The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

  • NDDC: Covering up corruption

    NDDC: Covering up corruption

    Controversy about an unreleased forensic audit report marred the 25th anniversary celebration of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).  Interestingly, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Nyesom Wike had drawn attention to the yet-to-be-released report while making corruption-related allegations against the wife of a former minister of transportation under the Muhammadu Buhari administration, Rotimi Amaechi. He claimed she was linked to a company that allegedly received N4bn monthly from the NDDC supposedly for training women in the Niger Delta—totalling N48bn per year.  

    Wike, who spoke in a television interview on July 4, also alleged that implicated individuals in the previous administration blocked the report’s release. He urged President Bola Tinubu to “help Nigerians” by releasing the report.

    As if on cue, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), in a letter dated July 5, demanded that President Tinubu should order an investigation of the alleged blocking of the report’s release, stating, “your government has a constitutional responsibility to publish it and act upon its recommendations.” SERAP argued that “The continued failure to publish the audit report undermines public trust and confidence, particularly of victims of corruption in the Niger Delta who have waited far too long for justice and accountability.”

    The non-governmental and non-profit organisation, founded in Nigeria in 2004, “aims to use human rights law to encourage the government and others to address developmental and human rights challenges such as corruption, poverty, inequality and discrimination.”

    When ex-President Buhari, in October 2019, ordered a forensic audit of the agency’s operations from 2001 to 2019, the move suggested that his administration’s anti-corruption campaign had finally reached the NDDC. 

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    At the time, the Federal Government had lamented the “uncompleted and unverified development projects” in the region “in spite of the huge resources made available to uplift the living standards of the citizens.”

     The government had said there were “over 13,777 projects, the execution of which is substantially compromised,” even though the commission got “approximately N6tn” from “budgetary allocation” and “income from statutory and non-statutory sources,” from 2001 to 2019.

    The audit was reported to have started in April 2020.  The Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved a contract of N318m for the engagement of a lead consultant for the audit. It was curious that the exercise took well over a year.

    After a long delay, the Federal Government received the NDDC forensic audit report in September 2021. According to reports, among the recommendations, presented by the Lead Forensic Auditor, Tabir Ahmed, was that the NDDC should be made to operate within the limits of its annual budget and ensure that only projects budgeted for are awarded each fiscal year.

    The audit report also recommended that mobilisation payment be abolished, and the agency should employ project consultants to ensure accurate supervision and valuation of projects. Additionally, the report recommended that the agency should adopt a standard for costing contracts with appropriate profit margins.

     The Federal Government had said it “will apply the law to remedy the deficiencies outlined in the audit report as appropriate.” The government added: “This will include but not be limited to the initiation of criminal investigations, prosecution, recovery of funds not properly utilised for the public purposes for which they were meant for amongst others.” The goal is to improve the standard of living of the people of the Niger Delta “through the provision of adequate infrastructural and socio-economic development,” the government said.

    Four years later, it is unsurprising that the non-release and non-implementation of the audit report is an explosive issue.  After the tough talk of the Buhari administration, there is no sign that the Federal Government meant what it said.  It is unclear whether the delay in implementing the report is because those implicated in the underdevelopment of the Niger Delta are trying to prevent the government from taking action against them.

    The Tinubu administration needs to demonstrate that it is against the region’s underdevelopment by implementing the report.  There is no doubt that the NDDC, established in 2000 by the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration, has failed to develop the Niger Delta as expected.   Ironically, it is supposed to be a development agency, but has been identified as a major agent of underdevelopment in the oil-rich region. 

     For instance, SERAP’s letter said “The missing N6 trillion and over 13,000 abandoned projects in the Niger Delta have continued to have a negative impact on the human rights of Nigerians, undermining their access to basic public goods and services, such as education, healthcare, and regular and uninterrupted electricity supply.”

    The first commercial oil discovery in the country happened in Oloibiri in present-day Bayelsa State, in 1956; and the first oil field began production in 1958. More than six decades later, the story of underdevelopment in the Niger Delta is a continuing story.  Nigeria is a major producer of oil in Africa and the world. It is inexcusable that many communities in the region that produces the country’s oil wealth reflect not only a lack of prosperity but also perplexing poverty.

    Significantly, at an event to mark NDDC’s landmark 25th anniversary in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, on July 12, the Director of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, noted that “Over N7tn has been sunk into the NDDC since inception. How many solid roads have you built? The Niger Delta still ranks low on human development. A lot needs to be done to meet the aspirations of the people.”

    At the same ceremony, President Tinubu, represented by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), George Akume, described the Niger Delta as “the goose that lays the golden egg,” stating he had directed the NDDC “to complete and deliver abandoned critical projects” and “continue to prioritise human capital development.”

    It is puzzling that the Federal Government has not addressed the question of non-release and non-implementation of the NDDC forensic audit report, which is an issue of public interest. The government must not pretend to be unaware of the issue. It may be accused of covering up corruption. 

    In the context of releasing and implementing the audit report, the Federal Government must prosecute corruption suspects and recover the proceeds of corruption not only to ensure justice but also to achieve deterrence.

  • The squatters

    The squatters

    The gathering of the coalition of the wounded a few days ago resembles the 40 men who worked up a futile conspiracy against Apostle Paul on false charges and, other than false charges, they neither ate nor drank until he was killed, a waste of palate. They also laid a mockery of an ambush.

    These so-called new ADC men are not the types to neither eat or drink, although one of them made a public farce in fancy clothes by pleading hunger in a bash that cost tens of millions.

     Others among them relish their lavish dinner tables and even one of them has a Damocles of corruption hanging over his wife for billions of dollars without a month of  work. None of them would even fast except the mullah among them with a beard and a forked and profane tongue who is fattening on the image of a pariah.

    The hypocrisy bothers, but much more. It started with the squat figure among them who was shooed out of Kaduna like a bleating goat in a garden. He moved from the APC to the SDP, and asked all his fellow wounded whether with a sore head or broken knee to come over to a new place of refuge.

     He assumed a proprietary air until the owners of the land said he, an interloper, a squatter and the landlords had no place for him. He had no grassroots cred, no papers, no love.

    The habitual noisemaker turned voiceless and even meek.

    They all, the wounded, remained in limbo for days. They developed an independent spirit, and wanted a party of their own. They were not good at it as they formed a new party known as ADA, and they were at it until they discovered they had conjured up a copycat. They went back to their vomit. An existing party already had that signature. For a people trying to imitate the coalition formed by their foe and nemesis, they suffered from a bad case of caricature.

    Then suddenly, they all came together under the aegis of the ADC. All we saw was an assemblage of retirees. If El-Rufai left APC as a bleating goat, the new entrants of the ADC were bloated. Bloated as in bored with too much money and nothing else to do with their happy and delicious privileges.

    `They had hardly enjoyed their new home when the true owners, just like the SDP, told them they are squatters. They came with area boys’ swagger. They are banding together to take over another person’s property. If they are not bandits, what other word can describe them? They are the Bello Turji of today’s politics.

    They are all experienced politicians. But so far, they have shown that they do not know how to form a party. They do not know how to defect because some of them like Peter Obi have not left Labour Party. Bode George made that point of his PDP folks. They do not know how to take over a party. They are a pestilent lot.

    There is as yet no commitment to the party. Two of them, Rotimi Amaechi and Obi, gave notice that they were there because of their ambition so they announced their ambition ahead. His move to ADC is feint. He knows it will faint.

    So, Obi, who cannot leave his Obidient rabble in the lurch, is waiting for a takeover of his own. If they do not give him the ticket, just as PDP did not in 2022, he would return to his tent to embrace his crowd of hecklers. He cannot abandon them. They are his breath of life. He is just a squatter among squatters waiting to be a landlord, a self-indulgent opportunism. As for Amaechi, his hunger is a grudge match. He has nowhere to go but to bow to an inevitable crash.

    Atiku, the grand patron of defectors, has a bigger grudge than Amaechi. This is his last chance, and he is going to fight like a bear with a sore head. What we have in this new coalition are coalitions within a coalition. We have the Atiku crowd, the Obi crowd, the El-Rufai crowd and the Amaechi crowd.  When such  bacilli of ambitions coalesce, we can only wait for the end of the story. We are in the first act of an interesting drama, and the most important conflict is not their ambitions and party nominations. It is the prospect of a legal and ego turmoil that will end up like the Labour Party and PDP crises. Claims of conflicting legitimacy will splinter the organ, and everyone will realise that they are tenants of a tenant. Ralph Nwosu, a self-imposed place holder as ADC leader, will tell them, “I thought I was a landlord, but I cannot return your rent. Sorry.”

    The other issue though is that none of them has a big hold on their states or regions. Not David Mark, not El Rufai, who was shooed out, not Amaechi, who cannot hold 13 per cent of Rivers State, not Rauf Aregbesola, who can only fete Atiku to a protem breakfast, not Atiku, who has been dishonoured from a title.

    The bigger point of this so-called delusion is their claim that they are the rescuers of Nigeria.

     They are trying to play on our collective amnesia. They forget that we know all of them. This new group can be divided into two.

     The first are the Jonathan men. The second are the Buharists. These are the men who battled against each other just a few years ago. It shows us ideas have no traction in their action. The only outlier in the group is Atiku Abubakar, who has always been for everyone and for nobody.

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     For instance, was Amaechi not a Buharist? Of course, just like Malami, who  rose from fringe lawyer to attorney general. The Jonathan crowd is led by David Mark, who this time is going to show us how the poor can afford telephones.

    These two governments, Buhari and Jonathan, precipitated the crisis that the present government is trying to solve.

    The Jonathan era wasted the boon of oil and had no rubric for solving the security burden. They spent the nation into huge deficits and rolled the country into foreign exchange rut.

    The Buhari administration was a footloose amalgam of failed men like Malami, who ran the country into a spend-and-waste economy in which N30 trillion  and billions of naira in debt made the present government the real rescuer.

     Now, they want to turn the logic on its head. They committed the sin and they are calling themselves the saviour. The sinner and saviour in one breath. Jesus bore the sin without committing any. This is what made Jesus angry with the pharisees. He said they were a whited sepulchre full of dead men’s bones.

    What is happening with the coalition is a lack of reckoning, what Joseph Conrad describes as “the adventurer’s easy morality, the bravado of guilt.”

    They have committed the sin, and but are acting as though they are sinned against. They should act like real opposition and develop ideas. They have advanced nothing. What can they do better against insecurity? This administration has not solved it, but remarkable progress has been made with the dispatch of not a few bandit leaders.

    Azu Ishiekwene wrote a piece about travelling with a few editors to Zamfara. They feared the air they breathed, but they went to and fro unscathed.

    His prose was so tremulous he might have pondered on the faith that made them undertake the journey in the first place. How many bandits did Buhari eliminate, or Jonathan? The Benue and Plateau recent sparkles of death may have deviated from the progress but the facts speak for themselves in that, unlike in the past, the bandits are fighting for their lives in Niger and Katsina.  Boko Haram is also having a resurgence that is suffering quite a few bruises.

    The coalition should respond to the elimination of ways and means of N30 trillion and the billions of dollars debts. These were the burdens that these same men created in the years of the locusts.

    What they are playing is geriatric politics, the game of old men who know that the time of the end has come for their dreams. It reminds me of the chilling biography about Nazi holocaust titled: Cold Crematorium by Josef Debreczeni, perhaps the chilliest eyewitness account of that misbegotten time. He wrote of a part of the concentration camp where some people were alive but practically out of breath even though they were still alive. They were scrawny, wounded, slobbering, febrile, sterile, weak, and waiting for the grim reaper. Crematorium is hot by definition. But he called it cold because they did not need to go through the gas chamber to go.

    In the case of the coalition, time is their cold crematorium. In his prison memoirs, Soyinka called such fate slow lynching, the title he wanted to call his The Man Died. These men of different stripes in ADC are cobbled together by expired fantasies of power, and are waiting for their epitaph.

  • EFCC, Emenike tangle

    EFCC, Emenike tangle

    There is no question that Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has questions to answer concerning a property at 6 Aso Drive, Asokoro, Abuja, linked to former Petroleum Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke, which was forfeited to the Federal Government. Chief Ikechi Emenike, a former All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate in Abia State, who was a paying tenant at the property, accused the EFCC of “impunity and lawlessness,” saying it forcibly took possession of the house and disobeyed a court order to vacate the property.

    The property was forfeited to the Federal Government as part of assets linked to Alison-Madueke, who faces multiple corruption allegations. The EFCC secured an interim forfeiture order in 2016 and a final forfeiture order in October 2023.  Emenike, a tenant since 2014, was paying rent to the EFCC’s appointed manager.

    Emenike alleged the EFCC acted with “impunity and lawlessness” by evicting him and ignoring court orders. Justice Musa Liman of the Federal High Court, Abuja, ruled on May 16, 2025, that Emenike be allowed access to the property, and also voided an ex-parte eviction order obtained by the EFCC on March 27, 2025, reportedly citing misrepresentation and lack of jurisdiction. Emenike’s legal team further claimed the EFCC obstructed court bailiffs, prompting motions for contempt against EFCC Chairman Ola Olukoyede and counsel Francis Usani.

    However, the EFCC denies disobeying any court order, asserting that “the court granted an order of possession of the property to the Commission on March 27, 2025.  Justice Liman granted the order when the Commission submitted that the property was proceeds of an unlawful act by a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs Diezani Allison-Madueke, and forfeited to the government through an order of final forfeiture.”

    The anti-graft agency, on June 30, in a statement by its spokesperson, Dele Oyewale, also stated that “the Commission neither suppressed nor misrepresented any material fact before the court in securing an ex-parte order on March 27, 2025 to get a tenant in the house, Chief Ikechi Emenike to vacate the property.”  The agency acknowledged that “Emenike was paying rent on the property when it was under interim forfeiture.”

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    According to Emenike, when the EFCC advertised properties in Abuja, Lagos and Rivers states for auction in 2022, the agency had used the same Abuja property “as a poster.” He said: “I had a meeting with the former EFCC Chairman (Mr Bawa) on the need to grant me the Right of First Refusal. He agreed but promised that they will get back to me after reevaluating the property.

    “While I was waiting for the Right of First Refusal, EFCC suddenly decided against their own law to appropriate the property to their chairman.”

    Emenike protested and went to court. He said: “Justice Musa in a subsisting (unappealed judgement) gave me the Right of First Refusal and told the EFCC that they have no legal right to keep any forfeited property to themselves for whatever use. In the same judgement, he told them that the only option the law gave them was to sell the property and remit the proceeds to the Federal Government’s Single Treasury Account. He ruled that as a sitting tenant, EFCC should give me the Right of First Refusal.

    “EFCC has not appealed the judgement and has also refused to give me the Right of First Refusal.”

     The EFCC claims he “was economical with the truths contained in the judgement of Justice Musa of April 18, 2024 where he clearly stated that Emenike should be allowed to ‘exercise the right of first refusal for the purchase of the said property whenever the Defendant announces or otherwise indicates that the property is to be disposed of, the disposal however to be at the prevailing market price to be determined by the Defendant upon a detailed valuation report from a reputable quantity surveyor.’ “

     The agency’s spokesperson added: “Till date, the Commission has not announced or indicated any readiness for the disposal of the property.  Emenike’s right of first refusal can, therefore, not hold any water.” This argument is convenient, as it allows the EFCC to indefinitely defer Emenike’s right of first refusal without a clear disposal timeline.

    Critical and inevitable questions arise: Why is the agency not ready for the sale of the property? Why is it delaying the disposal of the house? Is it true, as Emenike alleged, that EFCC wants to keep the property for its own use? Even by its own account, based on the court judgement it cited, the lawful course of action is to allow Emenike to “exercise the right of first refusal for the purchase of the said property.”

    The EFCC also stated that “there is no subsisting contempt order on its Executive Chairman, Mr Ola Olukoyede or its counsel in the matter, Mr. Francis Usani.  There was no order of the court served on the EFCC’s boss or his lawyer.” It added that “there is a pending Stay of Execution of the order of the court on June 16, 2025.”

    Notably, in 2022 when the agency publicly listed requirements for participation in its auction of forfeited properties across the country, it said the exercise was “open to members of the public with the exception of individuals/corporate entities who have been/or are being prosecuted by the EFCC; Directors of such companies and employees of the EFCC.”  

    It also said: “Individuals occupying any of the properties listed may be given the Right of First Refusal provided they have a valid tenancy agreement; have paid rent up to date and complete an Expression of Interest (EOI) Form which can be downloaded from the EFCC website.”

    These conditions are favourable to Emenike.  But the EFCC has to list the property at 6 Aso Drive, Asokoro, for sale. It is unclear why the EFCC has not put the property up for sale.

    The EFCC, tasked with enforcing Nigeria’s economic and financial crimes laws, investigates suspects but now finds itself under scrutiny over its handling of a forfeited property at 6 Aso Drive, Asokoro, Abuja – a striking irony.

  • PDP: One step forward…

    PDP: One step forward…

    The optimism that followed the resolution of the rightful occupant of the office of the national secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP at its 100th National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting may after all, be short-lived. 

    Indications are that the decision to allow senator Samuel Anyanwu to act as the national secretary of the party may not be all it takes to end the lingering crisis in the PDP which for many years, straddled the political landscape like a colossus. Early signs of discomfort emerged when the southeast zone of the party while reacting to the decision of the NEC to recognise Anyanwu as the acting national secretary said they would take the decision home for a position on the matter.

    The zone has been insisting on the recognition of Sunday Udeh-Okoye as the authentic national secretary having been so nominated and presented to the NEC by it in keeping with the letters of the PDP constitution. They are yet to make their decision known as this was being put together. Before now, they had threatened to quit the party should Udeh-Okoye be denied that position. That threat has not been rescinded and may have informed the position of the zone to consult more on the ceding of the national secretary to Anyanwu.

    As if that development is not troubling enough, barely 24 hours after the PDP NEC’s decision to reinstate Anyanwu, key leaders of the party led by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar were publicly wooing party members and other Nigerians to join a coalition under a party that was to be unveiled the following day.

    The appeal was contained in a communique signed by David Mark, a former president of the senate after a PDP coalition meeting in Abuja attended by among others, former national chairman of the party, Uche Secondus, ex- governors Aminu Tambuwal, Liyel Imoke Babangida Aliyu and Sam Egwu. Others were Ben Obi, Josephine Anenih, Austin Akobundu and Kola Ologbondiyan.

    Curiously at a press conference addressed the next day by the acting national chairman of the PDP, Umar Damagun following what they called PDP National Working Committee meeting to consolidate the party unity after the reinstatement of Anyanwu as the national secretary, many of those that attended the coalition meeting sat with Damagun at the high table as he threatened consequences for members demarketing the party. Damagun had sought to use the meeting to shore up confidence that the crisis within the party has been finally resolved for good with members now speaking with one voice.

    Though David Mark was not at the meeting summoned by Damagun, he was to later officially announce his resignation from the PDP citing deepening internal divisions and leadership crises. Other coalition members who sat comfortably with Damagun, opted to hold their plans to their chests. But it is only a matter of time for their real plans to unfold. How this double dealing will fare for the overall unity, progress and stability of the PDP is a matter of conjecture.

    But Mark appeared to have set the tone for what is about to unfold when he said, “Deepening divisions, persistent leadership crises and irreconcilable differences have reduced the party to a shadow of its former self subjecting it to public ridicule”. Many of the key PDP leaders who attended both meetings share in Mark’s views regarding the current image of the PDP in the public space.

    Another evidence of festering schism is the conditions allegedly given to Anyanwu for his reinstatement. Anyanwu was reportedly asked to sign an undertaking that he would not victimise any of the staff of the party when he resumes duties before the decision to reinstate him was approved. That was not all, he was also asked to sign a guarantee that he would not obstruct the proceedings of the coming convention of the party billed for next month.

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    These conditions might appear simple but they highlight the deep-seated suspicion and mistrust within the party that could rupture any time soon. Before now, the PDP had witnessed a gale of defections with the switching of camps to the ruling APC by two of its governors, Sheriff Oborevwori of Delta State and Umoh Eno of Akwa Ibom State. The party has also cried out that the APC government is working to lure more of its governors into its fold.

    When this threat is paired with the fact that many of the PDP leaders and supporters are neck-deep in promoting the coalition which last week adopted the African Democratic Congress (ADC), the reality of the challenge begins to get more obvious. Mark who signed the communique urging the PDP members to join the coalition has officially resigned from the PDP to assume the position of acting national chairman of the ADC with Rauf Aregbesola, a former governor of Osun State and APC chieftain acting as the national secretary. The reality on the ground is that many leaders and members of the PDP are just waiting in the wings for events to unfold before they ditch the party.

    The leadership of the party knows this clearly and may be severely handicapped in wielding the big stick in spite of its threats that amount to nothing in the face of the inability to discipline members who had been covertly and overtly working for the ruling party.

    PDP has in recent years gone through series of crisis first, starting with events leading to the 2015 elections which saw massive switching of camps to the opposition that significantly contributed to its loss of that election. But efforts to put the party into form again, suffered serious reverses following the rancorous outcome of its presidential primaries before the 2023 general elections. The furore cantered around which section of the national divide should field the presidential candidate.

    That election saw some of the PDP governors working against the party in the 2023 polls. The division that emerged during that election has continued to shape events in the party since then. At the centre of it all, is power struggles for the control of the structures of the party. The attempt by Anyanwu to return to his post of national secretary after losing the governorship election in Imo State further polarised the party along the line.

    Unceasing dispute over the rightful occupant of the national secretary’s office has been the undoing of the party, leading to a series of litigations. Opposition to the return of Anyanwu as the national secretary is in part, located in his alleged loyalty to Nyesom Wike, the minister of the Federal Capital Territory FCT.

     Wike worked for the APC during the last presidential election and owes his             current office to that support. Many PDP leaders are not comfortable with him and fear that his control of the party may lead to its decapitation. Those who left the party in recent times cited the unceasing crisis and the damage to the image of the party.

    Even when the Supreme Court finally ruled on the disputed office of the national secretary, the judgment lent itself to varying interpretations. While Anyanwu claimed victory, the PDP relied on aspects of the ruling that affirmed the supremacy of the party over its internal affairs to hold that Udeh-Okoye who was duly nominated by the southeast zone of the party is the rightful occupant of that office.

    The apex court’s ruling was read differently by the contending parties and each position seemed right until the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC raised objections to a letter signed by Damagun informing the commission of party’s 100th NEC without the concurrent signature of the national secretary. In a subsequent meeting between INEC and the leadership of the party, their attention was drawn to the regulation requiring the signing of such letters by the chairman and secretary of the party and the inconsistency on who is the rightful occupant of that office.

    INEC read the Supreme Court’s ruling in favour of Anyanwu. And the PDP was left with no other option than to have him back in that office albeit temporarily or risk convening a convention whose proceedings could be declared illegal by the courts.

    But they do not still trust him. That was why he was asked to withdraw all cases in court and sign the undertaking that he will not obstruct the proceedings of the convention. One’s reading of the conditions is that those opposed to him still fear he could manipulate the lists of delegates to have a firm hold on the structures of the party or hand over the party to Wike.

    That is the fear. Whether the mere signing of an undertaking will stave off the manipulations that have overtime stifled internal democracy within the party is a matter of time.

  • Yahaya Bello’s image makers

    Yahaya Bello’s image makers

    Professionally, the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) should be crusading for accountability in public office, not conducting itself in a manner that suggests otherwise.  By giving an award to the immediate past governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello, who is facing corruption-related trials, the organisation exposed itself to charges of unprofessionalism.  Presenting the award to Bello as part of activities to mark the NUJ’s 70th anniversary calls into question the group’s sense of propriety and decency. It was absurdity and obscenity writ large.

    The award was presented on June 21 at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre, Abuja, where Bello was represented by Smart Adeyemi, former NUJ president and ex-senator for Kogi West, who received the plaque on his behalf. Adeyemi’s role was curious, considering that he had headed the NUJ and should have guided the current leadership on the issue. 

    The NUJ leadership said the award was to recognise Bello’s “outstanding contributions to the welfare of journalists.”  The organisers cited the GYB Annual Workshops, credited with training over 200 correspondents and editors for every edition. GYB stands for Governor Yahaya Bello.

    Bello, 50, a former two-term governor, is standing trial in two separate cases brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), involving alleged misappropriation, laundering and concealment of public funds totalling over N190 billion.

    The EFCC, which is charged with the responsibility of enforcing all economic and financial crimes laws in Nigeria, accused Bello of conspiring with others to divert over N80 billion in February 2016, some weeks after he assumed office as governor. He is also facing a 16-count charge of money laundering and criminal concealment of funds amounting to N110 billion. EFCC said some of the laundered funds were used to acquire upscale properties in Maitama, Abuja, including one allegedly purchased for N950 million, said to have been paid in cash, in US dollars.

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    In addition, the anti-graft agency claimed that over $500,000 was wired to foreign accounts to cover personal expenses such as tuition fees, alleging that other tranches were concealed through bureau de change transactions and fake invoicing schemes. According to another charge, N3.08 billion was hidden between 2021 and 2022, during his final years in office.

    Notably, in 2021, a Kogi-based group, the Anti-Corruption Network, had released a report accusing him of monumental corruption. The report alleged that the Bello administration had committed large-scale fraud, in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019, by awarding state contracts improperly, irregularities and conflicts of interest in awarding contracts, awarding contracts without due process, and money laundering.  At the time, the administration said the allegations were politically motivated

    Dramatically, for several months Bello had played hide-and-seek after the EFCC declared him wanted and launched a manhunt for him in connection with alleged money laundering.  He had earned the status of a fugitive following his mysterious escape from EFCC operatives who wanted to arrest him at his Abuja residence, on April 17, 2024, after obtaining an arrest warrant from the Federal High Court, Abuja.  His escape was reported to have been facilitated by a group of armed men identified as ‘Special Forces’ and some policemen, as well as the current governor of Kogi State, Usman Ododo. He remained at large until November 2024 when the EFCC confirmed his arrest and detention.

    Bello’s prosecution is ongoing and he has not been found guilty of the corruption charges. However, the NUJ’s award gives the impression of image laundering, which is bad for the group’s image. 

     Interestingly, when Bello turned 50 on June 18, President Bola Tinubu, in a congratulatory statement, commended his “historic emergence as the youngest democratically-elected governor in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic and his role in advancing youth participation in governance.”  He is a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and a former presidential aspirant. 

    More interestingly, a group of legal minds that included a retired Supreme Court justice and over a dozen Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SAN) published a birthday message to Bello in a newspaper, calling him “a remarkable public servant, impactful leader and inspirer.”

    Those who signed the message included Hon. Justice Abdu Aboki (JSC Retd), Chief Kanu Agabi (SAN), Professor Musa Yakubu (SAN, OFR), E. C. Ukala (SAN), Dr Alex A. Innyon (SAN, OFR), M. B. Adoka (CFR, SAN), B. A. M. Aliyu (SAN), Ibrahim Sanni Muhammed (SAN), Aliyu Saiki (SAN), Abdulwahab Muhammed (SAN), A. A. Adeniyi (SAN), M. Y. Abdullahi (SAN), Dayo Bello (SAN), Professor Marietu Tenuche and J. A. M. Ohiani.

    They noted his “remarkable achievements, respect for the rule of law and dedication to public service,” praised his “leadership with impactful service,” and added, “Your youthful energy, passion, and vision for a better tomorrow continue to impress, and inspire us all.”

    It bears repeating that Bello has not been convicted of corruption and is entitled to the positive perception, and even promotion, that he is enjoying in certain circles. However, his ongoing corruption cases should have discouraged the endorsements he received on his 50th birthday. Such flattering approbation works against the country’s fight against corruption. 

    The point is that until Bello is legally declared innocent of the corruption charges against him, those who see him differently should not try to impose their version of reality on the public. That amounts to image laundering, and suggests that they are image makers. 

    The argument that the corruption charges against Bello do not define his governorship years, and that there are several actions by his administration that point to good governance, misses the point.  This argument, offered by apologists, is a subtle defence of corruption and seeks to present circumstances in which political corruption can be accommodated.  

    Bello’s 50th birthday, which called for sobriety, reflection and self-examination, in the context of his legal travails, was turned into a celebratory occasion that undermined the anti-corruption fight.  

    If an ex-governor facing trial for mind-boggling alleged corruption can be enthusiastically celebrated as Bello was, without a sense of restraint and decency, it can be said that the country’s fight against corruption is unserious. In the circumstances, the celebration should have been done privately, not publicly, which was contemptuous of public opinion. 

  • Mangu: A wedding and a funeral

    Mangu: A wedding and a funeral

     The North Central is smouldering, and we must worry. The last tragedy was in Mangu area of Plateau State when travelling wedding guests were ambushed and 13 people died. According to eyewitness accounts, including survivors, it was a case of aggression by locals. They did not accept pleas for help but, monster-eyed, the locals killed one after another and set their bus ablaze.

    They were coming from neighbouring Kaduna State. They were there to be merry, to share in the kinship of wedlock and joy. They did not bear arms, they bore gifts. They did not know the neighbourhood but expected the locals to be neighbours. They were visitors but no strangers to the Nigerian community. They and the locals were fellow indigenes of the constitution. They may be Hausa-Fulani but they were Nigerians. If there was conflict with the Fulani neighbours, they were not there to swear but to sup. The locals spun the hour around, even though the guests were there for peace and food and drinks and laughter.  Seeing the guests, the locals did not want to guess.

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    Wedding suddenly became funerals. The kolanut, clothes and other presents suddenly became paraphernalia of tears. They redesigned wedding clothes with blood lines. Like Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet when arrangements turned suddenly from wedding to funerals, this is life imitating art.

    Governor Gabriel Mutfwang’s Mangu was not turbulent until he became chief executive. The story is often reported about onslaught of the Fulani, and reporters have not done well of reporting the other story. The wedding tragedy is just too gruesome to miss.

    One wonders whether the governor has had to meet with his predecessor Simon Lalong, who set a template that endured with relative peace when he was governor. I think we need to return to that drawing board to avoid more buses on the burner and guests aflame.

    Meanwhile, all those who committed the crime ought to be brought to justice.

  • Bibi the butcher

    Bibi the butcher

    Wars sometimes make illusions. In rumbles and pillages, once a bullet flies, there are no innocent parties. And that was the case in the last fight between Israel and Iran. Partisans took sides. Old Testament bigots rev up father Abraham. On the opposite end, it is Ibrahim. In the west, Trump trumpets a premature victory.

    But once the hostilities have settled, we discover sober fact about modern warfare. It is not by power or might. Nuclear weapons, or the most lethal B2 Bomber, does not assure victory laps and bouquets on the streets. Putin may have more power than Ukraine. It is spending billions of dollars, many young men’s blood and its future treasures just to gain a mile of Ukraine territory. It is not winning. Ukraine is not losing.

    In Gaza, concrete rubbles bury children alive. But Hamas is still alive in spite of Israel’s endless pounding. Trump bombs Iran, but even his intelligence’s best data doubt it is a success. In modern war, stealth aircraft works but not enough. Trained armies destroy but not enough. Intelligence is potent but data can fail. In the last analysis, it is about those who sponsor the war and what they want.

    There are three main actors in this battle. Trump, Bibi Netanyahu and Ayatollah Khamenei. Who was the winner? Wrong question. What was the winner? Corruption. Who was the sinner? Netanyahu. No one has bothered to ask whether America had an excuse to bomb Iran. It had none because, by Trump’s own admission, Iran was nowhere near a nuclear threat, and so military aggression was not urgent. Was the threat real? Yes. Was action necessary? Yes. Were they taking the actions? Yes. Was Iran cooperating? Of course not. But its hardiness was not commensurate with military escalation.

    Why did Bibi – no one calls him that fancy name these days – attack Iran? Was it because of the military threat? Not exactly. It was always so even when I was a child? Even when Isael knocked out Iraq’s nuclear reactor decades ago, no one thought of escalation, like Netanyahu today.

    So, what happened? Netanyahu wanted to save his head. He was mired deep in corruption charges, and he was on the verge of losing his job, facing a scandal of trial and going to jail. He did not want that. He tried a constitutional decoy. He made his cronies in the parliament take over the job of the Supreme Court so they could rid him of all corruption charges. It led to protests that dragged week after week. Many saw his cunning. He was playing conman with the law. Israel was near a stalemate. The man had no way out of his sleaze. Then January 7 massacre happened.

    Iranian-backed Hamas goons launched an attack on Israel during a concert, and they abducted many Israelis, raped their women and killed not a few. Bibi was livid. He saw his opportunity. No one thought about a petty scandal when the survival of the nation was in peril. He was ready to invoke the historic persecution of Jewry. It was time to invoke centuries of alienation, pogroms, gas chambers, of a vibrant and God-made people gearing for another era of contempt, and he promised that the jews, as always, would triumph. He might have been talking about the Jews but it was about how Bibi would triumph. He saw his excuse.

    He invoked America’s help, and he started his onslaught on Gaza. The thing is, Hamas is not innocent. They had given Bibi what he wanted. Hamas excited Iran. Bibi excited Jews. Both went to war in Gaza. That is the cynicism of war. The butchery has been going on for over a year, and Bibi says it should not end until Hamas is incinerated. But he knows that cannot happen, and he knows that is an excuse to keep his corruption charge out of sight so long as he gives the orders. But the public relations war in Gaza is not favouring him. The hungry children, the meaningless destructions. The media spotlight does not flatter him.

    His friend, Donald Trump, shares a common enemy, Iran. The leader, Ayattollah Khamenei is another hawk who is sponsoring death and destruction around the Middle East, including the Yemen. He has also supplied long-range missiles to buoy Russia’s dwindling stockpiles. He teams up with Trump to attack Iran, so as to give the world a blood spectacle. For Bibi, he has an excuse. Iran has forsworn the existence of Israel. It wants Israel wiped out of the face of the earth. It is more bluster than fact. Bibi knows it. For the ordinary citizen, it is a dog whistle.

    Israeli launches strikes. Iran strikes back. Israel damages critical military installations, dispatch dozens of high-powered military officers and threaten the life of the Ayatollah, who flees into hiding. His mystic charisma flees into hiding. But he comes out later and boasts victory. His missiles make mincemeat of Isreali neighbourhoods, beat its defence shield, and reminds Israel that they, too, are a power. Bibi tries to underplay Israeli barbarities by saying he aimed at military sites. Yet the numbers say about 600 Iranians die while less than 30 Israeli pass out.

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    Now, the real butcher is Bibi. He makes it seem he is the victim here. Trump stops the battle after Iran hits American base in a choreographed assault in which no harm is intended. An innocent attack. Iran has exhibited its mettle. It is a warning to America that Iran is no shrinking violet. Trump calls off the war. Bibi wants more blood. But America does not. Bibi is now in a bind. What does he do next? Cook up another conflict, another scenario where he can shout dog whistles so his people do not revive his corruption case.

    That is what bad leaders do to make the world after their own scandals. They see it as natural, which is what Hungarian Nobel Laureate Imre Kertesz narrates in his autobiographical novel Fatelessness about Nazi Concentration camp, especially Auschwitz, in which he makes a bold claim that he is happy inside the mindless butchery.  The sort of claim French philosopher and author of the Plague, Albert Camus makes when he says Sisyphus is happy. It is the irony when things get so bad you cannot cry anymore. You start to laugh.

    Men like Bibi forget that we once had World War II, and all of Europe fell into ruin and rubble. A new book, The Last Days of Budapest, by Adam Lebor, tells how one of Europe’s cultural hubs drips with blood and hate until swallowed up with entropy into a rump, a once-great metropolis of civilization. The philosophy of the absurd known as existentialism took over the world, with men like Kierkgaard, Sartre, Camus, Heidegger, et al, saw the world as void and meaningless. Hitler – one man – fomented that world. That is why a man like Bibi the butcher, must be watched. Historians must like this time with men like Trump, Putin, Khamenei, and others are sniffing blood. A small player like Bibi must be restrained from tempting the big players into a conflict that can burn up the world. A small man killed an arch Duke of Sarajevo to start the First World War. A fight over pepper started the 19th conflagration known as The Yoruba Wars. Bibi cannot be allowed to exploit the Old Testament for personal scores.

  • Deconstructing Benue killings

    Deconstructing Benue killings

    If the issues arising from President Bola Tinubu’s meeting with stakeholders in Makurdi are realistically followed up and addressed, the federal government may well be closer to finding lasting solutions to the unceasing killings in Benue and other states.

    The meeting which was part of the president’s interventions to restore peace in the troubled state followed the killing of about 200 innocent people penultimate week in Yelewata, Guma Local Government Area by militia herdsmen. Interestingly, the first shot on the seeming contradiction surrounding the killings was fired by the president himself.

    President Tinubu must have taken his audience by surprise when after establishing the purpose of his visit, he turned to the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun and asked, “How come no one has been arrested for committing the heinous crime in Yelewata. Inspector-General of Police, where are the arrests? The criminals must be arrested immediately”, he further ordered.

    The questions must have come against the background of an earlier order he gave security agencies to deploy to the state and arrest all perpetrators of the evil act on all sides of the conflict and prosecute them.

    Apparently unsatisfied with the progress in addressing the situation, the president further directed the Department of State Services (DSS) and the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) to intensify surveillance, gather actionable intelligence, and collaborate with local communities to apprehend the perpetrators.

    It is good a thing the president interrogated the security chiefs in the open on the arrests made of those behind the dastardly killings. That has been the recurring but unresolved puzzle in the cycle of violence unleashed by herdsmen across the country.

    The relative ease with which herdsmen terrorists kill, maim and despoil communities and disappear into the thin air without detection has over the years, fuelled feelings of a sinister agenda. Curiously, matters have not been helped by the serial inability of the security agencies either to prevent such attacks or arrest the culprits to face the raw teeth of the law. That seems to have emboldened the attackers in their constant recourse to lawlessness.

    However, the arrests that were gleefully announced by the Benue State Police Command were those of 14 suspects who allegedly hijacked the peaceful protests by some youths against the killings. The police said the suspects obstructed a roadway in Apir, in the outskirts of Makurdi, forcefully stopped a truck driver and set it ablaze with the driver trapped inside. It is in the line of duty of the police to apprehend suspected culprits of that infraction.

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    But the promptness with which those arrests were made pales in the face of the inability of security agencies to arrest those behind the Yelewata mayhem. The criminals who poured petrol on innocent old men, women and children while sleeping in their homes and set them ablaze ought to be cooling off in the cells of the security agencies to imbue some confidence in their capacity to protect lives and properties of all persons.

    Nothing of such is of public knowledge. That was the demand the president made of the security agencies and it goes without saying. By asking those probing questions, the president seemed to have set the tone for the resolution of the puzzles that shroud the invincibility of the herdsmen each time they kill, maim and despoil communities.

    The president’s questions sat well with well-meaning Nigerians who had sought genuine answers to the herdsmen insurgency that regularly operates with an air of invincibility, undetected. It is a serious challenge to the nation’s security architecture that criminal herdsmen have continued to defy intelligence, operating at will in different parts of the country without their cell busted.

    Now the president has spoken for Nigerians, hopes are high of something very positive being done. Arresting the culprits of the Benue mayhem is imperative to decode those behind the incessant attacks and killings by herdsmen in parts of the country often attributed to clashes over grazing lands. It is not for nothing that these attacks and killings follow the same predictable pattern.

    Arrest of the sponsors, enablers and foot soldiers of these attacks holds the ace to president Tinubu’s assurance to end the cycle of bloodshed in the state, restore peace and convert the tragedy to prosperity.

    Chairman of Benue State Council of Traditional Rulers and paramount ruler of Tiv, Prof. James Ayatse, threw up another troubling dimension to the killings that calls for serious attention. He told the audience that mischaracterising the violence as “herder-farmer clashes” only masked the true nature of the conflict.

    Hear him, “We have grave concerns about the misinformation and misrepresentation of the security crisis in Benue State. Your Excellency, it’s not herder-farmer clashes, it is not communal clashes; it’s not reprisal attacks or skirmishes.  It is this misinformation that has led to suggestions such as ‘remain tolerant, learn to live in peace with your neighbours’.

    “What we are dealing with here in Benue is a calculated, well-planned, full-scale genocide invasion and land grabbing campaign by herder terrorists and bandits which has been going on for decades and is worsening by the year”.

    Tor Tiv said wrong diagnosis of an ailment will always lead to wrong treatment and that they are dealing with something far more sinister and not just learning to live with your neighbour but dealing with the war. The paramount ruler may have been referring to an earlier statement by the presidency on the Benue killings.

    Special Adviser to the president on media and publicity, Bayo Onanuga had in a statement charged the state governor, Hyacinth Alia to among others, convene reconciliation meetings and dialogue among warring parties to end the incessant bloodshed and bring lasting peace and harmonious co-existence between farmers, herders and communities.

    Prof. Ayatse says these are not the real issues to contend with. He would want the president to have a proper reading of the situation for him to provide the right therapies to it.

    The presentation of the paramount ruler struck a common chord with the issues raised by a former minister of defence, Theophilus Danjuma when in March 2018, he accused the Armed Forces of aiding the ongoing killings in the country.

     He had said at the maiden convocation of Taraba State University that, “there is an attempt at ethnic cleansing in the state and of course in some riverine and rural communities in Nigeria. Our armed forces are not neutral. They collude with the armed bandits to kill people, kill Nigerians. The Armed Forces guide their movement. They cover them. If you are depending on the Armed Forces to stop the killings, you will all die one by one”.

    Danjuma insisted that the ethnic cleansing in Taraba State and other rural communities must stop, otherwise Somali will be a child’s play even as he called for self-defence.

    So, the issues raised by the traditional ruler are not entirely new; that they have persisted signposts the failure of the leadership to realistically to find closure to them. Sadly, the nation continues to pay the prize for inaction, acts of omission or commission.

    If a former minister of defence could go public with similar allegations about seven years ago, then the issues are damn serious and weighty. Danjuma spoke when Buhari, a former military head of state was in the saddle as civilian president.

    There is every reason to take Danjuma seriously especially in issues of this nature. The issue has again come into the public domain with President Tinubu in charge. The way he goes about it, will determine the level of progress or lack of it in finding durable solutions to the cycle of killings that has put the nation on edge.

    There are reports of the taking over and renaming of communities where militia herdsmen sacked the indigenous populations who now live in Internally Displaced Persons IDP camps in states most prone to the attacks. Independent but unconfirmed sources had it that about 150 communities sacked in Plateau State are now being occupied by the militia herdsmen with some of the communities already renamed.

    The issues are damn serious and complex. They have gone beyond the usual skirmishes between herders and their host communities. Expansionism and land grabbing are the leitmotif. It is vital to deconstruct the Benue narrative for better understanding of the issues involved.

    Even as daunting as the allegations of ethnic cleansing and genocide are, the first step to halting the scourge is to ensure that the criminals are not allowed to operate without consequences. It is the prime duty of the government to maintain law and order and protect lives and property.

    If the motivation and operational strategies of militia herdsmen are decoded, it will be difficult for them to attack, kill and maim without being apprehended. Then, the nation would have been on a sure path to consigning to the dust bin of history the cycle of bloodshed that is increasingly tilting it to the precipice.

  • A President and a comrade

    A President and a comrade

    One of the optics of the presidential sojourn last week was missed by the public and media, especially against the background of the June 12 remembrances. It was not his presence in Benue State, but in Kaduna State. It was the handshake between a president and a comrade. The day provided supernova episodes.

    Benue was anything but. Benue was ennui. With death and blood as backcloth, there was no other garment but sackcloth. Mourning is not what you wear, but what wears you down. President Bola Tinubu touched down in the state, and he walked to a hospital of those lucky not to be mourned but mourning as their home steers us to tears.

    Cries mingle with rage and revenge. Fear of the future is creepy with ambushes. Who is behind the slaughter? Why are they still breathing? Where did they come from? Who is sponsoring the carnage? Is it hegemony, genocide or revenge, or all? Is it ideological or an act of blind hatred? Or is it a mere show of barbarism by a horde of bigots? Or is the surge of bloodthirsty goons following what Poet Samuel Coleridge calls “purposeless malignity,” in his critique of Shakespeare’s Hamlet? What was the offence of the fellows at Yelewata, a name previously unknown to the cartography of slaughter? But blood chose to be the first to write its name and outline on map of the world and blur the pages of history? Time cradled it in its humble shadows until slaughter impaled it into a public glare.

    That was the backdrop to the president’s query to his service chiefs: Why has no one been arrested? It was a moment of rage. The bandits still lurk. The symbolism of the president’s visit is expected to ginger up the legitimate gunners against the goons in the forests.

    But sunshine fell the next day in Kaduna when President Tinubu warmed into Kaduna. His host, Uba Sani, the chief executive of Kaduna State, is often called Comrade by President Tinubu. A few days earlier, the president had conferred a June 12 honour on Governor Sani. Both were in the trenches.

    President Tinubu knew the face of tyranny. As a June 12 gladiator, he personified the gallantry, the hunger, fears and defiance of the fight for freedom. Abacha’s honchos trailed him in London and the US, after they failed to eliminate him in Lagos. He dreamed democracy and he dared the gun.

    They hounded and pounded him but failed to make him surrender. With M.K.O. Abiola locked away, he became a stout face of the struggle. He fought as a senator under the transition programme of Ibrahim Babangida.  I was the managing editor of the Concord Newspapers owned by Abiola, and I met Tinubu a number of times and reported some of his positions.

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    He kept the faith. Suddenly, he was out of sight, in detention, and at one time, the military men wanted to free Senator Abu Ibrahim, but Ibrahim would not leave the jail so long as Tinubu was still being held. The goons left Ibrahim with his friend.

    Eventually Tinubu left the country, and carried the battle to Europe and the United States, using his resources. In one of the parties held for him when he was bowing out as governor at the Muson Centre, Babafemi Ojudu – no senator then – pronounced in clear language: “When we talk of NADECO Abroad, Tinubu was the leader of the NADECO ABROAD. He was NADECO ABROAD.”

    He organized men and brought his resources to the fray. Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, at a party in Tinubu’s honour at Dr. Yemi Ogunbiyi’s house related a story he was to repeat at one of the Tinubu colloquiums.

    He said Tinubu wanted to import rice from South Korea so he could amass the proceeds for the June 12 fight. He wanted Soyinka to sign as a guarantor so as to bestow credibility on the contract. In his dramatic way, Soyinka said he signed his name and wrote Nobel laureate under.

    Governor Sani was a fighter of the stay-at-home order. He was with Gani Fawehinmi and others who fought here.

    He fought in the South and in the North. He was arrested, and some had wondered why he, a northerner, would delve into a Yoruba struggle when he could enjoy the comfort of a feudal patriarchy.

    Sani would none of that. He fought and he saw neither North nor South. He saw Nigeria. He was arrested quite a few times and suffered beatings and torture.

     He was with the Committee For the Defence of Human Rights, of which I was the founding secretary under Beko Ransome-Kuti.

     Uba Sani was a  warrior with the Campaign for Democracy. He studied engineering and business administration in Kaduna and the University of Calabar, where he bagged his master’s degree, a hint of his liberal and metropolitan spirit.

    In the wee hours, Abacha’s goons stormed his home and whisked him in his underwear into a van and zoomed off.

     No one knew who took him or where they were taking him. He might have disappeared, and in fact, he feared they might make him disappear that night.

     The van took him to a dingy jail of criminals, and there he remained underground, no contact with friends, relatives or members of the struggle until the Abacha regime fell. That was his saving grace.

    The president once praised him as a man who stood here at home to fight the bear – my words.

     So, when they met last week, memories conjoined.

     They both fought for this democracy, and Governor Sani’s efforts in the past two years is a way of telling the President this is evidence of why they escaped underground and almost went underground.

    The peace in Birnin Gwari and its cattle market are dividends of June 12 struggle. Some say, with a joy of exaggeration, that you could drive through that local government area at night with your eyes closed. The cattle market had disappeared for about a decade. The President recalled his visit to the place during the electoral campaigns in 2022, and it was as though they moved a battalion to the place.

    The skills acquisition centre has been one of the highlights of Sani’s rhetoric. He believes Kaduna should rise again as the hub of the North.

    It was one of the first thing he did. He also launched 100 CNG buses. It is a nod from an engineer governor.

    A lot could not come for mention during the trip. For this essayist, his great deed was financial management.

    He inherited a state with a pocket full of holes from a predecessor who is clutching at straws to defend his stewardship. Yet, within the two years, it has risen from the darkness and able to showcase quite a suite of achievements.

    The president is in a fight to save the economy at the centre and a comrade in his arms in Kaduna State, an uncle and his nephew in a kinship to defeat a common foe: poverty.  No two figures compel us in one photo moment as their meeting last week in a sunny state.

  • Rich but bored

    Rich but bored

    Oscar Wilde, one of the wittiest writers who ever touched the pen, wrote, “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay for greatness.”

     One must agree with the bard if we look at the new political contraption in town.

      It is mediocrity trying to pay for greatness. They call themselves All Democratic Alliance (ADA). They cannot live down the APC, the All Progressives Congress, even when they want to ape it.

     Begin with the name. They are so original that they begin their own party’s name with ALL.

     In order to look even more original, they swap progressives for Democratic. They must have sincerely struggled with a third name, since they have to have a third one like APC or PDP, so they look for a synonym for Congress, and they chose alliance.

    No doubt, they are an alliance, but an alliance of mock reality.

     They are an alliance of men who have been retired from politics. They are however bored, but they are rich, so they want to spend their money to titillate their fragile egos.

    What is David Mark looking for, and who is looking for him? Atiku was shunned at Ibadan by the governors of the PDP, so they have started their party with no state governor, no structure, but the patterns of their egocentric imaginations.When you imitate, you should make the imitated look like it is imitating you. That is what literary theorists call the anxiety of influence, and Harvard literary theorist Harold Bloom, who developed the idea, described it as “relentless wrestling with the greatest of the dead.”

     These men want sumo wrestling but they have no muscles. I will concede that they are overfed, but they are no sumo wrestlers from Japan. They are more like the shrunken tree outside Tokyo. They hate Tinubu so much that they must be like him.

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    These guys are funny. The exiguous El Rufai was shooed out of Kaduna.

    Amaechi hardly clinched more than 15 per cent of the votes after his second term, eons ago. Atiku is homeless and the others are jobless, although the Adamawa man denies he is part of it.

    Trouble in paradise? They are generals without an army. They have an unknown protem chairmen known as Akin Ricketts, don’t call him rickety please. And he is not small like crickets.

    They have plenty of money to spend on party offices, and I am sure they will pay their rents.

    They may not have to pay because some of them have properties they can loan until the project dies. They have money for logos, constitution, and campaigns and registrations.

    They will add to the Tinubu trillion-dollar economy. Imitation may have its benefits after all.

     In his book, The theory of the Leisure Class, Thorstein Veblen says the rich spend their excess money on leisure, hence we have country clubs, polo and golf sports, yachts, etc, so as to keep boredom at bay. Our ADA folks are embarking on malice as leisure. It is a peculiar Nigerian pastime.

    When they have lost though, and they have spent a lot of the money they have stashed away, maybe they can know how bitterness can eat up persons as Paul says in scripture.