This following piece, first published January 16, 2016, remains relevant today going by how some shameless people have begun gloating in hollow triumphalism following the tragic incident in Metele where Boko Haram insurgents killed scores of soldiers and injured many others. But for the failure of our judicial system and an anticorruption noise that is not helped by discomfiting political nuances, some of those whetting their mouths and dancing on the graves on the dead soldiers would, by now, be serving terms in our prisons. But since this is a country where one humongous corruption case wipes off the slimy details of another from our national consciousness, these characters regale in poking their bloody fingers on the faces of the government. And it is a shame really!
So, let’s remind ourselves of what today’s noisemakers did with the billions of dollars they had appropriated to buy arms and ammunition for the Military. Read on…..
The shocking revelations regarding how otherwise respectable citizens of this great nation callously dipped their ten fingers into the public till have continued to beat one’s imagination. By the time they pulled out their itchy fingers, funds meant to procure arms for the military in the fight against terror had disappeared. But for the change in government, would anyone have known the extent to which some persons can go in packaging deceit as the real deal? For, if we must say the truth, the little we have heard about the $2.1 billion (over N400bn at the time of the criminal act) arms deal scandal popularly known as Dasukigate should be a cause for concern to every rational mind. In fact, it should nudge us to the reality that no meaningful gain has been made from the ceaseless lip service that successive administrations have paid to the fight against graft. While some have said the latest effort by President Muhammadu Buhari to confront the menace headlong may end up as another circus show due to some extraneous political factors surrounding his emergence, it must be said that there is more to the fight than the puerile rant of a witch-hunt by some sections of the society. Is it not intriguing that not one out of the persons currently singing like canaries with broken beaks at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has denied collecting huge sums of money from the office of the former National Security Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan? I puke when I read sane minds trying to dribble round the real issue, mouthing nonsensical prattle about the need to give the accused some windows of escape in the name of rule of law.
Before we get things twisted, none of the persons under the investigative binoculars of the EFCC has been accused of spending part of the billions of naira legitimately raised to fund Jonathan’s second shot at the Presidency. In all honesty, we do not really give a hoot about how the billions raised by Professor Jerry Gana and Co at the launching of a campaign appeal fund was spent; it remains an entirely PDP affair. No, this is not about the N9 billion that the embattled spokesman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Olisa Metuh, said was shared among party members for campaigns, lobbying and patronage. It is more about how Dasuki converted 2.1 billion dollars fund appropriated for the purchase of arms to fight insurgency, to curry political favours for his principal while the military suffered collateral damage at the warfront. Lives were lost, limbs were broken, military personnel were court-martialled, jailed and even sentenced to death for declining to prosecute the war with antediluvian weapons while all shades of politicians thronged Dasuki’s office to take from the booty. That, to my fertile mind, is the shame in the Dasukigate saga.
Aside the ludicrous subheads through which funds were unimaginatively siphoned, it is imperative to note that the fraud remains a monumental disgrace to common sense. How could anyone have imagined that he would walk free after hauling about N5bn from the fund for some nebulous ‘spiritual’ prayers? They must have thought that none of us would wear our thinking cap right if the news were to filter out that a media mogul cupped N2.1bn from the bazaar for a so-called media packaging for Jonathan with the scandalous alibi that the deal was sealed under the nose of the former President in Aso Rock. Even the media know that something wasn’t just right about the N670m collected through a personal account of another media influencer in the print media. What no one can ignore is the fact that many hands had already been sullied by the putrid stench before the spirited attempts at image laundering which came a tad too late.
Having said that, it beggars belief that some individuals, up to this present moment, are still trying to play the victim in a scandal that has seriously deflated whatever ego they were wearing on their padded shoulders. They want to smell like sweet-scented roses after taking a swim in the cesspit of graft. Among this group is the self-acclaimed Yoruba leader, Chief Olu Falae who was so sure that the entire Yoruba race would have gone to war if he had died in the hands of some Fulani miscreants who kidnapped him some months back. Perhaps the N100m he got from the Dasuki loot, ostensibly to package Yoruba votes for Jonathan through his Social Democratic Party must have fired that bloated self-estimation of his worth. But then, we cannot really blame Falae for that cheap blackmail and his truculent, if not petty, argument that there was no basis for returning any money to government’s coffers since it was paid by Chief Anthony Anenih (of blessed memory) on behalf of the PDP. We place the blame directly at the doorstep of a government led by a President who did not give a damn about the murderous rape of the national till as long as he realised his second term ambition. If not, how would anyone have thought that the insignificant jesters in the SDP or even the Senator Rasheed Ladoja-led Accord Party would have influenced the minds of millions of voters in the South-West to vote against their conscience? They must have thought that the Yoruba are that hungry for crumbs! Now they know better.
Of course, the deployment of questionable funds to curry political patronage is not peculiar to the Jonathan government. In truth, it is a key element in the Nigerian political lexicon. It is a tradition that dates back in time. What is novel under Jonathan was the desperation with which they depleted the national treasury to pursue a personal agenda. At the drop of a hat, funds running into billions of naira were released to all manner of characters to fix the most benumbing issues. All shades of incredible associations were hastily registered at the Corporate Affairs Commission, to draw money from the bazaar template in Dasuki’s office. I just wonder if those who argue that Dasuki operated within the bounds of the responsibilities of a National Security Adviser had taken a reflective glance at the list of firms that drew lucre from that office. It was, to say the least; pathetic that such devious larceny received the nod of the highest office in the land. That was political patronage at its ridiculous best!
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