The Nation Newspaper

Category: Yomi Odunuga

  • There we go again…

    STRANGELY, everyone seems to be cool with the ease with which the simplest things often get enrobed in webs of controversy. Nothing is as simple as they initially appear. Pitifully, we have succeeded in raising a generation of hardened cynics, sheer doubters and conspiracy theorists who have their own peculiar way of perceiving official pronouncements. Worse still, on the flip side lies the fawning band of praise-singers that hardly interrogate the issues before jumping into the fray, barking inanities against whomever dares their sentimentally-chosen sacred grounds. In the real sense of it, extremists from both sides of the divide have taken over the space and buoyed by the power and extensive reach of the social media, they have relegated commonsense to the fringes. Indeed, commonsense is on a long break.

    This, I must admit, is not helped by a governance style whose main operating code is hinged on an unwritten mantra of official secret act. Add to that a bureaucracy with a high reputation for mischief and you have the full template for the needless confusion that has gripped the land. I doubt whether there is any other place in the world where a deep-seated feeling of mutual suspicion between the government and governed is a notch higher than what obtains presently in Nigeria. Evidence of this abounds in our socio-political life and it is not about to fizzle out that soon, going by recent developments in the polity.

    Take, for example, the news on the freed Chibok girls. Ordinarily, one would have thought that the release of additional 82 out of the over 200 girls that were abducted from a secondary school in Chibok, Borno State, by the Boko Haram terrorists some three years back should ignite some spasms of rhapsodic ecstasy across the length and breadth of Nigeria as it was in other parts of the world. Unfortunately, that was not the case. It is clear that an enraged gang of sadists that finds it difficult to forgive President Muhammadu Buhari and his team for the electoral victory of 2015 is bent on stopping the party before it begins. Among this set of people are those who would swear on their grandparents’ graves that the Chibok story was a fabricated tale ingeniously raked up to ensure the defeat of former President Goodluck Jonathan by powerful forces in the North.

    They wonder why some well-fed, Hausa-speaking young ladies, allegedly in captivity in rocky Sambisa fortress inhabited by cold-blooded Islamic fundamentalists, should be paraded as the victims of Chibok. They snidely plead with the authorities to kindly release the remaining 131 girls like the 21 that regained their freedom late last year following a swap deal. They would go on to suggest that the freed girls (well, some came looked like women) were mere pawns in a complicated political chess-game aimed at changing the narrative from the President’s failing health to something more worthy of riveting attention.

    Some even conclude that Chibok was a hoax in which hired professional criers got paid to pose as the traumatised parents of girls whose abduction only exist in the warped imaginations of those who wrote the script! It is sickening when the picture becomes clearer that people embark on this route simply to score cheap political points. No matter how we look at it, Chibok was, and still remains, a national embarrassment of global ramifications.

    That it ever happened stamped a big imprimatur of failure on the Jonathan presidency. Above all things, it threw a big question mark on our collective humanity and stretched the elasticity of our dumb resort to fate and faith in the midst of our groaning ineptitude. Yes, the bloodsucking terrorists were brazenly callous in invading the school, adducting the girls and smoldering it until the burnt carcasses emerged from the raging plume of smoke.

    Yes, Abubakar Shekau did have his moment of blissful madness when he lined up some of the girls to gloat about his latest assault on the Nigerian nation in a video recording that went viral with his threat to marry off or sell off the girls in accordance to his own brand of Islam. But the question remains: what did the Jonathan government do to forestall what has turned out to be three years of grief, anguish and trauma for the parents of these girls? If an outrageously enraged few among us have not reawakened the consciousness of the docile millions, would the Chibok narrative not have ended like many other countless tales of deaths and sorrows that went unreported? Today, those who kept the debate on the front burner of national discourse like Oby Ezekwesili and Aisha Yesufu, have been called names and denigrated just for asking the government to stop sleeping on their hands while the girls waste away in the hands of their captives. It is quite difficult to imagine all the terrible things that could have happened to the girls wherever they may be.

    That the Bring Back Our Girls group remained resolute in their demands is a testimonial to the fact that good people can still stand up to be counted in this jungle of mischief? Would those conspiracy theorists, doubters and peddlers unfounded rumours on the cyberspace have preferred eternal damnation for these victims of terror instead of the swap deal that has rekindled hope for the other parents, who await a likely return of their children someday? How, on earth, did they come about the perverted idea that the ruling party hatched the plot just to grab power by any means possible? And even if that was the case, what exactly did the Jonathan administration do to thwart the senseless act beyond the huffing and puffing that ripped the soul of the nation? Must we reduce everything to bread and butter politics to the point of twisting the truth on its neck? Like I once noted, those who doubted that Chibok happened in modern-day Nigeria could as well brush off the tragic impulses that the Boko Haram menace inflicted on our nation before the insurgents were pushed back to the rocky plains of Borno State. If they deny Chibok, they should also question Buni Yadi, Yobe State, where scores of students were either slaughtered or burnt alive in their school dormitories by the same savages. Maybe they would also dismiss the twin bomb blast in Nyanya, Abuja as a mere propaganda to whip up sentiments against the Jonathan government. There was also Kano with hundreds of fatalities still fresh in our minds.

    There have been countless suicide bombings that one wonders why anyone would put the abduction in Chibok beyond a group that romances violence with glee. Where is the empathy that these ones should naturally feel not only for the girls but also for their relatives? What sense does it make to turn logic on its head just to prove a point that nothing good can come out of the Buhari administration? And what manner of person gets a kick from the perpetual suffering of innocent victims of terror? In short, when did we become this sadistically unfeeling towards our fellow human beings? When did we throw decorum and caution to the winds in the name of playing politics of bile and hatred? It is the same feeling of mutual suspicion, conspiracy and mischief that played out on the floor of the Senate on Tuesday when the its President, Bukola Saraki, read Buhari’s letter transmitting power to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, so that Buhari can attend to his failing health in London.

    But for Saraki’s wisdom, a simple procedural issue of constitutionality would have been turned into another round of farcical drama on the floor of the Senate–a rowdy session where members would set ego on rampage over nothing. I shudder when I read that Senator Mao Ohuabunwa queried the ambiguity in Buhari’s letter for daring to note that Osinbajo would ‘coordinate the activities of the government” while he would be away for unspecified number of days. Regardless of the fact that Buhari quoted Section 145 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) which specifically spells out how and when the President should transmit power to his deputy, Ohuabunwa read a vicious, invidious and surreptitious plot to denigrate the office of the Vice President and make him a sitting duck in office during Buhari’s absence. His reasons? He said the letter, as couched by Buhari, “really does not convey anything because coordinating has no space or any place in our constitution”, adding with senatorial impertinence that, “ we have been having letters like this and you tell us who is the acting president and we know who to deal with as a Senate. This is the highest legislative body of the country and if you are sending us letter it should be direct and unambiguous. So, I am saying that this letter for me is not right and maybe should be sent back.”

    Ambiguity? What ambiguity? If Ohuabunwa and his colleagues who raked up an infantile allusion of a palace coup against Osinbajo were not up to some cruel mischief, they would have stuck to the provisions of Section 145 of the Nigerian Constitution and save the country another round of hollow verbiage. In clear terms, the section reads: “Whenever the President transmits to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives a written declaration that he is proceeding on vacation or that he is otherwise unable to discharge the functions of his office, until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary such functions shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.”

    This is what the law says and that should have settled the matter instead of raising dust over Buhari’s somewhat self-indulgent addendum that his deputy would now be the chief coordinator of the activities of government. What else would he have been doing before? In any case, there was nowhere in the letter that Buhari tags Osinbajo as Coordinator of the Government just like he never addressed him as Acting President in his January 17 letter when he travelled on medical vacation to the United Kingdom.

    He only said the “Vice President will perform the function of my office.” And what, by the way, is the function of the office of the President if not to coordinate the activities of government? Or did Buhari say he would equally be coordinating the activities of government from his sick bed in London? Did he not transmit the letter as required or was the Senate in any way hamstrung from performing its responsibility regarding the matter? Well, on this one, Saraki should be commended for putting an end to the gathering storm before it transforms into a tornado of endless inanities. The Senate, I believe, can do its job without festering the fertile imagination of a so-called cabal in The Presidency to “exploit the loophole” in a letter that empowers the Acting President to coordinate the activities of government.” We shouldn’t just go there please!

  • ‘FeBuhari 2015’ and its discontents

    FORMER President Goodluck Jonathan was dead right when he said that Olusegun Adeniyi’s book, “Against the run of play” is only one out of the many books that would be written on the political undercurrents that made the 2015 general elections in Nigeria a watershed. Well, it is not as if our occasionally aborted political trajectory is not without a number of such. Let’s just say that 2015 was uniquely outstanding. For, if we must say the truth, the outcome shocked not just the losers in that contest but also stultified the winners even in their moment of unbelievable triumph. And so, Adeniyi’s timely intervention can only serve as an encouragement for others to unveil other hidden perspectives of an electoral contest that redefined the limitations of the power of incumbency.

    It was one election that rubbished the supremacy of humongous war chest of mint notes over the power of the voter’s thumb. I could still picture the dignified equanimity that Jonathan displayed when he put a call through to then President-elect Muhammadu Buhari, to congratulate him for emerging the winner in a contest that almost tore apart the soul of the country and questioned the unity in our diversity. That it ended well does not put an end to interrogating the discontents and aftershocks which still reverberate up to this present moment.

    Two years after the phenomenal happenstances that thrust Buhari back into reckoning after three failed attempts, not much has been written about how those who warmly welcomed Jonathan to the seat of power in 2011 suddenly became his staunch antagonists in the runoff to the 2015 poll.

    How did those who swore on their grandfathers’ graves that a Buhari presidency was utterly unthinkable in a democratic dispensation did a 360-degree turnaround to embrace the rejected stone? What was it that made hurricane Buhari deliver such a devastating blow on Jonathan’s second term ambition? Surely, ‘Against the run of play’ merely scratched the surface in Adeniyi’s interaction with some persons that played leading roles in that period, including Jonathan who listed names of those that ‘betrayed’ him and ensured his ouster. Snippets from the book show that these persons also hit back at Jonathan in equal measure with revelations about how he rebuffed candid advice that could have saved him from a fall that was softened with the ‘heroic’ pliancy he threw in the towel.

    Though that was the narrative then, the story has definitely changed today. Jonathan is no longer keeping calm having come to grips with certain realities. In his reaction to the flaks he received following his accounts of what transpired, it has become imperative for Jonathan to tell his own story. Surely, it is not enough to blame the electoral umpire; your party chairman and all manners of political associates for your inglorious defeat without telling us what he did when he realised he was being set up for roasting. Jonathan may wear the countenance of a meek and gentle leader but he is not, by any shade of imagination, stupid.

    The test of his strength of character could be gleaned from the way he adroitly piloted the ship of state at a time when the deadly political games we play here were threatening to consume him. Yet, like every other human being, he has his weaknesses. No doubt, many of those fawning acolytes around him lapped on these visible weaknesses for personal gains. What he lacked, I assume, was the will to wield the big stick and the collateral damage of that delay was the outcome of an election in which he had the cake and the knife but didn’t even have the luxury of a memorable bite! Personally, I believe Jonathan when he described the details contained in Adeniyi’s book as a buffet of “many distorted claims on the 2015 presidential elections by many of the respondents”, adding with refreshing relish that “at the right time, the main characters in the elections including myself will come out with a true account of what transpired either in major interviews or books”. Now, if I do not doubt him on the claims of distortions, character assassinations and shameless twist of the tale, I guess I should equally take it, as the gospel truth, the official versions of President Buhari’s health spluttering from The Presidency including that of his beloved wife, Aisha, who has assured that Oga’s health challenges were not as serious as we think. They say there was no cause for any anxiety even when he has only been making cameo appearances in the last two months! By the way, getting to the truth wouldn’t have been that difficult if those in The Presidency would stop seeing themselves as a band of cultists.

    The Presidency needs to be more open and transparent. There are too many dark secrets hovering round the seat of power and tormenting the souls of its inhabitants. Our democracy will never grow if we continue to worship our leaders and treat them as demi gods. That was how Obasanjo became terror in power. That was how a sick Umaru Yar’Adua’s name was wielded by the cabal to hold the entire nation to ransom. That was how they venerated Jonathan until they pushed him dow the cliff. Sadly, we are already seeing the same pattern in the controversies surrounding the President’s health.

    We are not even sure what or who to believe again with the cacophony of disjointed voices claiming to be speaking for the poor man. Be that as it may, it would be interesting to read how Jonathan would react to allegations made by some respondents in Adeniyi’s book that he adamantly ignored candid advice from the voices of reason because he was held hostage by the powerful cabal in his kitchen cabinet. In fact, former President Olusegun Obasanjo said he did not only elevate nepotism and sheer cronyism to the status of official state policy.

    He said Jonathan refused to act even when it was glaringly clear that some of his subordinates were becoming more powerful than their principal. And so, he came out as a stooge in power. Could that be the reason for Buhari’s meteoric rise in few months to the election or could it be more of the grand conspiracy Jonathan spoke about in his short interview with Adeniyi in the book? The critical point that one can take away from the Buhari victory was the fact that it was propelled by Jonathan’s friends turned enemies both within and without. The sheer incompetence and cluelessness on display at that period escalated the search for any other candidate but Jonathan.

    That was what Obasanjo was driving at even if he had his own personal grudge against Jonathan. We would also need to know if Jonathan took any action when Senator David Mark warned him about a gang-up to ensure his political downfall by the pretentious forces around him.

    Did he, for example, make any conscious effort to dissuade the five governors that defected from his party to join the then opposition All Progressives Congress? What role did he play in the crisis that engulfed the Nigerian Governors Forum, which eventually led to its split? What particular steps did he take in ensuring that the rift between his beloved wife, Patience, and former Governor Rotimi Amaechi did not become full blown war of attrition which eventually affected his political fortunes? Did he truly visit Obasanjo in company with two powerful religious leaders in the South-West to sway a renewed support for his second term ambition? What proof does he have to show that Prof. Attahiru Jega worked with the opposition to truncate what he had thought was an assured victory? Could it be true that billions of naira grew wings from the national treasury and deployed to influence the outcome of the election? If so, how many of those hefty withdrawals got his approval? Questions and many questions are waiting to be answered not just by Jonathan but also by the principal actors in that controversial election. No doubt, Jonathan has lent credence to that controversy with the allusion to his suspicion of betrayal and high-wired plot to unfairly rout him out of Aso Rock.

    That he accepted the loss with a somewhat genteel temperament has not erased that feeling of bitterness going by what he said in ‘Against the run of play.”With his position, he must have accessed some hidden truths about what happened and that must have informed his unequivocal declaration of distortions of historical facts by those who ought to come clean on the role they played in the defeat of Nigeria’s first President from a minority oil-producing South- South. Why did the magic of 2011 become impossible in 2015 even when the candidates were the same with one having a firm grip on power and an almost endless capacity to distribute political freebies at the whim? In short, what were the discontents that swayed the pendulum to favour a man that was described as a misfit in a democratic setting? Those are the questions that await answers in Jonathan’s yetto- be-unveiled book(s) and that of many others. We just hope we would not have to wait too long before these many shades of fact begin to unfold. Or would we?

  • And they feast on our human tragedies

    The suspension of Mr. Babachir Lawal as Secretary to the Federal Government of the Federation came four months after the publication of this piece on December 24, 2017. When Lawal arrogantly and dismissively his suspension with now famous “who is The Presidency?” rant, it was in line with same malignant stupidity he exhibited when reacting to his initial indictment by the Senate. Now that ‘The Presidency” seems to have cut his oversized Babariga, I hope those who think they are above the law would learn one or two lessons about the transience of power from the fall of the government’s scribe no matter how temporary his ouster may be. Notwithstanding the four-month, the piece remains relevant todays and it should serve as a reminder to Lawal in case he has forgotten when the shoes began to pinch him. Read on….

    It is that time of the year when Christians all over the world feast and celebrate the birth of Christ, the reason for the season. But, interestingly and just like it happened last year, not many people are in celebratory mood in the country. If anything, they just appreciate the grace of being alive in a year that has consumed many lives in mysterious circumstances. As I write this, many civil servants, their families and dependents are faced with the reality of a bleak Christmas. Their stories may not even change going into the New Year as the governments, both in the states, local and federal, owe some categories of staff backlog of salaries. The lucky ones, who get paid as and when due, face immense pressure with demands from loved ones who simply desire to have some food on the table. The story has been the same for the second year running in the life of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration that promises to etch a permanent smile on the faces of a people that have been traumatised in countless years of hope deferred. The tragic irony is that no one knows if this harvest of firm grip on grim hope would ever stop especially with the salacious, shameless and ego deflating tales coming from the government’s inner room.

    The latest of those sorry tales is the allegation that no less a personality than the government’s Number One ombudsman and an unabashed advocate for the naming and shaming of corrupt public officials, Mr. Babachir Lawal, has his ten fingers soaked in the bloody rivers of corruption. Of course, one wouldn’t have bothered if the allegation had been made by any of those innocuous civil society groups masquerading as social crusaders. I am equally sure that the matter wouldn’t have generated the furore it attracted if the lawmakers at the upper legislative chamber of the land had not asked Lawal to ‘step down’ and defend his integrity in the court of public opinion.

    It is also not impossible that Lawal wouldn’t have come out threatening fire and brimstone over an allegation he has described as ‘balderdash and absolutely nonsense’ had he been put to the stakes by an unknown quantity in the public space. But when senators gang up against you on any matter, it is definitely not a time to keep calm. By the way, let me state that I do not have any problem with the egotistical rant by the President of the Senate, Dr. Bukola Saraki who seized the opportunity to paint Buhari as a humbled leader desperately seeking rapprochement with an estranged Senate. We must understand it was Saraki’s time to exhale. And didn’t he do it so well in his seemingly audacious condemnation of Lawal’s denigration of the duties and responsibilities of the emperors in the hallowed chambers? Even if Buhari is petulantly outraged, that anger should be unleashed on Lawal who, through his indiscretion, provided a veritable platform for Saraki to bleat and gloat with relish.

    For, if we must say the truth, Saraki was right when he juxtaposed the indignant heresy of Lawal’s posture against the distinguished lawmakers to Buhari’s recent plea for cooperation and understanding. Having been smitten several times with the rejection of some of his proposals including the outright refusal to approve the nomination of Ibrahim Magu as Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Lawal’s ‘indictment’ by the Senator Shehu Sani led Ad-hoc Committee on Mounting Humanitarian Crisis in the North-East is, no doubt, an added burden on the shoulders of a traumatised Presidency.

    Yet, this piece is not about those who have seized the opportunity to gain political mileage from the horrifying imprudence of one of Buhari’s trusted men. It is more about the despicable act of feasting on the nation’s worsening humanitarian crisis by mostly privileged Nigerians. For those who have not read the interim report submitted by the 11-man committee including Senator Oluremi Tinubu, the report is not just about how Lawal allegedly awarded questionable land clearing contracts worth over N200 million to a firm in which he was a sole signatory to the accounts even as a retired ‘Director’ following his appointments as SGF.

    Those questioning the rationale behind the focus on the SGF’s firm miss the point. When you take up the image of a vociferous voice of an administration that vows to wrestle corruption to a pin fall, you do not give any room for those you are fighting to tar you with the brush of the poster boy for corrosive corruption. Unfortunately, that is the unflattering position Babachir has found himself by allowing a company with interest in information and communication technology to be involved in a multi-million naira contract for the ‘removal of invasive plant species in Komadugu, Yobe Water Channels.’

    How, we ask, does this white elephant project help alleviate the abject nay crying poverty afflicting the over 5 million Internally Displaced Persons in this region? Why waste such money, precisely N223m according to the findings of the committee, when some of the strong members of the IDPs would have done the job for lesser fees as a form of empowerment? And why should the contract go to a firm in which Babachir has interest if what was at play was nothing but banal cronyism? We may not understand the damage this form of attitude has wrought on the psyche of the vulnerable persons in those camps if we continue to focus on the politics of an indictment of one powerful individual in Buhari’s government.

    In its report, the committee noted, among others, that ‘there is hunger, diseases, squalor, deprivation and want amongst the IDPs; that there was vivid absence of the Federal Ministry of Health in all camps visited; that despite the claim by some Federal government agencies to the effect that huge sum of money is being spent on IDPs in the North East, what is on the ground as seen by the Committee does not justify/reflect the claims; and that all contracts from the Presidential Initiative on North East (PINE) were awarded under the principle of emergency situation as stipulated in Section 43 (i) & (ii) but with absolute disregard to Sub-section (iii) & (iv) of the same Section 43 of the Public Procurement Act, 2007 which demands that all procurements made under emergencies shall be handled with explanation but along principles of accountability, due consideration being given to the gravity of each emergency.’

    We ought not to lose sight of the implication of the findings on our collective humanity. In simple terms, the Shehu Sani committee has painted a worrying scenario in which care givers systematically ruin the future of these estimated 5.1 million helpless Nigerians for nothing other than selfish acquisition of wealth. As if that is not enough, the Senate committee report exposed a systemic rot in which the high and mighty with the connivance of their cronies persist in inflicting deep pains on these victims of a deadly war. Add that to the recently released video of underfed soldiers in the Boko Haram warfront and you will shiver at how some people still find it convenient to feast on this harvest of humanitarian tragedies that debase our humanity.

    Change, I must emphasise, cannot happen if all we do is bicker and flex muscles over the double-faced cant of an SGF who should have walked the integrity lane by resigning his appointment to clear his name. Well, he never did until a justifiably purloined Presidency ordered him to step aside. But can we really blame him for refusing to commit economic suicide by vacating his juicy post? Has Saraki resigned as President of the Senate even while facing corruption charges at the Code of Conduct Tribunal? Did the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara vacate his office to allow for an independent inquest into mind-boggling allegations of graft by the leadership in the case of budget padding brought against it by suspended Abdulmumin Jibrin? And did it not take intense pressure on the National Judicial Council before judges accused of engaging in corrupt practices were asked to step down to face charges at the courts?

    So, while we mull our fate in this season, it is important we also interrogate issues raised by the Senate ad-hoc committee on the plight of the IDPs in the North-East if we must prevent a continuation of this seeming official larceny. So, we ask, could it be true that most of the contracts awarded by the Presidential Initiative on North East have no direct bearing/impact to the lives of the displaced persons? Did PINE take undue advantage of the provision of emergency situation contract award in the Public Procurement Act, 2007 to over inflate contracts? And would this government of change and transparency implement the committee’s 9-point recommendations on the way forward with the aim of stopping this callous malfeasance at the peril of a beaten, wasted and hopeless remnant of a senseless war? Or do we just wish this away as privileges the rich enjoy over the poor in their insatiable quest for wealth? One thing is clear: the Senator Sani committee has offered us how best to halt this feast on the graves of the living dead.

    The question is: would the government ignore the messenger including Saraki’s zinger and tackle the message? Four months after, the government appeared to have finally seen the sense in what its embattled SGF brusquely dismissed as mere ‘balderdash and absolute nonsense.’ The public can’t wait to unravel the mystery behind the N200 million grass cutting contract that remains baffling till today. What is clear is that the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo investigative committee has its job cut out for it. We wait, with bated breath; to see if the committee will live its promise to discharge that onerous task without fear or favour in addition to showing that sense of purpose that ‘The Presidency’ is powerful enough to rein in the noisemakers and empty barrels who make the loudest noise within its fold!

  • Dash&Dash incorporatedng unlimited

    IF there is anything amusingly enthralling about Nigeria’s strategic fight against corruption, it is its endless dramatics and outlandish vacuity. Where you had expected that corruption, whoever that is, would suffer a bloodied nose from the hard jabs unleashed from the ferocious angst of the anti-corruption bodies, what you get is a medley of rambunctious dalliances between the two strange bedfellows.

    Though troubling, nothing suggests that this reality is about fizzling out that soon. In fact, the corrupt elements within the system have grown with such dizzying monstrosity that it is becoming increasingly clear that the feeble efforts being made to quell it may soon be suffocated under its weight. Of course, the consequences of such a possibility should not be lost to those who truly desire to see a promising country formed out of this rubble of underdevelopment.

    For that to happen, it would take more than this theatre of the absurd playing out right before our very eyes between Ibrahim Magu’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the National Intelligence Agency.

    Now, what are the facts on the ground? I assume they are quite simple. The EFCC, as follow up to the unbelievable bounty it has been harvesting in raw cash after a tip off, raided a residential apartment in Ikoyi where the high and mighty lives a life of exquisite splendour. In just one apartment, it hauled in a whopping N13 billion in various denominations, including freshly-minted notes of $1000 bills totaling $43m; 27,000 British pounds sterling and N23m.

    Not one to conceal such great discovery, the agency released video and photographic details of the operation to the general public but was loudly silent in offering the slightest hint about the tenant or owner of the particular apartment that was raided. It left that aspect of this critical matter hanging and it did not take long before the ever vibrant, ever inquisitive, ever speculative and often mischievous Nigerian league of social media bloggers started listing names of likely owners of the money.

    First, Apartment 7B, Osborne Towers, was linked to a former chairman of the sinking Peoples Democratic Party, Ahmed Mu’azu who developed the Osborne Towers property. In less than two hours, the speculation was rife that the billions actually belonged to Mrs. Esther Ogbue, the retired Managing Director with a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation who was under the radar of the EFCC over some alleged shady deals running into billions of naira.

    She was said to be a tenant in the N20m per annum apartment towers. In fact, keen watchers of the development were almost pinning the cash haul on Ogbue as the EFCC chose that day, of all days, to re-arrest her for interrogation a few hours after the NNPC announced her retirement from service.

    But that was just the beginning of the suspense-filled plot as “detective” Femi Fani-Kayode twitted, with definitive gusto, that a serving Minister in the President Muhammadu Buhari administration and former governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, was not only the owner of the apartment in which the money was found, but also owned the huge currencies found in the vaults in two of the four-bedroom builtfor- the-rich home.

    But before Amaechi could come up with a denial of ownership like Ogbue vehemently did through her lawyers, a shocking twist was added to the sickening tale of an orphaned billions of cash. The nation’s prestigious spy body, the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), surreptitiously (some would say Nicodemously) laid claim to the ownership of the money through a United States of America-based online media, The Will, which quoted several sources in The Presidency conversant with the matter.

    In specific terms, the medium said the Director General of the agency, Ayodele Oke, had already briefed the powers that be that Magu overstepped his boundary by invading one of the agency’s “safe houses” in which money meant for “covert operations” as approved by former President Goodluck Jonathan’ were safely kept. On a serious note, I had thought this was a rude joke and that Oke’s office would come out with a strongly-worded statement, denying any link with such a scandal.

    But I was dead wrong. Even when the Rivers Governor, Nyesom Wike, had quickly demanded that the money be returned to the state as it was part of the money allegedly siphoned by Amaechi in a gas deal with a private oil firm, the NIA angle simply refused to leave the front pages for the other clowns to have their day. It was that pathetic.

    Today, some ten days after the humongous funds had been deposited at the Central Bank of Nigeria following a temporary forfeiture order issued by a court in Lagos, the country is still on a cliffhanger regarding the true owner or owners of the money. The EFCC, which announced the raid with pomp and panache, has suddenly lost its tongue.

    Now, it dribbles round and about the issue. Instead of unveiling the face behind the mask as it has done for ages in cases involving petty thieves and Internet fraudsters, the EFCC has wasted ten days in huffing and puffing while watering the flowers of speculation to bloom to its full allure. Surely, something is wrong with this dangerous game going on among these political heavyweights.

    Personally, I feel some deep sense of revulsion when I flip through the diversionary tactics being adopted by the EFCC presumably to close the chapter on this huge mess it has walked into with its eyes opened. For all the questions that have been raised on the cash haul, the EFCC has simply delved into reverie of wild goose chase.

    First, it threatened to search all apartments in the towers forgetting that those who reside there do have rights to their privacy like every other hardworking citizen. Second, its operatives combed the apartment of former Anambra State governor, Peter Obi, who was out of the country. His sin, I assume, must be that of living in a building where one of the apartments housed billions of unclaimed cash! But that is beside the point. I’m not sure the EFCC or whosoever was responsible for leaking the names of the tenants of Osborne Towers knows the magnitude of the collateral damage being inflicted on the reputation of some notable Nigerians on that list.

    If what was published was to be believed, then you cannot help but wonder what the correlation was between the money discovered in one out of many apartments and the frenetic pace with which the EFCC moved into other people’s private homes within the premises. Does the EFCC now works from the answer to the question? Is it right to lump all the tenants together as a bunch of thieving elite simply because no one has stepped forward to claim the money?

    Does it mean that those highlyrevered names of tested bankers and successful business moguls who never stepped into any political office cannot be trusted to have made clean money just because they live in a building considered safe enough by the NIA to keep its “operational” billions? With no pun intended, I find it curiously laughable that Sahara Reporters claimed that the guards in the premises had nicknamed Apartment 7B where the cash was found as “Apartment Dash Dash.” Reason? Well, they said those who rented the apartment had simply ignored some details that were requested on the application form for intending tenants of the building by inserting the dash mark.

    And who could this tenant be? Sahara Reporters scooped that it was no other outfit than Chobe Ventures Limited, under the control of Mrs Folashade Oke, wife of DG, NIA. No, don’t get it twisted. It would be unfair to assume that Mrs. Oke was the same “haggard-looking” but smooth skinned lady that the EFCC said the whistleblower identified as sneaking in occasionally with heavy Ghana-Must-Go bags to deposit dollars, pounds and naira notes in the vaults in the controversial apartment.

    We would also be jumping the gun to conclude that this Mrs. Oke is the legally married wife of the now suspended DG of NIA since there are many Okes in different states in the South West. It is equally not impossible that the orphaned money could actually belong to the NIA whose “operational responsibilities” were usually of serious national importance that keeping such heavy cash in the unsafe vaults of the CBN could jeopardise the entire exercise which could have dire consequences for us all.

    Have you also imagined that in a country where nothing is impossible, the money could have been planted by Magu and his boys with the aim of boosting an image that has been deflated by the Senate’s refusal to confirm his appointment as the substantive chairman of the EFCC due to a presumed failure of the integrity test? Have you? Or don’t you know a desperate man is a dangerous man? My conclusion?

    Those who think there is more than meets the eyes on this matter are only displaying their ignorance. In fact, they are suffering from poverty mentality because they have not witnessed the generosity of the stupidly rich. Where were they when Ribadu squealed that a then serving governor in the South-South “dashed” him $15m cash to “bury” an investigative report on corruption that indicted the big man? Did Ribadu not display the money and hand it over to the CBN? Where were they when the Federal Government claimed to have recovered billions of dollars the late General Sani Abacha ferried to different safe havens across the globe? And didn’t General Ishaya Bamaiyi educate us that the funds were actually kept in trust for us?

    Where were they when a former big Oga in the NNPC tagged millions of dollars found hidden in a decrepit village house as “gifts” (dash) by friends when he was in charge of affairs? And where were they when nobody stepped forward to claim the money “recovered” in a Bureau de Change and another warehouse in Lagos?

    Did anyone accuse the EFCC of shielding the corrupt then? So, why are we fretting over the ownership of common N13 billion cash when investigations are still ongoing with the lightning speed of a snail? Why? See, if you ask me, I think we are just a bunch of impatient people. We are always in a hurry to unravel the facts when what is expected of us, as patriots, is to grab a front row seat and get set to watch the next box office thriller titled “Dash & Dash Incorporatedng Unlimited—the sickening tale of a country in search of conscience.”

    Please, pass me the big bag of popcorn before the light dims for the première of the next Awada Kerikeri. Let’s wipe the tears with teardrops of humour!

  • So, how do they deploy the billions in NASS?

    THE cumulative remuneration of lawmakers at the national level is arguably the most shielded secret of Nigeria’s democratic trajectory since May 29, 1999. Interestingly, there are quite a few lawmakers in both the Senate and House of Representatives today who started the journey in 1999 and who apparently don’t feel any iota of guilt that their earnings, both official and otherwise, have never been subjected to public scrutiny. Yet, these persons insist that other arms of government must carry out the business of governance as transparently as possible. They insist the discourse must take place at the village square where accountability, dignity and openness must be the watchwords. Conversely, the National Assembly leadership and its bureaucracy have always gone mute whenever questions are asked about the thick fog of secrecy hanging over its financial dealings. Those that should know often wax into sophistry and emotive outburst each time the matter is raised, wandering why the people should focus on an arm of government that draws less than three per cent of the budget compared to the Executive that draws a large chunk. Well, the seeming tendentious excuse above has lasted the test of time.

    In a recent interview, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, reignited the discourse when he dismissed allegations of an over-pampered, overpaid and underworked law-making body as hogwash. For him, the billions of naira (between N150bn and N115bn) the National Assembly appropriates for itself yearly go into diverse subheads that it is manifestly difficult for the lawmakers to roll in the kind of luxury lives that we, the commoners, ascribe to them. Dogara would go on to challenge Nigerians to direct their attention to the executive both at the federal and state levels as budgets for capital projects and other developmental items reside solely with them. He was also quick to point out that without granting an effective political autonomy to the local government areas, Nigeria would continue to swim in the valley of perpetual under-development.

    However, Dogara, like his counterpart in the Senate, Bukola Saraki, made a promise that the National Assembly would soon open up its books for the public if only to assure the doubters among them that no one is feasting on our collective patrimony while the majority languish in penury. That was one message of assurance that many had doubted would ever happen, knowing that Saraki’s vow to avail the public of the Legislative budgetary details has lasted more than one-and-a-half years without any glimmer of hope. Now, for some inexplicable reason, the NASS seems to be thrusting the discourse in the public space. Maybe the time has come for the nation to unmask the veil of secrecy beclouding legislative salaries and emolument with the personality clash brewing between Dogara and the Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai. It is interesting that a simple call by el-Rufai on the NASS management to do more in correcting the perception of corrosive, under-the-table financial dealings by lawmakers would draw the ire of the Speaker at a retreat in Kaduna.

    Suspecting that el-Rufai’s admonition could be part of a grand design to ridicule the Legislature especially at a time when the integrity of that arm of government is being called to question, Dogara insisted that the governor should set the ball rolling by making public his earnings including his security votes and funds allocated to the local government councils in the state. Since the matter at stake here is the need to be transparently forthright to the general public, Dogara challenged el-Rufai to hold aloft that candle of responsible and responsive governance, noting that the leadership has directed the ‘bureaucracy’ to publish the budget of NASS beginning with that of 2017. He said: “I will like to challenge him (el-Rufai) to champion this cause for transparency in the budgetary process from the National Assembly to other arms of government. The judiciary first.

    We want to see clearly how chief executives of states are paid. What do they spend monthly as security votes? In addition, if they can publish what happens to local government funds under their jurisdictions; that would help our discussions going forward.” Moving forward, el-Rufai, who has never been shy of taking up such challenges in the past, has been swift in publishing the details required by Dogara. In some way, we mow not know what should be the average take home pay of state chief executives. Going by el- Rufai’s record, the salary, after all deductions, is just a paltry N480,000 while the approved security vote for 2017 is N4.6bn which he says would be spent on the procurement of some critical security equipment and accessories. He also disclosed that, unlike the practice in some states, the allocations to the 23 LGAs are published online on www.openkaduna.com.ng.

    Reiterating his earlier statement that the billions of naira in first line appropriations for the NASS lacked transparency and, in the main, bigger than the entire capital budget of the close to 10 million people in Kaduna State, el-Rufai said it was incumbent on the NASS to attach subheads to its budget and itemize the allocations to give a semblance of authenticity to the questionable appropriation which was also criminally silent on the “salaries and allowances of its leadership.” Let’s face it, the National Assembly has a not-so-impressive image and laundering such would require more than the hollow pontification by its leadership. Just last year, precisely in January 2016, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, again, drew the attention of the world to the embarrassing greed being perpetuated in the hallowed chambers under the pretext of the principles of separation of powers and independence of the Legislature.

    He questioned the rationale behind the financial perfidy and errant abuse of privilege by members. In the open letter to the leaderships of both chambers, Obasanjo did not mince words, labeling the lawmakers as a bunch of unpatriotic, selfish and uncommitted persons who lack the true meaning of service to nationhood. That is not all. He couched the feelings of millions of Nigerians in these biting words: “The beginning of good governance which is the responsibility of all arms and all the tiers of government is openness and transparency. It does not matter what else we try to do, as long as one arm of government shrouds its financial administration and management in opaqueness and practices rife with corruption, only very little, if anything at all, can be achieved. It must not be seen and said that those who, as leaders, call for sacrifice from the citizenry are living in obscene opulence. It will not only be insensitive but callously so.

    It would seem that it is becoming a culture that election into the legislative arm of government at the national level in particular is a licence for financial misconduct and that should not be. The National Assembly now has a unique opportunity of presenting a new image of itself. It will help to strengthen, deepen, widen and sustain our democracy. By different disingenuous ways and devices, the legislature had overturned the recommendation of the Commission and hiked up for themselves that which they are unwilling to spell out in detail, though they would want to defend it by force of arm if necessary. What is that?” Well, for all Obasanjo’s rants against an arm of government he engaged in endless war throughout his eight-year tenure, all he got back in response was a trite riposte which fingered him as “the grandfather of corruption.” That was it Mr. Obasanjo! No more, no less. That grave allegation was simply wished away as if it was just another bad dream. Unfortunately, the matter just won’t go away.

    El-Rufai’s disclosure has rekindled the debate regardless of what some see as the gaping gap between what governors officially earn in accordance with the recommendations of the RMFAC and the humongous wealth of these persons few months after getting into power. Almost two years after the NASS leadership promised to unveil the hidden truth, not one single document has emerged to justify how those who thrive on padding budgets in recycled billions; extorting millions from Ministries, Departments and Agencies in the name of oversight functions and cornering huge funds under the subhead of constituency projects allocate hundreds of billions they get yearly as direct line charge. These guys who live in unbelievable opulence and splendour had never been hesitant in clobbering any of their colleagues that dare reveal what they do to run away with blind larceny. If in doubt, ask suspended Abdulmumin Jibrin. Dogara says a directive for the publication of a yet-to-be-approved 2017 budget of the National Assembly.

    That would be commendable if we ever cross that bridge. It is also good that he has replied el-Rufai in like manner by publishing his pay slip which, to my mind, shows little. That is not enough. If the lawmakers truly want to toe the path of “honour, distinguish-ness, sensitivity and responsibility” as Obasanjo demands, they would have to come off their high horses and summon the courage to publish their recurrent budgets between 2000 to date. That, I believe, shouldn’t be rocket science for an institution with a perfect bookkeeping strategy. Would they do this to permanently silence the likes of Nasir el-Rufai or would they sit comfortably with what Obasanjo called an act of law breaking and impunity which detract from “distinguish-ness and honourability?” Will our lawmakers ever stop playing the ostrich each time they are asked to reveal what they earn legitimately? How soon would el-Rufai get a feedback on the need to publish details of its leadership’s salaries and allowances including a breakdown of the yearly appropriation? Would it be as soon as another 18 years of finger-pointing and sabrerattling?

  • Bamaiyi, Yari and our ‘saintly’ leaders

    WHEN given the slightest chance, African leaders glibly transform into ‘godly’ men, bringing lousy ‘proofs’ of dubious saintliness and divine mandate posing as people who truly commune with celestial spirits daily. In saner climes, Gen. Ishaya Bamaiyi and Alhaji Abdulaziz Yari, would not be making pretensions to the highest honour in the land for forthrightness, integrity and display of undiluted patriotism in dissecting Nigeria’s socio-economic issues and being the torch-bearer of zealous truthfulness. But in a country where sycophancy and toadying by the whim have become assured steps towards becoming prominently relevant, I would not be surprised if these two gentlemen are propped up as iconic representations of an elite class that the abjectly poor in our midst – in their supposed ignorance –routinely blame for the endemic corruption and impunity in the polity.

    Come to think of it, if Bamaiyi and Yari had decided to maintain the conspiratorial silence and cheeky grin on the faces of the select few that make this club of elites, how would we have known that we were only ‘beefing’ this set of Nigerians for no justifiable reason? We vilify them, accusing them of foisting a regime of hopelessness on us when we should have shown them loads of gratitude for their selfless sacrifice to humanity. We forget the incontrovertible admonition, in a country drenched with religiosity, which cautions us to be wary of kicking leaders in the groin even when they become tyrants, knowing that God not men chooses them. Some would glibly tell you it is an abominable sin to question these so-called leaders.

    That’s bunkum. Anyway, for those who believe in that logic of an infallible leadership, a window of redemption has been opened for them with the confessions of Bamaiyi and Yari. Their revelations could not have come at a better time than now when Nigerians have begun to doubt if they are among those God promised his undying love and favour. If Bamaiyi, a former Chief of Army Staff under the regime of the late dark-goggled General Sani Abacha, had not taken the pains to highlight our unforgivable sins against the saintly General in starched khaki, how would we have known how best to appease his restless spirit which, I assume, must hovering over this ‘sinful’ country, seeking a libation of contrition? And so, it turned out that all the gragra that successive governments in this country have been making about “Abacha loot” is nothing more than an attempt to paint an angry and dead General in bad light presumably to have access to re-loot funds he legitimately kept in trust for us.

    That is the gospel according to Bamaiyi. For him, all the effusions and epileptic babbling in the public space over the billions of dollars stolen by Abacha were nothing more than a big hoax! If that was the case, it then follows that former President Olusegun Obasanjo lied against the dead when he said he negotiated the release of millions of dollars’ worth of Abacha loot. It equally means that the late President Umaru Yar’Adua only got money that Abacha generously saved for us in case we bumped into hard times. Surely, former President Goodluck Jonathan and his Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, must have been economical with the truth when they said millions of dollars recovered as parts of the phantom Abacha loot was deployed for electoral purposes.

    Question is: why lie against the dead when the most reasonable thing would have been to give posthumous honours to an indefatigable military ruler who starched our funds in safe havens where we had to beg and sign undertakings on the judicious use before accessing the funds? In fact, we should be thanking our luck that we are alive to read an insider’s accounts on why and how Abacha put country first before self. And it is ennobling that Bamaiyi, who spent many years in the gulag for the ignoble role he played in the Abacha jackboot era, would be the one to set the record straight in his bestseller monologue titled “Vindication of a General” where he sang the praises of his former boss and comrade-inarms to high heavens. Snippets from the book show that we have spent years misconstruing the Abacha personae—the one Bamaiyi worked with. For example, we did not know that Obasanjo and the elder Yar’Adua (Shehu) were actually involved in a failed coup against Abacha.

    Bamaiyi said it was not phantom but real. We wouldn’t have known that General Abdulsalami Abubakar (Rtd.) needs to come clean on how and when a simple sip of tea led to the death of the hero of the June 12, 1993 election, Chief Moshood Kasimawo Olawale Abiola. To Bamaiyi, no one has bothered to ask that question until the release of his book that sought to vindicate the much-vilified Abacha. It equally took Bamaiyi’s incisive prodding to eke details of how NADECO leaders ‘betrayed’ Abiola and handed his carcass to a humane Abacha to feast on! Wonderful script, you say? My take? Bamaiyi stands out as a poster boy for criminal revisionism with his queer understanding of what should constitute an act of official and banal malfeasance by our leaders. Putting a lie to the popular Abacha loot saga at the book launch which, as usual, attracted a reasonable number of Nigeria’s fleecing elite, Bamaiyi launched into a reverie of irascible gobbledygook, saying that: “If you remember, we had problem in Sierra Leone and Liberia under Abacha government and it was money realised under Abacha regime that we used to buy weapons and ammunition to help them fight.”

    He went further: “I am happy that a former Minister of Finance said the money was not looted but things happen and when things happen like that and you are not here to defend yourself, rumours will just be flying. I am not holding brief for Abacha but I would not be in a position to know if money was looted. What I know is that things do happen and I know that Abacha did very well for the country. If we see him from the bad aspect, we should also look at his good aspect and remember him for the good things he did for the country. That is why I said Abacha loot is a media creation.” The truth is that this circumlocutory outburst could have been written in another language but English and the readers would still be at a loss in decoding its real meaning.

    Things do happen? Really? And when these things happen, all that Abacha could was to help an unthinking populace lodge $380m in Jersey (recovered); $723m in Switzerland (recovered); $380m in Luxemboug (recovered); $150m in the United Kingdom (recovered); $400m in Liechtenstein (recovered); |22.5m pounds (recovered) in the Island of New Jersey and the $750m which his family voluntarily surrendered to the Federal Government? These recoveries, by the way, are aside a fresh $550m linked to Abacha and currently being negotiated for repatriation from the United States by the Federal Government. While the various countries where the funds are starched are insisting on a clear-cut plan on how the Nigerian government would deploy the money for the general good, some shameless retired accomplice of the kleptocrat insists that nothing of such ever happened. And, as usual, the media is the scapegoat of the phantom creation called Abacha loot! Sadly, it is this sort of shocking rant that makes some people dismiss this country is a huge farce with the bunch of jokers that easily rise to the top.

    The irony is that memoirs, written by some persons, can no longer be relied on as historical facts. They are simply a work of fiction from the writer’s twisted tale of events. That’s not good enough. When our ‘big men’ write, they use it to launder their image and paint the facts with sweet-scented lies. Our libraries are replete with these kinds of literature. General Bamaiyi has just added yet another one to our shelf of alternative facts. Believe me when I say things do happen in this country. When elders are sworn on dying with the truth while selling off lies with glee, why should anyone blame the present ones who seem to have overtaken them in the art of spewing whimsical baloney? One of such examples is the reason given by no less a person than the Governor of Zamfara State, Abdulaziz Yari, on outbreak of Type C Cerebrospinal Meningitis in some parts of the country.

    For a man who chairs the powerful and influential Nigeria Governors Forum, you would have thought that Yari would have availed himself of the verifiable and quality information at his disposal to mitigate concerns over why his state was the worst hit with over 200 deaths in a modern age where vaccines could have changed the narrative. Well, that is where we got it wrong. Yari, a former lawmaker at the House of Representatives, would rather see the plague from the prism of religious escapism. The latest wave of attack, he explained, is God’s way of showing his angst against Nigerians for refusing to subsume everything under His divine authority and guidance. Listen to him: “Because people refused to stop their nefarious activities, God now decided to send Type C virus, which has no vaccination. People have turned away from God and he has promised that ‘if you do anyhow, you see anyhow’ that is just the cause of this outbreak as far as I am concerned. There is no way fornication will be so rampant and God will not send a disease that cannot be cured.” Yari, it must be noted, did not tell us when God revealed this important secret to him. He did say if Zamfara has the largest number of fornicators even with Sharia law.

    He didn’t even tell us if the children killed by the disease were also involved in fornication. Instead, Yari deflected questions on the report that medical experts accused his government of being ill-prepared for the epidemic despite being forewarned. He was quick to add that the poor and other vulnerable citizens suffer because they fail to hearken to the warnings of their leaders who “are doing their best by enlightening the populace and working assiduously for the good of all”, adding with uncanny relish that; “your major assignment as a leader is to convey the message; you cannot go from house to house and arrest offenders for instance.” Although, Yari’s media minder has come out with a finer version of his boss’s misfiring, it does not change the narrative of our deficiency in quality leadership. You know what? I know what to say but words have simply failed me at this moment. I resist the temptation to engage in a fruitless fight with these guys who are fully inebriated on power. Yet, one thing is clear: Nigeria is one huge joke where the ignorantly stupid lead the sane but docile folks by the nose. As Charly Boy was quoted as saying: “Nigeria mumu too much”. And that’s how it will be until we all have a proper brain reset. That is it!

  • When anarchists mount the law…

    First, let me say that this piece is a revised version of an earlier one titled, “If they must fight”, published in 2013. That was some two years after Hon. Dino Melaye, as he then was, took on the then Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, in a battle that saw him thoroughly beaten up, leaving him with shredded clothes hanging on his sturdy trunk. Sometimes, in Nigeria, the more things change, the more they remain the same! That allusion couldn’t have fitted any other time than now when the Nigerian Senate appears to be in a combative mood with the executive arm. It is obvious that, this time, the distinguished senators would not stoop low and allow anyone to extinguish their new found adversarial voice under the leadership of Dr. Bukola Saraki whose ascendance into the office of the President of the Senate was not without its putrid backlash. But this is not just about Saraki. It is more about how the mud house President Muhammadu Buhari built with spittle on a sandy beach is crumbling daily. And from the look of things, if the free fall is not halted, we may soon be singing dirges to mark the end of a movement that came with inspiring positive vibes but receding fast into oblivion.

    Like someone pointed out, the ironic twist in the APC tale is that its leading lights could end up being the ones that would strangle it to death. Already, we are seeing the signs from the endless and, sometimes, senseless face-offs between Saraki’s men and Buhari’s diehard supporters. Unfortunately, in this kind of fiery fight, no one is sure whether it is a contest between light and darkness or the usual ego-trip between two greedy camps.

    However, there is one thing we cannot take away from the latest muck-racking—the fact that the lawmakers have greatly improved from the usual motor-park brawl where members exhibit their pugilistic expertise against one another. The Senate has refined that aspect of the show. Now, they engage in endless popularity contest with the executive. By the way, one is not against members of the National Assembly indulging themselves in some reverie of self-importance and occasional display of tendencies that question their mental strength to maintain sanity at all times. Once in a while, they need to let off some steam. What is not acceptable is when these tendencies become the norm rather than the exception, especially in the Red Chamber which ordinarily should be the nest of wisdom, understanding and maturity. Sadly, what we get these days from that section of the parliament which has maintained some level of sanity in the first 16 years of our democratic experiment is the brash youthful exuberance that used to define the lower legislative chamber in those years. Interestingly, the Green Chamber now leads the way in fostering a working relationship with the executive while the Red Chamber is poised for an infantile ego war with the executive.

    The question needs to be asked: Is the Senate fighting this war for altruistic reasons and for the benefit of long-suffering Nigerians gasping on the throes of an agonising recession? How I wish that was the case. But the fundamentals simply do not tally with that expectation in spite of the riotous rage being exhibited by some of these senators. Let’s face it; these fully inebriated guys need to let off some wealth-induced soberness once in a while, lest they get choked by their ever-increasing humongous pay packets! So, some pugilistic artistry shouldn’t be of any major concern to us, so far as these folks do it for the common good. Question is: can they, in all honesty, swear that those fights were in the nation’s interest? Like it was the case in the then House of Representatives where Melaye held former Speaker Bankole by his testicles on the allegation of a corrupt practice running into billions of naira, this latest running soap opera in the Saraki Senatorial Empire has nothing to do with the price of garri or crayfish in the market. Neither is it about the growing public discontent over a cataclysmic economy. It is nothing other than an extension of the history of legislators’ brawls and an undiluted descent into hooliganism by characters who find it hard to pocket their oversized egos. If they are not fighting over allowances or allocations for legislative responsibilities, it’s sure they are flinging chairs and throwing punches in the interest of a nebulous paymaster.

    In plain language, this power show is all about 2019 and beyond. When you have a legislature that spends more time on recess with quarterly allowances paid in millions, it would be an unpardonable sin for them not to revel in the vanity of their good luck. And when you have an executive that is bent on stopping their excesses, no one expects them to watch idly with hands clasped in submission. This is worsened by a leadership that sauntered into power with truckloads of credibility baggage aside the shocking ascendancy that was made possible through a mortal seduction of the opposition lawmakers. Truth be told, the root of the unfolding drama was planted at that moment when Buhari played the ostrich where he was expected to stamp his authority. Now, he is being haunted by that grave political misadventure of belonging to everybody and nobody. The house he built on a frail foundation is now threatening to consume not only his government but the entire nation.

    In all honesty, Knucklehead would have been shocked if the former Majority Leader in the Senate, Senator Ali Ndume, has escaped the punishing gavel of Saraki and his fawning supporters. What was shocking was that his suspension came much later than expected. He popped himself up as a candidate for the guillotine when he attempted to fault the reasons adduced by the Senate for rejecting Ibrahim Magu as the substantive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. The icing on the cake was his daring impertinence, demanding investigations into allegations that the Senate President ordered the procurement of a bullet-proof Range Rover Sports car worth N298m and that Dino, Saraki’s over-fed lackey, did not complete his graduate programme at the Ahmadu Bello University. As far as our politics of whim is concerned, that was a sacrilege. And so, Ndume, who was once an inner-caucus member of the Saraki team that sold the APC for the price of porridge in the early days of the Senate, had to bite the dust. That was exactly what played out on Wednesday on the floor of the Senate.

    Like I once observed, in our ‘developing’ or perennially-underdeveloped economy, the more your hedonistic entitlements; the greater your claims to extreme bragging rights. For now, the Saraki camp holds tightly to that bragging right hence the decision to suspend Ndume for what the Senator Samuel Anyanwu-led Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions described as his failure “to cross-check facts before presentation at plenary”, making him unworthy “to be a patriotic representation of the Senate, and should be penalised to serve as deterrent to others”.

    I don’t know if Ndume understands the Yoruba language very well. In case he doesn’t speak a word of the language, he should seek a perfect interpretation of Dino’s victory song which was rendered in Yoruba, following the confirmation by the Vice Chancellor of ABU, Prof. Ibrahim Garba, that he actually graduated from the school. That song says volumes about what would befall anyone that confronts the moving train on the rampage in the National Assembly. It also throws more light on why Magu, the Comptroller-General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ali (Rtd.), the 27 Resident Electoral Commissioners and sundry other matters have suffered inexplicable humiliation in the hands of the cabal that controls that arm of government. Many a time in the life of this administration, President Buhari has been put to the cleaners by the action and inaction of these persons. This is no longer shadow boxing. The gloves are off and we are back to the days of the long knives.

    This is definitely not a one-off battle. It one rift that poses a clear and present threat to the future fortunes of a party in limbo. The APC as it stands today is a party at war with itself. The government is also gasping for breath as the President battles for his own health. With a Senate President buffeted by cases of graft at the Code of Conduct Tribunal and by the EFCC as regards the Paris Club debts refunds; with a Presidency that is sworn on prosecuting corrupt persons including members of its own party, majority of who still wield enormous power as senators; with some of the conniving forces within the executive and with a political system that thrives on the promotion of selfish interest, I doubt if Nigerians would be exhaling any fresh air of positive change that they craved. Now, they are caught between hope and despair after sending the Peoples Democratic Party of President Goodluck Jonathan packing. Could this long-running charade be all their reward for change?

    It would have been wonderful if this fight is about the people and their collective grief. But it is not. This fiery power game is clothed in a deadly contest of egos. Who blinks first? No one is sure. Already, another battle line has been drawn with the Senate’s invitation of the Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, Prof. Itse Sagay, to explain why he labeled these distinguished lawmakers “childish and irresponsible” for insisting on getting Magu out of the EFCC chair and refusing to screen the 27 RECs. How dare he describe a Senate that cleared its leadership of any wrongdoing in the purchase of a bullet-proof car with fake Customs papers as a chamber “filled with people of questionable character who put personal interest ahead of the nation?” Our senators are angry, indeed, very angry!

    And there enters another potential topic for legislative discourse. With Sagay, expect nothing but an exhilarating engagement that may further drill a deeper hole in the frosty relationship that has yielded nothing but a yawning gap between the haves and the have-nots in a retrogressive Nigeria. One thing is sure though; if we must halt this drift into anarchy, we must first insist that the clowns pretending to be fighting for us must get their priorities right. Anarchy, by the way, is not the absence of the law. It is the overwhelming presence of the will to silence the voices of dissent. The Senate cannot be the jury and judge it its own case. That is how anarchists transform into terrorists. Obviously, the endless battle for political relevance and this naked, shameless dance in the marketplace ought not to rank among the priorities of a well-meaning Senate! Or should they? So much for a change that changes nothing!

  • Ali, Senate and that bullet proof toy

    There is an unsettling, squirmy feeling in the stomach when you watch self-labeled ‘distinguished’ lawmakers at the Upper Legislative Chambers pontificate about the ‘unfitness’ of Col. Hammed Ali (rtd.) to hold public office just because he failed to honour a summon by these eminent noisemakers. I laughed at the drama that played out before the gentlemen’s advice to Ali to honorably resign his appointment as Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service. I giggled as Senator after Senator revved into fits of rage, tearing Ali apart for daring to shun an invitation from a respectable body like the Nigerian Senate. Somehow, one couldn’t miss that glint of comic relief as the lawmakers struggled to speak truth to power. In that crowd of pretenders are people with files of their corrupting influence sitting in the cabinets of the Economic Crimes and Financial Commission; well-known political thugs who suddenly came into stupendous wealth without any record of entrepreneurship; confirmed drugs barons fleeing from the arms of the law; lackeys imposed by powerful forces and all shades of characters that should ordinarily be anywhere but definitely not that hallowed chamber. Yet, the reality of the Nigerian story is that its Senate is mostly peopled by charlatans who have turned delusion into an art. They are the drama kings and queens of this infamous democratic experiment.

    How I wish the Senate could remove the speck blocking its vision before offering to help another pluck out the log in his eyes. In truth, the faceoff between Ali and the Senate is nothing other than a contest of ego. It is as simple as that. Sadly, in its brash angst, the Senate just threw away the baby with the bath water by focusing on the less-important issue of Ali’s appearing in a Custom uniform instead of the more significant matter of collection of import duties on old cars brought into the country in the last seven years. By the way, would the heavens fall had the Senate chosen to ignore the ego show and humble Ali by interrogating him on the car duties matter even if he had honoured the invitation in knickers, rumpled shirt and bathroom slippers? Would it not have been ennobling if the Senate had played its expected role by triggering a downward review of the policy or its outright cancellation through a positive engagement with the Customs chief? Whatever its decision, the one that has bitten the dust in this needless ‘war’ is the Senate. This is worsened by the fact that the Senate’s resolution on the matter is not worth the paper it was penned on. I’m sure they know President Muhammadu Buhari would have no problem ignoring the so-called resolutions.

    It is laughable that, after all the tantrums and drama, all the Senate could do was to draft a five-point agenda with an advisor that an ‘unfit-for-public-office’ Ali should honorably pen his resignation and quit. And to give a bite to the toothless resolution, the Senate also directed that “the resolutions be sent to the House of Representatives for concurrence so that it will be a National Assembly resolution.” Talk about an unfit legislature and you have truckloads of them in that chamber. Just last week, this same bunch of jokers adamantly refused to sanction the appointment of Mr. Ibrahim Magu as the Chairman of the EFCC over a Department of State Security report that he “failed integrity test.” They lashed on a report that an alleged friend of Magu spent less than N40m to rent and furnish a building for his use. Even when the allegation was yet to be substantiated, it was enough reason for the set of patriots to nail Magu in the sun to dry. By the time they came out of the Red Chamber that day, there was this feeling of accomplishment that a would-be nemesis of the corrosive poster boys of corruption has been stopped in his tracks. It never mattered if Magu cried blue murder. The ‘victory’ was made sweeter by the fact that Magu’s ultimate fall was made possible by a report that was surreptitiously obtained from an agency under the control of the same Presidency that forwarded Magu’s name. For the lawmakers, it was time to clink glasses and pat backs for a job that was professionally executed with pin-point accuracy.

    Just a little scratch beyond the smokescreen and you would be confronted with the rottenness that defines this Senate. Among those who concurred to a questionable and strange report on Magu were about 10 or more former state chief executives whose files of blind looting of their states’ treasuries were in Magu’s office. In fact, Magu directly investigated some of them and they are presently facing trials at the courts. There are also those dancing to the tunes being played some political godfathers who would get a good kick out of the humiliation of the police officer. But then, the question needs to be asked: If Magu was adjudged to have failed an integrity test for ‘flirting’ with a benefactor said to be under the radar of the EFCC and Ali declared unfit to hold public office for failing to wear a uniform, what then would be the verdict on a National Assembly with members that appropriate billions of naira for its upkeep without availing the public of any details? How come not one exemplary senator currently being investigated or tried by EFCC was bold enough to excuse himself from Magu’s screening? Or is that not what is expected of people with integrity and self-worth?

    Besides, there is an intriguing twist to the Ali tale that cannot be ignored. Was Ali being punished for daring to demand that the National Assembly leadership pay the right Custom duties on the treated SUV specially imported for the use of the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, or was it a case of curious coincidence in which a retroactive policy met its waterloo at a time the issue of the imported toy was yet to be resolved? For a man who sits at the top of an agency that fetches billions of naira daily for the Federation Accounts, it is shocking that the lawmakers could make a song and dance of the decision not to wear uniform while cleverly ignoring the propriety or otherwise of the purchase of a car worth over N330m for the luxury of its leader. In his response to the allegation, Saraki’s spokesperson, Yusuph Olaniyonu, was swift to deny any link with his principal. While not denying that the car was for the use of Saraki, he argued that the supplier engaged to deliver the car had tried to outsmart the Customs by paying lesser charges on the expensive toy. He contended that the Senate could not be held culpable since the vehicle was yet to be delivered to it. By this thread of thought, I want to assume that the Senate President was eternally grateful to Ali’s men for halting the delivery of a ‘smuggled’ state-of-the-art Range Rover Sports to his fleet. For all we know, the Office of the President of Senate could have dispatched a letter of commendation of the Customs for a job well done. .And that, I also imagine, explains why the National Assembly quickly drafted a letter to the CG of Customs, demanding the immediate release of the vehicle to the owners!

    I honestly don’t get it. Was it up to two years that the Senate leadership spent millions of Naira to change the fleet of cars in the convoy of its principal officers? And under which subhead did the management rake the funds to purchase a treated car with a street value of N298m and brought into the country with fake documents to avoid paying appropriate duties? If the matter at hand was a simple case of disagreement between a car dealer and the Customs, why did the National Assembly hierarchy, with military fiat, dispatch a letter to the Customs requesting an immediate release of the car on the day it was impounded? Or could it be that the O. A. Ojo that signed the letter was not the Secretary of Procurement, Estate and Works in the National Assembly? Can the National Assembly avail the public with copies of the car purchase contract to enable us determine the veracity of the tale that nothing untoward transpired in the course of executing the contract? Could it be true that the price of the car was significantly undervalued which enabled the dealer to pay a “measly Customs duty of N8 million” instead of N78 million? Could this be the real reason why Ali has been declared a persona non grata, despicably unfit to hold public office? If that is the case, does the entire Senate still score itself high on the integrity ladder? Who among the Ali, Magu and the lawmakers should be resigning for failing to hold the morality torch with dignified pride? Who knows, maybe when these guys stop playing to the gallery they would make sense out of the glaring senselessness in an era when the business of lawmaking has gone to the dogs. Just maybe.

  • Sai Baba’s return and our public health system

    By now, it must have become clear to official spin-doctors andpeddlers of ‘alternative facts’ that a dose of truthfulness helps in governance. After a prolonged medical vacation in London, President Muhammadu Buhari fullyresumed duties on Monday with briefings from key members of his cabinet and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo who acted for him whilst away. A frail-lookingBuhari, it must be said, put an end to speculations over the state of hishealth when, on arrival on Friday, March 10, he laid bare the naked truth. Youmay have one or two things against Buhari but you cannot but marvel at hiscapacity to ‘say it as it is’, no matter how uncomfortable that may be to thosearound him.

    Where you had expected him to put a presidential seal to theofficially-held view that a hale and hearty President was in London for routinemedical checkup, Buhari deflated the balloon of lies with a declaration that hewas completely down and that some near-fatal thing could have happened but forthe qualitative health treatment he received. When you read through his confessional statement and juxtapose it with the self-chosen but untruthful verdict of good health by all those who visited him, you cannot help but wonder whether Nigeria can ever free itself from the shackles of governance by shameless deceit. It becomes more depressing when you realise that, till date, not onesingle visitor to our convalescing President has bothered to show any remorse for that indiscretion of lying through the teeth.

    It is, to say the least, exasperating that fawning aides of a 74-year-old President had opted to play the same old tricks that put this nation on the edge of complete systemic collapse during the administration of late President UmaruYar’Adua. As a matter of fact, Buhari should thank his stars that he had the privilege to tell his story at a time when all hope about a safe return to his duty post was dwindling fast in the eyes of a skeptical public that got tired of being fed with untruth. And so, it was humbling to hear him relay his travails with point-blank accuracy. Listen to him: “I am very conscious of the economy.I have rested as much as humanly possible, I have received I think the best oftreatment I could receive. I couldn’t recall being so sick since I was a youngman, including the military with its ups and downs. I found out that technologyis going so fast that if you have a lot of confidence, you better keep itbecause you need it. Blood transfusions, going to the laboratories, and so onand so forth, but I am very pleased that we, when I say we, I mean thegovernment and the people all over, are trying to keep with technology. Icouldn’t recall when last I had blood transfusion; I couldn’t recall honestly,I can say in my seventy years. I couldn’t remember this drug that Nigerians takeso much, very common. I think one of our terrible things is self-drugadministration. We have to trust our doctors more and trust ourselves morebecause, where I visited; they only take drugs when it is absolutely necessary. They don’t just swallow everything.”

    There are many crucial sub-texts that one can conveniently infer from Buhari’s words. In those words lie the fundamental questions surrounding our development as a nation. When the President said he was ‘conscious’ of our economy, what exactly did he mean? When he spoke about having fully rested and ready to work, was he just being politically correct? Was he just getting to know that technology plays an important role in healthcare and that self-diagnosis and medication are easy routes to untimely deaths? Was Mr.Buhari just knowing that the growing distrust in the ability of our doctors to offer reliable medical services stems from decades of systemic neglect of the health sector by successive governments with officials who budget billions of dollars for medical tourism yearly? Did he know that those who take the suicidal option to swallow “just everything” to cure an ailment would have surrendered themselves for professional Medicare if such were to be affordable?

    We may not know how much the President’s medical treatment cost the country’s national treasury during his 49-day medical sojourn or how much more it would cost when he eventually travels back for checks in few weeks’ time.However, what is clear is that official figures from the government, as atOctober 2016, indicated a massive drain in the public till as a whopping $1bn was being spent on medical tourism annually. According to the Minister of State for Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire,spending such amount of money for treatment abroad has grave implications for the nation’s domestic economy. We really do not need to belabour the issues. The fact remains that most self-respecting nations hardly fly their leaders out for treatment at every strike of high fever. In our own case, it has become the norm to fly our leaders and top ranking government officers to European countries and the United States of America to treat ailments as common as flu or toothache. In fact, only the poor suffer the indignity of seeking medical cure at our public hospitals. The moderately rich are distinguished diamond card-holding patients at the few private hospitals spread across state capitals. That is the tragedy of our health system. And it beats one silly that it has taken the serious illness of the nation’s Number One citizen to come to this realisation.

    In case Mr. President does not know, many of the citizens he leads die daily because they could not afford the kind of “best of treatment” that he got in the United Kingdom. Is it not an indictment in this era of change that,in spite of the yearly billions of naira that goes into keeping the Aso Rock Hospital and surrounding facilities in top shape, Mr. President remains eternally grateful for the magical feat of ‘blood transfusion and technology’ deployed towards his treatment in London? Should it not worry us as a nation that, despite several grand launching of  ‘world-class’ medical facilities with pomp and pageantry, Nigerians with the money and connections prefer to fly out for any kind of medical treatment? For most of them, it has become some sort of status symbol?

    So, what can a fit-as-a-fiddle President Buhari do to return this country to the path of sanity? A lot if you ask me. First, like it has been suggested by some civil society bodies, he must commit himself to addressing those societal ills that have tied us to the rudder of underdevelopment since independence. The medical feat he witnessed in the UK is no magic. It was achieved through sacrifice, patriotism and commitment to the common good. With proper focus and good planning, such is possible here if those concerned can cut down the greed, ego and their selfish proclivities. If funds appropriated for different sectors are judiciously used to service listed i tems, Nigeria would not be groping in the dark, working behind the clock and lagging behind in an endlessly forlorn struggle to meet all developmental indexes.

    A high number of medical practitioners in America are of Nigerian descent It is not impossible that the President’s doctors abroad are equally Nigerians. But here, we have ill-equipped hospitals where doctors, nurses and other caretakers have become tin gods. In more cases than meet the eye, fatalities have been recorded due to wrong diagnosis or wrong application of medications.These, among other factors, are responsible for the distrust most Nigerians have against the public health system. Add that to the general feeling of corruption that is believed to have permeated the system and you would understand why things are this bad.

    It is instructive to note that Ehanire, while speaking at the launch of one of the world class health facilities in Jalingo, Taraba State, reiterated “the need for doctors, nurses and other health personnel to treat patients with dignity”, noting that “in spite of the state-of-the-art facilities, bad attitude towards patients can be destructive.” Coming from a cabinet member in Buhari’s administration, one can only assume that the minister’s audience understood the imports of those words. For long, Nigerians have been dehumanised by a system that places low value on their dignity. This is not just in the health sector. It has been replicated in other sectors and it has impacted negatively on our collective humanity. Having witnessed how things work effortlessly in another country, the challenge before the President would be how to instill the same work ethic and dedication to service here such that the life of every citizen would count for something. Will that happen in the life of this administration or will it be the same old story of talking the talk and whimsically avoiding to walk it? Let’s just wait and see how things play out in the nearest future.

  • Onukaba: Nigeria’s endless season of ‘cheap’ death

    Onukaba: Nigeria’s endless season of ‘cheap’ death

    Our last set of text messages started on the noon of Friday, July 24, 2015 and ended on Sunday, August 16, 2015. They were short messages in which Dr. Onukaba Adinoyi-Ojo sought the intervention of this paper in publishing an online interview he granted this reporter.

    In that interview, the erudite scholar, celebrated journalist, respected university lecturer, playwright and the intellectually savvy author of many books spoke on how and why he was aspiring to govern his beloved state, Kogi.

    Personally, I had taken the whole thing as a joke when he called to ask for my support. Something just told me that this man was too refined to play the kind of do-or-die politics on display in spite of his closeness to veterans of the game like former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. Besides, he didn’t have the war chest which is key to staying on top of the political chess board here. His firm grip of media communications notwithstanding, Onukaba just never came across as a politician in the hue of those he was going to face on the battlefield. Even at death, which came like a thief in the night and snatched him away from us last week, this gentle dove would be remembered for what he did outside politics than the feeble steps he made towards actualising his personal convictions that the people of his state deserved better. His, like the death of many others, was a painful exit of a blossoming dream. Highway robbery, road accidents, ritual killings, maternal mortality, infant mortality, grisly assassinations, death from collapsed buildings and all other manners of ‘cheap’ violent death have continued to consume many Nigerian souls without adequate or realistic response from our leaders.

    And so, the man· died. Just like that! He died on one of Nigeria’s famished roads. Onukaba was not the first victim of the many tragedies that take away our nation’s best. He would not be the last either. He left with the rhythm and rhymes of his poetry; his poetic candour and nuances; the mastery of the spoken word and a firm grip of the evocative cadence of the written word. He left with many things left unfinished. Our last one-on-one contact was at a quiet library in Zone 4, Abuja where he was marking some scripts. He was a lecturer at the University of Abuja. I had gone there to pick a cheque for an advert he had placed earlier. In his usual simplicity, he walked me to the car and we spent some time discussing politics, journalism and life generally. He never missed the opportunity to smile. He readily offered tips on how to survive the vagaries of the journalism profession in a mutually suspicious society like ours. He was just that jolly good fellow that was a father or brother to many. A good man who was genuinely concerned by the woes confronting a country that endlessly demonstrates seemingly irredeemable impotence.

    When you interrogate how he died, you cannot help but blame the system – the same systemic failures that Onukaba spent the better part of his life to rectify. It is ironic that a man that spoke eloquently about the tragic consequences of bad leadership and governance structure had become a celebrated victim of that societal malaise. Asked why his state suffered from a debilitating dearth of good governance, Onukaba said that Kogi had the “misfortune of being led by the wrong people, people without vision, people who were clearly ill-prepared for the office, people who believe that being governor gives them an opportunity to primitively accumulate wealth and promote nepotism. This is why we have to be careful this time. We must pick a candidate with the right credentials, including integrity, vision and capacity to deliver. Kogi needs good governance. Kogi needs development. I believe that Kogi needs me to pull it out of this sorry state.”

    Of course, the Kogi narrative is just a microcosm of a bigger picture· at the national level. Kogi, to my mind, shares the same misfortunes with many other states and the only difference is the scale at which some have glamourized the perversion. It is that sort of annoying ineffectualness that emboldens the armed robbers that took over the major road in broad daylight to pump bullets into travelers and rob· them of valuables. Onukaba must have thought his short flight from the robbery scene had saved him from a gory encounter with the dare-devil robbers, not knowing that another fleeing driver would crush him to death in the bush. How sad! Now, we wail and sing his praises. They said a good man who could not hurt a fly had gone to rest.

    If truckloads of eulogies could wake the dead, Onukaba would be cuddling his little children before the sun sets. But that would not happen. His mortal remains are down in the bosom of mother earth. He is deaf to all the good memories we recall about him. Yet a recollection of his excellence remains immortal and we paint him in glorious words and moving prose. The Senate President, Dr . Bukola Saraki, described Onukaba in flowery words. To him, the late dramatist was “a quintessential intellectual, consummate· administrator, complete gentleman and a detribalized Nigerian.” To his state Governor, Yahaya Bello, this illustrious son of the Confluence State was “a rare· gem, a sound mind and technocrat par excellence” who would be· missed not only for what he had written but also for his “kind-heartedness.” Former Senate President, David Mark, said he was ‘devastated by the death of the frontline journalist and playwright.” And Atiku, the man he worked with and was loyal to, even right through the bitter rift with Obasanjo, said the death was “shocking, painful and beyond words” especially because Onukaba was in his house the Friday before he left for Obasanjo’s 80th birthday and eventual death on Sunday. How cruel can fate be? The man who was privileged to write Obasanjo and Atiku’s biographies died while coming from the celebration of life of the latter having bade the former good bye 48 hours earlier. Even Onukaba couldn’t have crafted this scary plot of a fate so wicked. Oh, what a script!

    Yet, the reality is that he is gone. He has bowed to the finality of death for all mortals. But Onukaba’s death would not be in vain if those who mourn him in the corridors of power can make his dream of a just and egalitarian society a realisable project. Without this, this harvest of swan song of praises is nothing short of playing to the gallery (and don’t we do that to perfection here?) Adinoyi-Ojo left behind three· young children— two daughters and a son. He had plans for them. He spelt out his vision for Kogi. These ideas are explicitly expressed. Like an intellectual that he was, his blueprint for development titled “Re-inventing Kogi State” ,among other things, harped on the need to grow internally-generated revenue with innovative and creative methods that would not over-burden the people; block the loopholes and leakages in the revenue-collection process; be a governor to all Kogites and deploy the resources for the benefit of the entire people; maintain equity in appointments and resources allocation while reverting the faithful adherence to the tradition of marginalization by the previous democratically-elected governors of the state; reduce insecurity by aggressively pursuing youth employment; equip the security outfits, broaden intelligence-gathering and maintain a database of known criminals; change the state· of Kogi roads from that of a war-ravaged territory· to that in which the billions of naira spent would reflect on the quality of the infrastructural projects and stop the habit of using the re-awarding of contracts as conduit pipes.

    That was Onukaba in his own words. Good enough, the present leadership in his home state had confessed to holding in high regards. The change he craved is yet to happen. The situation in Kogi under a young· and dynamic governor Bello is anything but inspiring, going by reports one reads daily not only on the plight of workers and pensioners but also on the rate at which heinous crimes are being carried out in the state. For a man who recently got an award for maintaining security, one had expected a drastic drop in the rate of killings, kidnappings and armed robberies. Surely, the governor cannot rest on his oars. He needs to identify the lapses and fix them such that the state can get back on track.

    Yes, the man who crafted “Re-inventing Kogi State” is gone. Nothing stops a serious leadership from taking a cue from that document and return Kogi to the path of sanity. Interestingly, he was on the same page with Bello in the need for a workers’ audit in the state. According to him, there was something curious about the N 3 billion monthly wage bill that demands the scrutiny of an audit control. He said: “We will carry out a thorough audit of the workers in the state to ensure that the 28, 000 – 35, 000 workforce on the state payroll are real. We cannot be squandering state resources on ghost workers. I believe that after conducting personnel audit, we may be able to save· a big chunk for capital projects.

    No state government can develop spending 80 per cent of its revenue on recurrent expenditure. It is the era of small and efficient public service. We will right-size to put round pegs in round· holes. We will rid the state of ghost workers. I suspect that the N 3 billion monthly wage bill is fraudulently padded. Using modern ICT tools, such as biometrics, it won’t be difficult to know the true workers from ghosts. ”

    Now, the problem is no longer workers’ audit as that has been effectively tackled according to reports. What confounds is that Kogi’s finances still bleeds, with reports of frivolous spending and official graft flying in the air. Of course, the government has come out strongly to deny the reports while promising monetary rewards for whistleblowers who can expose the critics or ‘mischief makers’ as the government chose to call them. That is laughable and petty. Were Onukaba to be alive, he would have laughed it off as one of those comic reliefs in a tragic play. Just that this is not stage play. It is a serious matter of life and death. The man died, presumably leaving Kogi in a sorry state. Would Kogi be rescued or would it continue to be under the stranglehold of insensitively primitive accumulators of wealth and grandmasters of shameful nepotism? Only time will tell as another illustrious son of the soil is committed to earth while the unending season of cheap violent deaths sorrowfully continues. Adieu Adinoyi Onukaba-Ojo.