LAGOS: It would be easy to believe that Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari is winning the war against corruption since his landmark election victory nearly a year ago.
Hardly a week goes by without the country's anti-graft agency announcing new arrests and investigations to add to the prominent politicians already in the dock.
But the longer the cases already brought to court drag on, the clearer it becomes that a potential setback could prevent Buhari from securing the convictions he has promised -- and Nigerians demand.
Call it "the Goodluck Jonathan alibi".
Even before the final election results were announced last March, Jonathan conceded defeat, accepting the inevitable that Nigerians had for the first time in the country's history ousted an incumbent president.
Then, in a strategy designed to keep the peace and avoid a renewed flare-up of election-linked violence, Buhari extended an olive branch to the ousted leader.
"President Jonathan has nothing to fear from me," he pledged in his acceptance speech, indicating he wanted to draw a line under the past.
Certainly, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has not implicated the former head of state in any of its ongoing investigations.
But his glaring absence is increasingly posing problems for state prosecutors as the preliminary stages of cases are heard in court and trials get under way.
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