President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday met with members of the national peace committee for the 2015 general election.
A member of the committee, Matthew Kukah, denied reports that former President Goodluck Jonathan reported Buhari to them for allegedly not abiding by the terms of the peace agreement signed before the elections.
Buhari met with the committee, led by Abdulsalami Abubakar, retired general and former head of state, behind closed doors at the presidential villa, Abuja.
Fielding questions from the media after the meeting, Kukah denied reports that Jonathan sought the intervention of the committee against Buhari in his probe of the former administration.
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He said: “Anybody is free to come to our committee but President Jonathan never by telephone or another means talked to the committee. We went to see him, but that is after we had already seen members of the political parties, members of the civil society, we planned to see the speaker because we couldn’t see him yesterday (Monday).
“This is a very planned series of intervention essentially just to hear out everybody and I think the good news is that Nigerians are committed to a new nation, they are committed to ensuring that the gains and blessings God has given us come to fruition.”
On why the intervention was necessary, Kukah said: “This is not an intervention. It is not a hearing out process. When we had election it was like a wedding now the reality of government, now is the marriage and people need to be encouraged . We need to reaffirm that this is our country and the only thing we can collectively be opposed to is injustice, iniquity, corruption and in that regard we all had one single conversation.
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“The president has also reaffirmed the need for this committee to continue, and the international community has very much welcomed the contributions of the committee. Essentially, we are not policing, but when the need arises, help to build confidence and in the process.”
He also spoke on the anti-corruption campaign of Buhari.
“It is not heating up the polity. In our conversation with President Jonathan and members of the parties, I don’t think any Nigerian is in favour of corruption or is against the president’s commitment to ensuring that we turn a new leaf. I think what we are concerned about is process, it is no longer a military regime and under our existing laws everybody is innocent until proven guilty,” he said.
”Again, our own commitment is not to intimidate or fight anybody, the former president’s commitment and what he did still remains spectacular and I think that President Buhari himself appreciates that. So our effort really is to make sure that the right thing is done.”
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Buhari and Jonathan signed peace pacts ahead of the March 28 presidential elections at the instance of the committee.
Those in attendance were Abubakar; Ayo Oritsejafor, president of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN); Sa’ad Abubakar, sultan of Sokoto; John Onaiyekan, former CAN president; Priscilla Kuye, former president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA); Nicholas Okoh, prelate of the Anglican church, and Ben Obi, former presidential adviser.
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