A legal luminary, Mallam Yusuf Ali SAN yesterday described the statement credited to President Muhammadu Buhari that judiciary remained his headache in the fight against corruption as unfair.

He said the president was not fair to the judiciary for passing such comment on the third arm of government. President Muhammadu Buhari had in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, said ongoing fight against corruption in Nigeria could be effectively tackled with the strong support of the judiciary.

President Muhammadu Buhari in a statement issued in Abuja by the president's Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina, said that Buhari stated this while speaking at a town hall meeting with Nigerians living in Ethiopia. The president said that far-reaching reforms of the judiciary remained a key priority for his administration, adding that "on the fight against corruption vis-a-vis the judiciary, Nigerians will be right to say that is my main headache for now".

Ali who spoke with The Herald in Ilorin yesterday said "the president's advisers should advise him that as the president of Nigeria, he must be careful in his comment because sometimes appearance may be more than reality. "I hope the president was misquoted and if he was not misquoted, he should not have said that".

The legal practitioner said "if the president could have said that about the judiciary, what would have been his comment about the executive which had been the root cause of the problem. "Does he think he can make judiciary accountable for the misdeed of the executive?"

Speaking on former President Olusegun Obasanjo's comment that President Muhammadu Buhari should begin his anti-corruption crusade with himself, the vice president, the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, before extending same to other Nigerians, Ali said he agreed with the ex-president.

Obasanjo who had described corruption as a ‘hydra-headed monster’ that must not be allowed to live, said the fight against the monster must begin from the apex of the power pyramid in the country. Ali said "90 percent allocation goes to the executive. So, they have no propensity in fighting corruption".