Former president, Olusegun Obasanjo was present at a gathering in celebration of his 79th birthday on Saturday, March 5 during which several elite Nigerians extolled him.

While the many qualities of the former president brought him praise and admiration from the attendees of the gathering, Obasanjo had nothing nice to say about the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

In fact, he called the anti-graft agency a “toothless bull–dog.”

Obasanjo did a flashback of what the EFCC used to be under its pioneer chairman, Nuhu Ribadu and juxtaposed it with what the commission is today under Ibrahim Magu and was not impressed with the current state.

The former president called for measures to make the federal government’s war against corruption more effective to ensure that Nigerians are safe in the midst of a vast security threat.

He also pointed out that it is necessary to investigate why the anti-graft agency which was once feared because of its effectiveness during Obasanjo’s administration, has now become a toothless bulldog.

He said: “The good thing is that we all enjoyed the work and we all felt that we were contributing our own meaningful quota to the development of the country.”

“As all know, when Nuhu Ribadu was handling the EFCC, he handled it in such a way that people coined the saying that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of Ribadu.”

“And the thing you will ask is how did we go down, how did we lose that, how did we? Nuhu Ribadu is still here, he is still alive, the institution that we started together is still there, what made the institution to become a toothless bull dog.”

“We need to work things out so that we don’t take two steps forward, one step and three steps backward.”