Category: Yomi Odunuga

It’s as if it was yesterday; on June 21, 2016, a new Acting Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Kpotum Idris, was unveiled as successor to Solomon Arase, who retired having served the nation meritoriously for 35 years. In many ways, Idris owed the system a lot of gratitude for elevating him to the zenith of his career and, at the same time, circumventing the careers of quite a number of competent if not better qualified officers just that a subordinate can mount the saddle. You may argue that Idris’ case was not peculiar as many other senior personnel had resigned in the past to pave the way for a position which has been politicized and left at the whim of the President. Truth is, as things stand today, the President can decide to cut short the careers of significant number of officers as he wishes – just to ensure that his preferred choice becomes the nation’s Number One police officer. And so, Idris was it! All those that were disgruntled over his choice merely grumbled into retirement while Kpotum became the poster boy for that arm of the security forces.

But it didn’t take long for Idris to bare his fangs against his predecessor, unveiling a vindictive agenda that was to haunt him to his last days in office on January 15, 2019.  In an article published on this page on July 23, 2016 titled “On the trail of a disgruntled IG”, I had cautioned Idris to be mindful of the kind of legacy he would leave behind when his tenure comes to an end as it surely would one day. Well, that day eventually came and I doubt if Idris would be proud of what was being said about him in some quarters. Mind you, this is not saying that he did not record some commendable feats whilst in charge of an institution with its own odiferous baggage. I’m equally not unaware that he must step on powerful toes in the discharge of his duties to fatherland. I also know that different social, economic and political interests must throw jibes and jabs at him when certain decisions run contrary to their expectations. But, in all this, what would stand any leader in Idris’ position out is his strategy and sense of purpose. In his actions, was he fair to all or was he seen to be fair to all?

I was a bit excited when I read Idris’ successor, Mohammed Adamu, sermonizing about his desire to embrace a leadership style that would not only engender the citizens’ belief in the ability of the Nigeria Police to be professional in the discharge of their responsibilities but also set the example by being the pivot on which a “transparent, knowledgeable, accountable and motivational leadership” policing strategy would emerge as we inch towards the general elections in few weeks’ time. In fairness to him, Adamu said the right things and made allusions to the relevant issues in his inaugural speech on Wednesday during the handing over ceremonies at the Force Headquarters where Idris performed his last official rites of disengagement. I guess it must be a humbling experience for someone who wielded power with reckless aplomb.

Hear him: ”My appointment represents a call to duty and a charge to restore the dwindling primacy of the Nigeria Police Force within the internal security architecture of our beloved country. Ladies and gentlemen, commanding the largest Police Force in Africa, particularly, at this crucial time that the country is faced with multi-faceted security challenges and at the peak of preparations for the general elections, is undoubtedly an arduous task. However, it remains a fact that the Force is blessed with some of the finest officers anywhere in the world that are not only intellectually gifted and exceptionally dedicated, but professionally sound enough to surmount these tasks if the right leadership is provided. All that is required, from my experience, is a transparent, responsive, motivational, accountable and knowledgeable leader who will not only treat you with the dignity you deserve in your line of duty but who is sensitive to your welfare needs and fair in the manner your promotion and other reward regimes are addressed. The absence of this level of leadership has always been the missing link in policing in Nigeria.”

Now, I don’t envy Adamu one bit. I just have this gut feeling that though he might be the right man for the job, the timing might just not be right. For obvious reasons, he is sitting on a hot keg of gunpowder from his first day in office. As a tested officer, he should know that elections are prosecuted as do-or-die wars in this country. His ascension, I must point out, is not helped by the adversarial leadership style of his predecessor. His choice of the right words would not soothe frayed nerves in a tempestuous political climate like ours. What would is how he comports himself in the forthcoming elections as all eyes would be on him and his men. Already, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party has cautioned against kowtowing to the dictates of the ruling All Progressives Congress which is symbolized in the appointing authority, The Presidency. Of course, he has promised to be his own man with professionalism at the core of his mandate. But then, don’t we all know that talk is cheap? When the chips are down, will Adamu walk his talk?

Now, back to Idris, did he shift discomfortingly on his seat when Adamu made reference to the dearth of motivational and knowledgeable leadership in the Police Force? Did he understand the allusion to professional conduct and how it eroded trust during his stewardship? Did he, for a fleeting second, remember that his first task on that seat was a below-the-belt hit at Arase for allegedly carting home 24 exotic cars belonging to the police as part of his retirement benefits? Did he recollect that his first public outing was, to say the least, a disaster? Surely, he couldn’t have forgotten so soon how he called out Arase and attached an epaulet of malfeasance on his chest. Oh, the bile he spewed on that day! Now, I ask: If the table were to turn and Adamu were to ask Idris the number of exotic cars he would be going home with on that day, would Idris not see it as an affront and utter disrespect from an officer he just escorted to see the President like Arase did to him?

Thankfully, there is world of difference between the two. If anything, Adamu, going by his bio data, appears to have the requite national and global experience to show leadership where it is needed having worked with the Interpol and also served at the prestigious National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru, Plateau State. What he needs to do is to avoid the needless battles that Idris brought on himself with his leadership style. Of course, it would never be a tea party but things can be handled better with the application of wisdom. The police, under Adamu, should be determined to work professionally so that cases like that of the Offa Robbery incident and the Dino Melaye issues would be shred of the melodrama. Personally, I think it is a shame that the invasion of banks in Offa which left about 33 persons dead has been so badly politicized that the culprits may end up walking off with a slap on the wrist. It was that bad that no one even knows what to believe again as the leadership of the police huffs and puffs without making any significant headway beyond the noise of arrest and counter arrest. It is all sound and fury with its gaping hollowness.

Well, yesterday is gone. Today has unveiled Adamu who has promised to change the narrative of an adversarial and vindictive leadership. Whatever he plans to do, it is instructive that he treads with caution. Power, though intoxicating, is transient. If in doubt, he should ask why some officers were teary-eyed during the handing over ceremony on Wednesday when they realized that they would have to relinquish their positions for others to take. Nothing lasts forever. Everything has an expiry date. That is the way it is. As we put it in the local parlance here: Soja go, Soja come, Na barrack go remain.

And so, Idris has become a part of the transformation history of the Nigerian Police. I do not know if he ever read my candid advice to him when he stepped into the office in 2016 and began his shadow boxing with Arase. That poignant advice remains relevant today and I hope Adamu finds time to digest it in his bid to turn the story around: It goes thus: ”Now that he (Idris) is on that seat, he should be told in clear language that he owes the nation a responsibility to be professional, thorough and painstaking in the discharge of his duties. The security situation in the country has no room for a vindictive, petty and forever whining alarmist at the head of the Nigeria Police. It may be too early to have an informed opinion on Idris, but the few steps he has taken neither inspire one’s trust nor engender any confidence. He comes across as a man out to avenge whatever he considered to be the misgivings he nursed against certain elements within the force. When the IGP speaks, the nation listens with rapt attention because it is assumed that he must be speaking from an informed position with all the intelligence at his disposal. But with Idris’ harvest of dangerous unforced errors, public trust in that office is gravely being damaged. Idris is the new poster boy for absolute power corrupting absolutely!”

Did Idris remember those immortal words as captured in the piece, ‘On the trail of a disgruntled IG” published some two years back? Will Adamu be different or will he succumb to the gripping allure of power? Will this new kid on the block walk his talk? Again, the time ticks.

Perhaps, some odd alien in space can taste or smell the sad auguries, the sour portents of our next general elections. How much of what we see and hear today puts citizens in an upbeat mood for the heraldry of a new dawn? How endless are the known and suspected machinations to corner power for the sake of looting the treasury blind? How many can count the thread of fake news rolling out from nebulous mills? Are we seeing the future we want for ourselves and our children as the elections draw near?

In the not-so distant past, the privileged few close to the political heavyweights would, by now, be having a mental calculation of the millions of crisp notes they stand to harvest from the events leading to the general elections. It was in such period that humongous funds, in different denominations, which would be used to oil the machinery called electioneering campaigns normally flow into the system. No one cares where the money comes from as long as the crumbs fall in the hands of those in the lower rungs of a societal ladder that is eternally capitalistic in form and content. While those that hovered around the corridors of power cart away theirs in millions, of foreign currencies, those on the fringes who simply refused to deploy the power of the thumb sensibly were always delighted to bargain off their future for a pittance, sometimes as low as a N500 note stuffed in a loaf of bread. It was that bad. It could even get worse because there were those who would kill and hug suicidal missions with sheer gusto, just for their candidates to emerge winners through whatever means, including electoral heist. In those days, it was not uncommon to hear people express optimism that money would soon be pumped into the system as the general elections draw closer. The collateral damage was that governance would always take a backseat in that year while crude politicking, the meanest of its kind, would flourish with its attendant dire consequences. That was in the recent past, anyway.

Fast forward to the present and you wonder if Nigeria is in an election year. Less than 40 days to a critical election in which the opposition Peoples Democratic Party imagines a forceful return of President Muhammadu Buhari back to his Daura farm after an electoral implosion, nothing seems to suggest that the taps have been opened for the funds to pour freely as it was in the past. Okay, we all know that Buhari has never been one to freely dish out money to soften the ground for electoral victory. This week, he even sent out unambiguous warning signals to government bureaucrats who may feel inclined to dip hands into the treasury vaults on the wrong assumption that old election year practices should continue. No more cash and carry politicking, Buhari warns. Ha! That’s a tough one in this clime unless we want to deceive ourselves. Be that as it may, how does one explain the loud silence in the PDP camp being a party that was adept at deploying government funds to achieve its set targets in the past?

But for its unexpected fall from power, we wouldn’t have known that, for the PDP, raiding the national vault to fund political interests had become an official policy of some sort. And so, nobody saw anything wrong with a political appointee pulling off millions of dollars from the nation’s oil agency to cream the hands of corrupt electoral officers to ensure victory for her principal. I guess it was also normal, as many of the culprits have argued, for these persons to walk briskly into the Office of the National Security Adviser and cart away millions of dollars ostensibly to be used in fixing one electoral problem or the other. While some said the dollars came in as payment for consultancy work, others said they used the money to fund the activities of prayer warriors who travelled far and wide to beseech the gods for the emergence of a particular candidate as winner. And if you think this is preposterous, how would you react to the tendentious reason given by those who simply said they didn’t know the money was fleeced from the returned loot of the late despotic ruler, General Sani Abacha or taken from what was set aside to buy weapons to prosecute the war against the Boko Haram insurgents in the North East?

We live in strange times, don’t we? Now, the elections are days away and we are yet to read stories about how the hands of some privileged traditional rulers scattered across the six geo-political zones of the country are being greased with sweet-smelling, freshly-minted dollars to influence and cajole their subjects to vote for particular candidates. We are still awaiting news concerning how Aso Rock packaged dollars for different groups of religious bodies on courtesy visits to the President to pledge their unalloyed support for his bid for a second tenure. Where are all the General Overseers, prophets, their Eminence, Imams, Alfas, marabouts and babalawos that were once laying siege on The Presidency in those days? How come, in less than two months to the elections, no religious body has accused another of sneaking into Aso Rock to collect billions of naira on behalf of others, to curry electoral favours? And why has Buhari not embarked on a rash of visitations to the countless denominations of churches and mosques to personally worship with the faithful, donate money and make some political statements as it was in those days? Why?

Well, if money has refused to circulate the way it should no thanks to glue-fingered Buhari, something else is—propaganda. From the look of things, this is one election in which both sides of the divide would spin past wounds to gain political mileage. Fake news would be adorned with a toga of reality. Peace deal or not, we are already witnessing signs that the combatants would employ every gimmick outside the books to rubbish reputations and impugn characters. The way the game is played here, facts are not sacred. Even opinions are not free anymore. They can be twisted and adjusted to fit set narratives. It is called politics. It is murky, deadly and it holds no prisoners. It spares no punches. When you decide to swim in its waters, be prepared to swallow whatever odious particle that may find its way into your mouth as you gasp for breath. It is neither a game for gentlemen nor a sport for ladies of class.  That is why the Jibrin el Sudan tale is gaining momentum despite the denial by The Presidency. That is why the candidate of the PDP in the presidential election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, continues to battle with the perception that he is corrosively corrupt even when he has never been convicted in any court of competent jurisdiction.

That is why the PDP is huffing and puffing about Buhari family buying off the shares of a mobile telecommunication outfit and a bank without one jot of evidence to substantiate the allegations. That is why the ruling party says an Atiku presidency portends grave danger for the nation’s treasury and its foreign reserves. That is why some persons are dancing shamelessly on the graves of the courageous officers that were felled in the battlefield in the North East. And that is why the All Progressives Congress would willfully accuse the candidates of the PDP of sourcing funds from South Africa-based drug lords for the election. Everywhere you turn, what you get is bitter bile. Politics and slime seem to have a symbiotic relationship. In short, there seems to be no red line in this sickening game in which every national misfortune is used for political propaganda.

Unfortunately, talks about issue-based campaigns are receding by the day. And it is not as if the issues begging for attention are not embarrassingly choking as the lethargy in governance persists. As we inch towards 20 years of democratic governance in Nigeria, basic needs like water, housing, health, clothing and education remain in comatose. Our hospitals, if one can call them so, have deteriorated from being mere consulting clinics to death traps. We don’t even know the real number of out-of-school children as that too has been politicized. People throw up mind-boggling figures to confound and confuse us. Despite the efforts the Buhari administration says it was making to reduce youth unemployment, the statistics being reeled out from the office of the Statistician General of the Federation speak more of gloom than boom. Billions have been spent on power generation but we still transmit darkness to millions of Nigerians. If in doubt, ask those who depend on power generators in running their businesses to tell you how much they spend monthly on diesel, fuel and sundry items. We don’t even want to talk about affordable housing, food, clothing and potable water. It is bad that we are still grappling with these issues in 21st century Nigeria. Worse still is the fact that the outcome of elections is hardly based on the solutions offered by the candidates but rather more on primordial sentiments, religion and ethnic affiliations with money playing a major role. Add that to the growing reign of politically sponsored violence which has already started in some states and you would understand why, in spite of the efforts to modernize the way and how we vote, we are still hemmed in this crucible of wanting to serve motherland by fire, by force. That is why everything is deployed in the name of political correctness and nothing is considered sacred even the misfortunes of political opponents.

When, I ask, will politicians begin to run issue-based campaigns without leaving the electorates with the impression that what was on offer was the thankless job of picking likely malleable candidates from a gang of privileged thieves? Must politics we always follow this despicable track?

At the risk of sounding like a weather-beaten jalopy that disturbs the peace and quiet in the community, I hasten to say that the monumental show of shame acted by supposedly ‘distinguished’ and ‘honourable’ lawmakers with thuggish arrogance didn’t come as a big surprise to many. Indeed, it was something I had anticipated since the day President Muhammadu Buhari allowed Senator Bukola Saraki and his herd of irritating and treacherous supporters to sell the ruling All Progressives Congress cheaply just that he could realise a wanton ambition to head the Senate. Sometimes, I wonder how a President with such enormous power waited this long before realising that he had been using short spoons to dine with his greatest enemies. The plasticity of their laughter notwithstanding, even the blind could see the fakery from a long distance. Saraki and his counterpart in the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, are the two treacherous fingers behind the demystification of a party that came into power with enviable aplomb and promises. As they sit on that high pedestal with Buhari on Wednesday during the budget presentation while members cheer and jeer the nation’s Number One citizen with reckless stupidity, did it ever occur to them that the world sees them as the two leprous fingers that spoil the broth? Come to think of it, were they gloating over the silly and irresponsible display?

In case they don’t know, the National Assembly is not referred to as the hallowed chambers for the fun of it. It is meant to emblazon it with a semblance of grey-haired wisdom—the type that you see in climes where those privileged to be chosen to serve the people converge on to discuss national issues and proffer solutions amid cacophonous flare and ideological differences. Here, the charlatans that people our chambers wear their egos with padded silliness. Where others disagree to agree, ours agree to inflict cataclysmic damage on our collective sense of patriotism. In saner climes, what happened on Wednesday where lawmakers behaved like the typical motor parks touts was enough to begin a process of recall that would see most, if not all of them leaving the chambers with shame tucked under their armpits as mementoes of dishonour. For emphasis sake, various other words have been used as synonyms to hallow and they are quite ennobling. The words include venerated, sacred, holy, consecrated, sanctified, blessed, greatly revered and honoured. In fact, references have been made to hallowed ground, hallowed saints and, in politics, hallowed political institutions which the National Assembly ordinarily should be.

Unfortunately, the sacredness of the legislative chambers has been desecrated by the hollowness and empty braggadocio of the lawmakers who turned the annual ritual of budget presentation by the President into an occasion to display their base mentality and political immaturity. It is laughable that some have tried to explain it off as the first time, in the nation’s jagged history, that the President would be presenting the Appropriation Bill before a legislature under the control of the opposition. So what? By the way, such simplistic thinking is trite illogic. Buhari doesn’t need to be told that Wednesday’s visit to the National Assembly was his fourth effort at addressing and presenting the budget before an adversarial bunch of egomaniacs that would stop at nothing to see him fail. And so, when Saraki and Dogara pretended as if they were not part of the show of shame, let them be reminded that they cannot escape the harsh judgment of history for the vicious odium on the President which they glibly superintended over. Even President Donald Trump, will all his annoying theatrics, would never be treated with such utter disrespect by the lawmakers in any of the two chambers. Yes, heckling is not new in democratic settings and that is why we see it regularly on display in the House of Lords and the House of Commons in the United Kingdom. What makes ours different is the banality and the outright rascality that define the heckling.

Now, I ask, what could have ignited the riotous rage against a President that was duly invited to present the 2019 budget in consonance with constitutional provision? I say nothing other than petty politics. A budget presentation should be an event of national and international concern because of its significant impact or otherwise that it could have on the global economy. It is meant to be a roadmap to the government’s economic projections. Regardless of their political leanings and ideological predilections, it was assumed that the lawmakers would listen with rapt attention and then proceed to retool whatever lapses they may detect in the budgetary details before returning such to the Presidency for appending into law. That has been the routine for ages, even where there had been disagreements over padding and outright mutilation of the whole document. Somehow, the nation has always moved on, knowing full well that this band of self-centred lawmakers cannot stop dipping their hands on the till no matter how hard you try to appeal to their warped sense of reasoning!

If they had a jot of native intelligence, it shouldn’t take the butt of their legislative rascality—Buhari—to remind them of the nuisance value they have constituted themselves into both globally and internationally. Buhari’s admonition, unfortunately, is a sad reminder of the huge question mark on our leadership recruitment process which throws up mediocrities of benumbing emptiness into national prominence. For crying out loud, it wouldn’t be the first time a president would be presenting his scorecard and consolidation strategies before a joint sitting of what was assumed to be a set of highly cerebral lawmakers. So, what is wrong if Buhari says, in his assessment, the economy has recovered substantially from recession or that the natiom has made significant impact in the fight against corruption? Should that call for the rowdiness and errant behaviour in which lawmakers displayed anti-Buhari placards mouthing inanities and pleading for freedom when we all know that their fate lies with the electorate? And for those who shouted that Buhari was lying during his speech, I hope they know that is the basest level of legislative stupidity that no one had expected of them. When you look at the stupendous allowances they appropriate to themselves, the number of times they go on recess in a year, the corruptive tendencies on display when they embark on oversight duties and the sheer madness with which they buy official cars, you would have expected that these jokers would tread softly knowing that they are a major part of the malaise plaguing this country. But they just don’t get it.

Listen to Buhari: “The world is watching us. You are only messing up yourselves.”

Oh, Buhari shouldn’t have bothered. It was obvious the circus of irresponsible hecklers were dancing to the tune of a leadership that was nudging it on even from the exalted seat. The sheer fact that the episode was beamed on live television diminishes us as a people. Decorum was thrown to the dogs and the not-so-hidden depravity of the highest law-making body in the land was unleashed to a stunned audience across the globe. If the plot was to mess Buhari up, then they failed. Instead, they made themselves the poster boys for infantile idiocy with their hollow ranting. In any case, that is what you get when educated and highly respected leaders of thoughts in the nation shamefully surrender to the whims and caprices of men whose vaunting ambitions would make them sign a pact with the devil if need be. And that’s pitiable!

Without any iota of doubt, Dr. Rueben Abati, the iconic columnist, lawyer, literary critic, dramatist, satirist, teacher and wordsmith extraordinaire, is eminently qualified to occupy the highest office in the land. I say this not just because of his vast academic knowledge but also because of the varied experience he had garnered over the years. Personally, I consider it a show of humility when I read somewhere that the former spokesperson of President Goodluck Jonathan had graciously accepted to be the running mate of the Peoples Democratic Party’s gubernatorial candidate in Ogun State, Senator Buruji Kashamu. Shocking as it was, I didn’t believe the news even long after drawing the conclusion that, nothing is impossible in politics – especially Naija politics.

And so, in cases such as this, it is better to play safe and envisage the possibility of the duo making it to the Government House in Abeokuta other than wishing it off as a pipe dream. With what happened in 2015, common sense should tell us that writing off Kashamu in our money-makes-the-difference politics could be at one’s own peril. Still, it was unimaginable that the Abati I have known for many years, more as a teacher, mentor and senior colleague, would be part of what I had thought was a charade. I struggled very hard to connect the two and I just can’t see a coherent link. Anyway, that doesn’t matter any longer. The ticket is real and the two are already on the campaign trail, foraging for votes while the national leadership of the PDP continues to cry blue murder about the way and manner the Independent National Electoral Commission gave recognition to the Kashamu/Abati ticket.

Ordinarily, this was initially intended to be an open letter to the revered writer. Tried as I could, the words just failed to flow. I know there is that thing they say about politics and morality being a queer mix. But like everybody, I had wondered why Abati and Kashamu – a man whom I learnt represents my Ogun East Senatorial Constituency here in Abuja. Kashamu, by the way, is the cat with nine lives, who has lived each day of his life on the benevolence of the courts. In his more than three years at the Senate, I doubt if he sponsored half a bill or made any meaningful contribution on the floor either in plenary or otherwise. If he was not courting trouble with the jesters holding sway at his party’s headquarters, he would be at the court fighting tooth and nail against a plan to repatriate him to the United State to face interrogation over drug trafficking. He was much more present on newspaper pages for such than for legislative capacity.

And because ours is a society that exalts money far and above dignity and character, my constituency gratuitously offers its poster boy to come display those attributes in Abuja. And I guess he must have performed that national assignment perfectly well that amid an alleged suspension by his party, he still wriggled his way through to emerge as a factional gubernatorial candidate in Ogun State. And then, what we thought was a rude joke is laughing cruelly back at us. In any case, what more can be more sacrilegious than the fact that one of the shining lights of intellectualism mixed with sound ideological orientation from the state has joined forces with a man whose only claim to a somewhat populist hysteria was an inexplicable but stupendous wealth?

For a state that has gone through many years of anomalous leadership crisis with the attendant callous pillage of its scarce resources, it is a pity that Dr. Abati’s captivating vision has unleashed Kashamu as the redemptive virtuosi that would pull the state out of the woods. At its flag off in Ijebu Igbo the other day, Abati employed his elocution in the written words to dress Kashamu in borrowed garbs. It was a moving testimonial that unveiled a man most of us never knew. Just like the best of dramatists pump life into characters with written and spoken words, Abati brings into our consciousness, the fictional character that most of us have read about but never met in flesh. He paints him in regal colours and wreaths him with scintillating aplomb. And suddenly, a man who has no record of any meaningful contribution to the discourse at the National Assembly becomes, in the words of Abati, the “new dawn” that is poised to make Ogun a progressive state. I laugh!

Hear him: “Ogun state is great already, but it can be greater, Ogun state has made a lot of progress, but it can make more progress. This is the state of Obafemi Awolowo, this is the state of MKO Abiola, this is the state of Tai Solarin, this is the state of the Odutolas, this is the state of Wole Soyinka, and I can go on and on mentioning names of truly great people. This state is ranked the best and with your cooperation, with your support, with your votes, Buruji Kashamu will take this state to greater heights — vote PDP, vote Buruji Kashamu.”

So, a state that produced those iconic figures whose contributions to humanity remain unblemished till date including the living legend, the Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, should be surrendered to a man whose name equals a staccato of confusion both locally and internationally? Personally, even Abati knows that we deserve better after many years of experimenting with pseudo leaders with oversized egos.

Anyway, this piece was inspired by what Abati said at the rally in Yoruba that cannot be repeated here and which was transmitted live on some major national television stations. To be candid, the 59-second video which has gone viral was, to say the least, unbelievably crude and pruriently raw. For a moment, you would have thought the person on the podium spewing out those sexual obscenities was one of those political thugs. Unfortunately, it was our own Rueben on display. Some have asked, has politics or the lure for power changed the highly cerebral Abati that he now finds it cool to speak like Bashiru Eleran in downside Ijeshatedo by Odo Eran, Itire? If not, why resort to the deployment of such gutter words to drum up support for Kashamu? Others would like to know how easy it was for him to jump ship from the Ladi Adebutu faction of the PDP to the Kashamu-led faction. Is it just a confirmation of the saying that the first casualty of political engagement is morality?

In fact, that short video has thrown up a lot of disturbing questions on the social media. What drives politics—greed or concern for the people? Must politics, as practiced here, make otherwise smart people brash, indecorous and arrogantly silly? Does power intoxicate and make people disrespectful to the norms and values that bind them to the rest of the society? Was Abati bewitched by his foretaste of power under Jonathan such that he has become estranged to the transience of it no matter how inebriated one could be? Agreed that Abati, a communication expert, was addressing different categories of people including Okada riders, pepper and tomato hawkers, artisans and touts, should such profanity be linked to him in the guise of political campaign? Wither intellectualism in politics? What a descent? Is it that the electorates in that state are so crude that the only language they understand was the type that brings sex to the podium of political buffoonery?

Whatever it is, politics should be played with a modicum of decorum especially by some categories of Nigerians who should ordinarily be in it to make a difference. What lesson is there to learn if, instead of refining the tenor of political engagements progressively, our modern day players would rather chose to make the brittle tongues of practitioners of amala politics a child’s play when compared to the brazenness with which they now let loose vulgarity on the campaign trail? Shouldn’t Dr. Abati, who once wrote an exhilarating critique of the Lamidi Adedibu brand of amala politics, tread softly as he meanders through the murky waters of Nigerian politics?

This following piece, first published January 16, 2016, remains relevant today going by how some shameless people have begun gloating in hollow triumphalism following the tragic incident in Metele where Boko Haram insurgents killed scores of soldiers and injured many others. But for the failure of our judicial system and an anticorruption noise that is not helped by discomfiting political nuances, some of those whetting their mouths and dancing on the graves on the dead soldiers would, by now, be serving terms in our prisons. But since this is a country where one humongous corruption case wipes off the slimy details of another from our national consciousness, these characters regale in poking their bloody fingers on the faces of the government. And it is a shame really!  

So, let’s remind ourselves of what today’s noisemakers did with the billions of dollars they had appropriated to buy arms and ammunition for the Military. Read on…..

The shocking revelations regarding how otherwise respectable citizens of this great nation callously dipped their ten fingers into the public till have continued to beat one’s imagination. By the time they pulled out their itchy fingers, funds meant to procure arms for the military in the fight against terror had disappeared. But for the change in government, would anyone have known the extent to which some persons can go in packaging deceit as the real deal? For, if we must say the truth, the little we have heard about the $2.1 billion (over N400bn at the time of the criminal act) arms deal scandal popularly known as Dasukigate should be a cause for concern to every rational mind. In fact, it should nudge us to the reality that no meaningful gain has been made from the ceaseless lip service that successive administrations have paid to the fight against graft. While some have said the latest effort by President Muhammadu Buhari to confront the menace headlong may end up as another circus show due to some extraneous political factors surrounding his emergence, it must be said that there is more to the fight than the puerile rant of a witch-hunt by some sections of the society. Is it not intriguing that not one out of the persons currently singing like canaries with broken beaks at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has denied collecting huge sums of money from the office of the former National Security Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan? I puke when I read sane minds trying to dribble round the real issue, mouthing nonsensical prattle about the need to give the accused some windows of escape in the name of rule of law.

Before we get things twisted, none of the persons under the investigative binoculars of the EFCC has been accused of spending part of the billions of naira legitimately raised to fund Jonathan’s second shot at the Presidency. In all honesty, we do not really give a hoot about how the billions raised by Professor Jerry Gana and Co at the launching of a campaign appeal fund was spent; it remains an entirely PDP affair. No, this is not about the N9 billion that the embattled spokesman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Olisa Metuh, said was shared among party members for campaigns, lobbying and patronage. It is more about how Dasuki converted 2.1 billion dollars fund appropriated for the purchase of arms to fight insurgency, to curry political favours for his principal while the military suffered collateral damage at the warfront. Lives were lost, limbs were broken, military personnel were court-martialled, jailed and even sentenced to death for declining to prosecute the war with antediluvian weapons while all shades of politicians thronged Dasuki’s office to take from the booty. That, to my fertile mind, is the shame in the Dasukigate saga.

Aside the ludicrous subheads through which funds were unimaginatively siphoned, it is imperative to note that the fraud remains a monumental disgrace to common sense. How could anyone have imagined that he would walk free after hauling about N5bn from the fund for some nebulous ‘spiritual’ prayers? They must have thought that none of us would wear our thinking cap right if the news were to filter out that a media mogul cupped N2.1bn from the bazaar for a so-called media packaging for Jonathan with the scandalous alibi that the deal was sealed under the nose of the former President in Aso Rock. Even the media know that something wasn’t just right about the N670m collected through a personal account of another media influencer in the print media. What no one can ignore is the fact that many hands had already been sullied by the putrid stench before the spirited attempts at image laundering which came a tad too late.

Having said that, it beggars belief that some individuals, up to this present moment, are still trying to play the victim in a scandal that has seriously deflated whatever ego they were wearing on their padded shoulders. They want to smell like sweet-scented roses after taking a swim in the cesspit of graft. Among this group is the self-acclaimed Yoruba leader, Chief Olu Falae who was so sure that the entire Yoruba race would have gone to war if he had died in the hands of some Fulani miscreants who kidnapped him some months back. Perhaps the N100m he got from the Dasuki loot, ostensibly to package Yoruba votes for Jonathan through his Social Democratic Party must have fired that bloated self-estimation of his worth. But then, we cannot really blame Falae for that cheap blackmail and his truculent, if not petty, argument that there was no basis for returning any money to government’s coffers since it was paid by Chief Anthony Anenih (of blessed memory) on behalf of the PDP. We place the blame directly at the doorstep of a government led by a President who did not give a damn about the murderous rape of the national till as long as he realised his second term ambition. If not, how would anyone have thought that the insignificant jesters in the SDP or even the Senator Rasheed Ladoja-led Accord Party would have influenced the minds of millions of voters in the South-West to vote against their conscience? They must have thought that the Yoruba are that hungry for crumbs! Now they know better.

Of course, the deployment of questionable funds to curry political patronage is not peculiar to the Jonathan government. In truth, it is a key element in the Nigerian political lexicon. It is a tradition that dates back in time. What is novel under Jonathan was the desperation with which they depleted the national treasury to pursue a personal agenda. At the drop of a hat, funds running into billions of naira were released to all manner of characters to fix the most benumbing issues. All shades of incredible associations were hastily registered at the Corporate Affairs Commission, to draw money from the bazaar template in Dasuki’s office. I just wonder if those who argue that Dasuki operated within the bounds of the responsibilities of a National Security Adviser had taken a reflective glance at the list of firms that drew lucre from that office. It was, to say the least; pathetic that such devious larceny received the nod of the highest office in the land. That was political patronage at its ridiculous best!

On Tuesday, November 20th, former President Goodluck Jonathan would be unveiling his much-awaited book highlighting his stewardship in office first as acting President and later, as substantive leader for four years. The book, ingeniously titled ‘My Transition Hours’, is expected to either put a lie to some fantabulous tales that were said to define his Presidency or confirm some of them. Whatever it is; Jonathan’s narrative promises to be an interesting read not just because Nigerians would love to know the real reasons why he lost the 2015 general elections but also the nail-biting negotiations and intrigues within inside Aso Rock that eventually made him to accept the verdict without a kick. In fairness to him, Jonathan had, in his reaction to Olusegun Adeniyi’s book on the same issue titled ‘Against the Run of Play’, promised to explore the real political undercurrents that made that particular election a watershed in Nigeria’s history.

Before we engage Jonathan’s book, there is the need to revisit Adeniyi’s intervention which, to my mind, must have propelled the decision to unveil ‘My Transition Hours’ few months to another general election and on Jonathan’s 61st birthday. In a piece ‘FeBuhari 2015 and its discontents’ published on this page on May 6, 2017, I had written on the imperative of reading a firsthand narrative from the villain and hero of that election, noting that ”Against the run of play” is only one out of the many books that would be written. I equally postulated that though timely, the book serves as an encouragement to others to unveil other hidden perspectives of an electoral contest that truly redefined the limitations of the power of incumbency.  The 2015 elections, by all shades of reasoning, “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.”

It is just fair enough that Jonathan has taken the challenge with the launch of his tell-it-all exposé in few days to now. As an observer, my expectations are high. There are things I would love the Bayelsa-born national leader to address. There are questions I would love him to answer and perceptions I fervently hope he would debunk with strong arguments. And if he has learned any lesson, I would appreciate if he lists such lessons for posterity to judge. Would he have done some things differently given the benefit of hindsight, having read what those he trusted said about him as captured by Adeniyi?

In the same piece, I had thrown the challenge back at Jonathan, noting that it would be an act of cowardice to clasp his hands and allow others to serialize a story in which he was an active participant. Like I mentioned then, going by the flaks Jonathan received even when he linked his loss to a combination of betrayals by certain persons, the public can only make informed judgment when they finally get the opportunity to read his accounts. It was simply not enough for him to blame the electoral umpire; his party chairman and all manners of political associates for the 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. And his book, I assume, will prove me right.

Exactly why I believed him then when he said there were some twisted facts in Adeniyi’s book. In fact, he said the book is a buffet of “many distorted claims on the 2015 presidential elections by many of the respondents”, promising that “at the right time, the main characters in the elections including myself will come out with a true account of what transpired with in interviews or in books.” That was Jonathan in May last year. Today, we now have the opportunity to see if he would walk his talk as he unveils the book.

Excerpts from the 2015 piece read: “And so, it would be interesting to read how Jonathan would react to allegations made by some 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? 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 Jonathan, 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?

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 yet-o- 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?”

On Tuesday, when Buhari, Obasanjo, Mark and all other key players in that defining moment of Nigeria’s history gather at the Congress Hall of the Transcorps Hilton to celebrate Jonathan on his birthday, we will know whether he now has the balls to confront the wolves in sheep’s clothing with bare knuckle facts about how his transition hours were cut short by four years. Would he say it as it is or would he resort to innuendos and half-truth in order not to jeopardize the chances of his party in the forthcoming elections? Well, we will soon know.