Presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), Omoyele Sowore, says if elected president in 2023, his administration will probe all financial misappropriation by past Nigerian rulers. 

“As President of Nigeria, I will probe and retrieve every penny stolen by past Nigerian rulers, those who’ve murdered innocents and deprived them of a bright future.

“If we could be retrieving money from dead and buried Sanni Abacha, we should retrieve from living legendary thieves,” Mr Sowore wrote via his Twitter page. 

The manifesto of Mr Sowore’s party, the AAC, boasts of an anti-corruption plan to block resource leakages and retrieve assets stolen by former political leaders and their proxies in multinational companies, as well as colonial repatriations. It also seeks to address “systemic corruption” and bring about a significant reduction in the cost of governance. 

Mr Sowore’s position on trying corrupt Nigerian leaders was reechoed on Saturday as presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, stated that he has no intention of retrieving public resources illegally stolen from state coffers.

“As for probing the past government, let me tell you: you see me argue that you can’t close your shop and be chasing thieves,” Mr Obi said while speaking with journalists shortly after revealing his vice presidential candidate Datti Baba-Ahmed at Transcorp Hilton on Friday.

“Those who only look at yesterday and today will miss tomorrow. God did not give us eyes at the back, mine is to look forward,” Mr Obi told journalists on Friday in Abuja, describing the exercise as forms of “victimisation” and “witch-hunt” that will not happen under his watch.

Mr Obi’s position may strengthen the opinion of individuals who have said that the LP is merely an appendage of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and will be unable to set the country on a different path in 2023.