Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has demanded that corrupt politicians be jailed for their misconduct, arguing that “thieves cannot provide just governance”.

On Thursday, the 87-year-old statesman spoke virtually at the memorial lecture of Denis Joseph Slattery, the late cleric, in Lagos.

In his speech titled ‘the imperative for moral rectitude in governance,’ Obasanjo said the most important demand of anybody involved in governance at any level is “accountability”.

He stressed that government officials with “questionable” integrity cannot make fair decisions for the greater good.

“If you look clinically at the people in government today at both executive and legislative levels, some of them should be permanently behind bars for their past misdemeanour and criminal misconduct,” said Obasanjo who served as Nigeria’s head of state from 1976 to 1979 and later as its president from 1999 to 2007.

“You cannot expect thieves to give good judgement in favour of the owner of the property.”

The Abeokuta-born politician also recalled his shocking experience with corruption, citing how a government official normalised criminal behaviour when confronted.

“The first thing that shocked me when I went into politics was the level of corruption of election officials which was taken as normal,” he said.

“The second was the level of general and criminal misbehaviour which was taken with levity and impunity.  We were at a meeting and a man lied and I confronted him, and the next thing he said is ‘It is all politics, Sir’.

“Every bad thing they do is passed on as politics which means politics has no room for morality, principles, rectitude, ethics, good character and attributes.”

Obasanjo added that Nigeria needs “transformational leaders rather than transactional leaders, truth instead of lies, honesty instead of dishonesty, integrity instead of disintegrity, hope instead of despair, production instead of deduction, inclusion instead of exclusion and marginalisation”.

The Slattery memorial lecture was organised by the Old Boys’ Association of St. Finbarr’s College at the Civic Centre in Victoria Island.

Slattery was an Irish-born missionary who sojourned to Ilawe-Ekiti, Nigeria in 1941. In 1943, he was posted to St. Gregory’s College, Obalende, Lagos, as a teacher and games master. Slattery founded St. Finbarr’s College in January 1956 as part of his mission in Nigeria.

He was also the pioneer chairman of the Nigerian Football Association and a founding member of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ).

He was honoured with the Order of the Niger (OON) by Obasanjo in 2001. He died in July 2003.

The memorial was attended by notable persons including Donald Duke, former governor of Cross River, ex-footballer Segun Odegbami, music producer ID Cabasa, and actor Patrick Doyle.