldwide, released its CPI, showing 25 countries improved their ranking while 23 worsened, of which Nigeria is among the countries where corruption got worse.
Nigeria scored 24 out of 100 points in the 2021 index. The country had earlier scored 25 points to maintain the 149th position in the 2020 ranking.
Since President Muhammadu Buhari came on board in 2015, Nigeria has not fared better.
In 2015, Nigeria ranked 136th, 136th in 2016, 148th in 2017, 144th in 2018, 146th in 2019, and 149th in 2020.