The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Dasukigate

  • FloodGate!

    FloodGate!

    While the controversy festers over Sambo Dasuki and our so-called security money, I ponder the lives of Boko Haram victims. Those who lost limbs. Those who lost sons and daughters. Families hived and harried. The raided and raped. In the different camps of the internally displaced persons, or IDPs, hordes huddle in misery.

    Last week, a news report had it that the IDPs are fertility clinics running rampant. Babies are bouncing out of wombs like ants out of hill. It may seem good news. Little miracles in the midst of misery. But it is the fruit of boredom, of lassitude and solitude.

    It is also the lassitude of latitude, the fecund indolence of freedom. As novelist Scott F. Fitzgerald wrote: “The rich get richer, the poor get children.” It is even more tragic when the rich are fattening at the expense of the poor.

    That’s DasukiGate. As I noted elsewhere, it is not DasukiGate, it is a floodgate. The roar and rush of the scandal are not discriminating. It carries the cargoes of big men. Big men in media, in politics, in business. It moves with a democratic quality of ferocity, treating no one with respect whether the arm of a tycoon or the belly of a former governor.

    But they were stealing and storing our resources while individuals toiled and died. While on a daily basis, we lamented Boko Haram scorch earth after earth. Fathers fell. Sons either died or joined them. Daughters fell prey to their distorted vision of the marital bed. If, that is, they did not lose their virginal pride instantly. The Chibok girls, the other schools turned into vast slaughter slabs from stabbings and beheadings, whole villages sacked, their theocratic flags hoisted haughtily.

    The scandal men fuelled the tragedy, so they could feather their nests. The horror brings to mind the work of Svetlana Alexievich who won this year’s Nobel Prize in literature. She dedicated her life’s career writing about how ordinary people suffer while leaders mint money and enjoy the luxury of high office. She is the first journalist to win the big prize, but her work is not mere journalism. Hers probe beneath the layer of reporting. She probes, in her books, the depth of angst, desolation and tortured alienation during disasters in the old Soviet Union. She writes about the Second World, the Soviet-Afghan War, the Chenobyl disaster. She is a raconteur of the emotional abyss of pain and loss. Which is no different from the story of the Boko Haram tragedy.

    So, while we spoke about billions, they might have averted the dismembered hand, the kidnapped belle, incinerated home, the disoriented family, the devout sublimity of the boy now recruited into the circle of an apocalyptic belief. There are many individual stories, a thing not well documented yet about the tragedy whose flames are happily on the ruin. Each story is a deep wound, and that was the project of Alexievich. “Each substance of a grief has twenty shadows,” said Bushy in Shakespeare’s Richard II, demonstrating that if many had griefs in northern Nigeria, we had a million shadows. Let’s go beyond the statistic into the emotion. “One million deaths is a statistic,” warned Josef Stalin who was never squeamish about a dying mother, “One death is a tragedy.”

    The FloodGate is indeed telling. What bothers is the place of due process. The military operated the way the politicians acted. In carting away the money, they respected no due process or decency. The same way the Chibok girls were taken away without due process or decency. We saw the barbarity of high office executed by the barbarians at the Chibok gate.

    In the NSA’s office, money came there via the Central Bank without respect to protocol. They took raw cash, bags of dollars crackled through the CBN portal. They came one after the other once it had settled at the ONSA vault. Dokpesi came. Bafarawa materialised. Obaigbena waltzed in. Etc. As they came in, our money flew out. It was a sleek and extravagant comedy. Enter with false dignity. Sign on a sheet of paper. The paper could say media embed, or energy or spiritual work, or whatever. Not arms or uniforms or food for the boys then awaiting court martial. Somebody heaves out and counts the stack of dollars, arranges them daintily in a bag. The dignitary receives in a flourish. Nods to the NSA. Smiles to the gate. Car takes him either to the hotel or Abuja palace or private jet when fleeing out of town.  Our police, in short supply to protect the vulnerable, are gun-happy beside them as they sashay away.

    That was the due process. Not your business BPE, or Senate. Contempt for open bidding. No respect for such things as certificate of incorporation, tax papers. That is suffocating protocol. Speak to the president, get his approval, walk to Dasuki, pick your loot and flee. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Go and enjoy yourself.

    But the military operated no differently. Recently the report had it that over a hundred soldiers were buried in a mass grave. The army denied it. I ask, when was the last time they reported any dead Nigerian hero? In the United States, once a soldier dies, he is buried in dignified ceremony. His family is notified in a special visit. In the killings in Paris, all the victims of the recent tragedy were not only noted, they had their families notified. Later, they announced to the public with pictures and biographies. It is a ritual of respect, a homage to patriotism.

    It is when we lack this protocol of dignity that our army runs the gauntlet of accusations of human rights abuse. No such deference for order. Hence many soldiers were paraded for court martial. Femi Falana, SAN, led the agitation for respect of those who fought for us. Barely a year ago, I wrote a column on Citizen Fahat Fahat, who enthused into battlefield and posted many gung-ho Facebook messages about his desire to despatch Boko Haram goons.

    Yet many felt sorry when he posted he was being court-martialled for not fighting when no one stocked him with military hardware. I hope he is one of those set free by the military court. Alexievich laments this nightmarish paradox of service attracting punishment in her moving book, Zinky Boys, about soldiers brought home in zinc coffins.

    The media fell prey to the same lack of due process. The newspaper proprietors collected drafts. No one asked for the cheques from the federal government. No one asked, why drafts and not NPAN cheques? No one asked for any official memo from the federal government on the agreement. No due process.

    The newspaper proprietors were guilty of naivety, especially in an ambience of financial putrefaction. It is an excuse not of nobility, but of inexcusable innocence. Yet, they were robed in. Their hands were not soiled but boiled, but they were numb hands. They did not know how hot the water was.

    So, they story was messy. No due process in government. No due process with Boko Haram. It was an epidemic of impunity from the tony majesty of Aso Rock to the scalding heat Sambisa Forest. Boko Haram and the Jonathan government had two things in common: impunity, oppressing the average citizen. The Boko Haram leaders also lived large, with money, women and barbarian glamour. So did the Jonathan’s men.

    [news_box style=”3″ display=”category” link_target=”_blank” category=”24″ count=”6″ show_more=”on” show_more_type=”link”]

  • Dasukigate: beyond the outrage and apart from the legal battle, what is to be done?

    Dasukigate: beyond the outrage and apart from the legal battle, what is to be done?

    When Colonel Sambo Dasuki assumed duty in June 2012, he approached me for assistance, based on my background as a social scientist, and my previous involvement in government. It is also public knowledge that I have considerable knowledge of Nigerian politics and skills about competitive political organization. This is why in 1999, General Olusegun Obasanjo appointed me as Director-General of his campaign. Similarly, in 2007, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar turned to me to assist him in the same capacity. Not surprisingly, I was approached in 2014 if I could coordinate former President Jonathan’s 2015 campaign. I politely declined by offering advisory services.

    Dr. Iyorchia Ayu (former Federal Minister of Education and PDP Chieftain)

    This past week, several newspapers finally called it “Dasukigate”. This was the series of incidents in which vast sums of money in local and foreign currencies that Colonel Sambo Dasuki, the former National Security Adviser (NSA) to the former President Goodluck Jonathan had taken out of our national coffers had been diverted to the accounts of himself and diverse political and business associates of his. As nearly everyone knows, as a term “Dasukigate”owes its etymological origins to the infamous Watergate political scandal that forced the American president, Richard Nixon, to resign from office in 1974 in order to avoid the politically worse fate of impeachment. Since “Watergate”, in America itself and other parts of the world, there have been other “Gates”. On our own shores, the most recent one before “Dasukigate” was “Ekitigate” that erupted into our shocked national consciousness during the Ekiti State governorship elections of June 2014. In that particular incarnation of the scandalous “Gate” tradition, Ayodele Fayose and other chieftains of the PDP were secretly audio-taped in conversation with an Army General and other security agents as they plotted to use the machinery of the state to forcibly ensure Fayose’s victory at the polls. Thus, “Dasukigate” draws its meaning from a globally and locally well-known tradition that entails the perpetration of high crimes and misdemeanors that are so severe that they pose grave threats to the constitutional, political and moral order.

    In conformity with the tradition from which it draws its name, “Dasukigate” has not disappointed at all in the scale of outrage it has inspired as Nigerians and the whole world have been treated to unbelievable tales of impunity in rapine, cynicism and brigandage. Moneys were taken out of the Central Bank as if it was a mere ATM machine. In one operation, 34 million U.S. dollars were carted to Col. Dasuki in eleven “Ghana-Must-Go” bags, never mind the fact that only narco-terrorist drug barons carry such humungous sums of money around in cash. And as Dasuki and his associates shared the moneys amongst themselves, all regulations and protocols around the withdrawal and use of funds by agencies of the Federal Administration were routinely flouted. Apparently, no receipts were issued for moneys paid out by Dasuki and his administrative support staff, leading to allegations and counter-allegations of how much each beneficiary received and for what purported services. The statement credited to Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, former Federal Minister of Education and a PDP chieftain, is one example of an attempt by one of Dasuki’s beneficiaries to set the records straight, Ayu vigorously claiming that contrary to the former NSA boss, he was paid for something other than procurement of arms. More on Ayu and his protestations later in this piece.

    Perhaps the most unbelievable and unconscionable of the “high crimes and misdemeanors” of Dasukigate was the diversion of moneys intended for purchase of arms and armaments for the army in its counter-insurgency war with Boko Haram to things like paying for Dasuki’s purchase of real estate property in Dubai and paying a friend’s private hospital complex for “offering prayers” for the success of President Jonathan’s re-election bid.

    My central concern in this piece is a desperate hope that as much as outrage is a logical and natural response to Dasukigate, we will to get beyond it to ask what next, what is to be done. In this, I do not wish at all to diminish the emotional validity and the moral and psychological value of outrage. An individual, a people that has lost the capacity to feel and express justifiable outrage is a lost individual, a hopelessly lost people. In the particular case of Dasukigate, outrage is perhaps even not strong enough to express the scale and the consequences of the criminality in the act of a National Security Adviser who diverts monies intended for procurement of arms for counter-insurgency military operations against Boko Haram to the private coffers of himself and his cronies. Beyond feeling and expressing outrage for such an act, the English language has a word and it is –restitution.

    Beyond outrage then and in pursuit of restitution, I argue that what is to be done is to take the path of the pursuit of restitution. Let me be absolutely clear on this point, this contention: we, the Nigerian people, must massively but critically assist the Buhari administration in this and other battles in the overall war against corruption in Nigeria. I am moved to make this assertion because, at least to my knowledge and information, there has been no single act of public protest or demonstration in support of the administration’s war against corruption. The impression one gets is that we, the Nigerian people, are leaving it all to Buhari and his administration to wage the war on our behalf and wage it well. This is especially troubling given the fact that the main theatre of the war is the law courts, the same law courts, the same criminal justice system that so far at least, has been overwhelmingly on the side of looters against the interests of the Nigerian governments and peoples. Even more pertinent here is the fact that Dasukigate is actually far more common an occurrence in Nigeria in its present mode of the organization of political governance than we care to admit. For if in essence the criminality of Dasukigate involves stacking the odds against the Nigerian army, state and people in the counter-insurgency war against Boko Haram, hasn’t countless other acts of looters stacked the odds against our health care delivery system, our educational system including the primary, secondary and tertiary levels, and our system of roads, highways and public transportation? What sphere of life for the country and our peoples have not been hopelessly compromised by the looters?

    Dasukigate is, I argue, more properly grasped and understood as only one more expression of “Naijagate”: a political order bequeathed to the new administration of Muhammadu Buhari by the former ruling party, the PDP, a considerable segment of whose top political bigwigs is now in the new ruling party, the APC. I crave the reader’s indulgence to dwell a little on this assertion that far bigger than Dasukigate and thus containing it within the vastness of its moral and political bankruptcy is “Naijagate” itself. Permit me to use the case of Dr. Iyorchia Ayu and his declaration of professional expertise, probity and honor in the epigraph to this piece to explain this term, “Naijagate”. Please bear in mind, dear reader, that this “Naijagate” is what I have in mind in asserting that we, the Nigerian people, must not leave the everything in the hands of the Buhari administration in the war against corruption but must become active in our own interests and especially the interests of the most oppressed masses of the Nigerian people.

    The Iyorchia Ayu part in Dasukigate is easily exposed as the very height of the reflexive and cynical justification of extremely corrupt practices that has become commonplace among members of our political class. In this pattern, things that happen only in Nigeria and even then only among political elites and their cronies are boastfully touted as “universal” facts. Says Ayu: I was not paid 435 million naira for procurement of weapons; I was given the money for the consultancy work that I did for security and the PDP 2015 presidential campaign. And I got the money because I am, by professional reputation, a damned good social scientist”. Now, social scientists who are far better qualified and far more highly respected than Ayu cannot expect, even in the best of circumstances, to make 435 million naira in the entire course of their careers. But here is Ayu unself-consciously declaring that this is something he “deserved” as a social scientist! Meanwhile, in all probability, the “consultancy” work that Ayu did for Sambo Dasuki led to the former NSA’s most notorious act during the crises of the presidential elections of 2015 – the postponement of the elections for six weeks and its near cancellation as Dasuki took the matter to the United Kingdom and the world at large to argue that the elections be postponed indefinitely and an interim government of national unity be formed.

    Unfortunately, the case of Ayu is the norm; it is not an exception, not an aberration in the political order bequeathed by the PDP to the APC. At the heart of this political order is a predatory savagery that is characteristic of capitalism in its worst form, a capitalism in which, typically, the wealth of the nation is transmogrified to the poverty of the nation. By itself alone without the active and vigorous support of the masses of the Nigerian peoples, the Buhari administration will never vanquish this predatory, ‘barawo’ capitalist order. In practical terms, if the people are not out in their hundreds of thousands, in their tens of millions demonstrating and marching in support of this all-out war on the ramparts and bastions of corruption in our country; if the war is fought only at the law courts; if it is left only to the fitful, slow and so far indecisive political will of the Buhari administration: outrage will continue to be the only harvest of the war against this new phase of the perpetual war on corruption in our country. Please remember, compatriots, beyond outrage there is or ought to be restitution.

    Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

  • The North and Dasukigate

    The North and Dasukigate

    But talking of Nigerian courts is another kettle of fish entirely where it concerns the north which, incidentally, controls the judiciary a full hundred percent – the CJN, the President of the Court of Appeal, even the Attorney-General of the Federation are all from the north, one reason we are having a rash of calls for properly restructuring the country.

    I ask, as you begin to read this article, to pay more premium on its therapeutic purpose, rather than see the columnist as an unreconstructed ethnic jingoist, trying to further widen the gaps between our many ethnic groups. That said,  why is it so easy for  the average northerner, from  what we  have seen,  time and again, and the one now unfolding, menacingly,  before our very faces, to go after, and luxuriate,  in unearned opulence, mostly funds  from public sources to which they usually collectively like to  assume a legitimate claim? Or who would forget the late Kano State governor,  Barkin Zuwo, in a hurry?  As at now, and still counting, the following northern  ‘who is who’, have been implicated in the nauseatingly unravelling  Dasukigate – and there must be many more from where these ones come from: Col Sambo Dasuki, former National Security Adviser, a  former Minister of State, Finance, Bashir Yuguda,  ex-Director  of Finance, ONSA, Shuabu Salihu, former Sokoto State governor, Attahiru Bafarawa, for whom  the PDP laid a red carpet as President Jonathan welcomed him into that party, a former Executive Director of NNPC, Aminu Babakusa, and the governor’s son, Sagir Attahiru. Not satisfied, they even brought in their companies to partake of the bazaar which, left to Dasuki, should all have gone to northerners like himself. And, of course, you still can bet your last dime that we are yet going to have the names of a retinue of Alhajis and Alhajas whose daily job is no tougher than merely visiting the office of the National Security Adviser to be loaded with unearned money while millions of Nigerians from other parts of the country slave away in the hot African sun, not knowing where the next meal would come from. These things happen when a people have no shame; just as it speaks to an excessive cronyism. For instance, all the ONSA staff mentioned in this shameless scam are from the north as if it were a family business. These things can only happen in a culture that worships money and would do just about anything to amass it, no matter how earned. There are, of course, still a good number of decent northerners who abhor this type of public shame even as we appreciate the fact that those named are innocent until proven guilty before the law. But talking of Nigerian courts is another kettle of fish entirely where it concerns the north which, incidentally, controls the judiciary a full hundred percent – the CJN,  the President of the Court of Appeal, even the  Attorney-General of the Federation are all from the north, one reason we are having a rash of calls for properly restructuring  the country.  One critical Institution of state the status quo in the judiciary has negatively impacted, over the years, is our electoral system. So bad was the unfair use to which some northern elements put it that on 9 May, 2010, in an article captioned: THE HAMMER VERDICT, (a play on the judge’s name), I wrote as follows: ” . . .the meeting was subsequently informed that the then President of the Court of Appeal -a Katsina man, -who empanelled the Election Tribunals in cahoots with the presidency,  which another Katsina man heads – had  taken the opportunity to plant malleable, and thoroughly pliable northern judges in the electoral tribunals holding in the South-West, even appointing them chairmen, to ensure that the Southwest remains tied to the apron strings of the feudal north. Consequent upon this, the three, then on-going tribunals in Ogun, Osun and Ekiti, all had three northern members, among them, naturally, the Chairman.  Of the three tribunals, only the result of Osun is being awaited with the two already declared going in favour of the PDP. (As expected, Osun was later declared for the PDP only for both Ekiti and Osun results to be reversed at the Appeal Court). It is hoped that the ongoing ‘name and shame’, of otherwise respected northerners would teach appropriate lessons if they want Nigerians from other parts to accord the north its deserved respect.

    The time to start that change of heart should be now that we are laying the building blocks of the new Nigeria we are now eagerly constructing under the sterling lead of General Muhammadu Buhari, incidentally a northerner, a Nigerian Army General, former Head of State, as well as former chairman, Petroleum Trust Fund, who not only does not own a petrol station, but would most probably not recognise an oil block if he sees one. You appreciate this rather unbelievable Nigerian ‘exemplarism’ when you remember that some of his former colleagues, even juniors, now live in hilltop mansions, in stinking opulence, far away from the Nigerian hoi polloi.  Northern leaders, emirs, top political leaders, clerics, as well as their several socio-political organisations would be doing Nigeria a great favour if they would not attempt to pressure the president into allowing those complicit in this heist to have any soft landing whatever.  The possibility has already been floated and although we think Nigerians know President Buhari well enough, there  must be a limit to which he can stand up to such pressure, especially from the high and mighty, some of who he may personally have high regards for.  It must, however, be poignantly told the president that if he collapses, and buckles to any such entreaties and he would have written off his place in history, which God forbids.  Today, the world over, people remember  Turkey’s  Mustafa  Kemal Ataturk,  just  as the world is celebrating Lee Kuan YEW,  the man who took  Singapore  from the Third, to the First world; incidentally the title of his magnum opus. I personally believe that it is too late in the day for a spartan Muhammadu Buhari to have his integrity compromised. Which is why it was good to read from highly regarded northern leaders like Professor Ango Abdullahi, chairman, Northern Elders Forum, and Ibrahim Coomassie, his counterpart at the Arewa Consultative Forum, both expressing support for the president’s anti-corruption war and, emphatically disclaiming any intent to prevail on the president to soft pedal. Not a few Nigerians have poured cold water on these public disclaimers but, because of their own integrity, and the many ways these things can detract from the respect due the north, as I have dutifully tried to show in this piece, one can only hope that these leaders will not, themselves, fall into the tempting hands of the PDP people who would do anything to save their arses.  The north must realise that those named are certainly not the type of ambassadors they should want to see as the face of the outstanding legacies of the Uthman Dan Fodio’s, the Ahmadu Bello’s or even the Tafawa Balewa’s.  Although President Shehu Shagari was, in the NPN, surrounded by about the worst specimen of humanity, from all parts of the country, he served and left with his personal integrity intact. No self-respecting elder, who loves the north, should be seen interceding for these illegal bounty sharers.

    To further persuade any would-be peace-makers – these men do not even deserve a plea bargain – they should understand that anybody benefiting financially from funds which should have been spent, equipping our fighting forces, could never have wanted to see an end to the murderous Boko Haram scourge. The result then is that these people are, one way or the other, vicariously responsible for the thousands of murders by  Boko Haram, responsible for the fate of millions of our compatriots currently uprooted from their homes and living as internally displaced refugees in their own country. They should ponder the fate of thousands of widows and orphans who no longer have anybody to turn to as bread winner. We can only imagine what future awaits these compatriots of ours, victims of corrupt men in power, who would rather lay their ugly hands on monies that never belonged to them. They showed no mercy and should receive none. Nigeria needs money no doubt, but so do we need to teach our youth abiding moral lessons.

    Whoever is found guilty must go to jail. They must have their comeuppance.

  • Dasukigate: Return your N260m share, Oshiomhole tells Anenih

    Dasukigate: Return your N260m share, Oshiomhole tells Anenih

    Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State yesterday fired a broadside at the former Chairman, Board of Trustees (BOT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Tony Anenih.

    The governor talking about the revelations of sharing of money by top politicians during the Jonathan Administration asked Anenih to return the N260m allegedly given to him by the immediate past National Security Adviser (NSA), Col Dasuki Sambo (rtd) from the $2.1 billion Abacha loot earmarked for arms purchase.

    Speaking at a rally of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Benin City where prominent PDP leaders and their followers including two former members of the Federal House of Representatives, Patrick Ikhariale and Abbas Braimoh, defected to the APC, Oshiomhole said: “We have seen even the godfather’s name being mentioned. Even at his old age, he collected N260m, and I want the godfather to deny or to confirm it. If he wants to refund the money, I will collect it from him and I will go to Abuja without deducting anything from it, and I will hand it over to President Muhammadu Buhari.”

    Anenih was generally referred to as the ‘political godfather’ in Edo State until the defeat of the PDP in the last elections.

    On Anenih’s tenure at Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), the Governor said, “And you can see, this is not yet an outcome of any investigation. I am sure by the time the NPA book is fully opened, more revelations will come out.”

    Making reference to the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Governor Oshiomhole said, “By the time they open NIMASA, you will understand how these people helped themselves and their families, and deprived even the activists who helped to make them relevant. When it was time for help, they dealt quietly; when it was time to mobilize they used everybody. And I think if this is what President Buhari has done for Nigeria, helping us to understand how the old people were eating the grass cutter which the younger boys had gone to the bush to bring home.

    “Even without teeth, in their 90s, they never stop stealing. So you can see why new changes are necessary. Not just to build roads but to change the political system. They don’t allow the young to grow. We respect elders, but the elders must not prevent the younger ones from growing.”

    He lauded President Buhari for his fight against corruption and commitment to uninterrupted power supply, saying: “President Buhari has a huge task of rebuilding

    a country that has been so grossly mismanaged. I believe God loves Nigeria so much that he gave us President Buhari at the time he did. Now, when you read newspapers, you can imagine if Jonathan had continued in office, where we would have been today. You can only imagine that.

    “For the first time, big people are being asked to account. In the past, you only heard of governors; we only heard of local government chairmen, commissioners. But this time, we are seeing a Minister of Finance confessing like a witch.”

    One of the counts against Col Dasuki who is currently being prosecuted by the anti-graft agency before Justice H.Y. Baba and Justice P.O. Affen of the High Court of Justice of the Federal Capital Territory is “that you Col. Mohammed Sambo Dasuki whilst being National Security Adviser and Shaibu Salisu, whilst being the Director of Finance and Administration in the Office of the National Security Adviser(ONSA)  on or about 28th November 2014  in Abuja within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, and in such capacities  entrusted with dominion over certain properties to wit: the sum of N260million being part of the funds in the account of the ONSA with Skye Bank Plc committed criminal breach of trust in respect of the said property when you transferred same to the bank account of Tony Anenih with First Bank of Nigeria Plc and  you thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 315 of the Penal Code Act, Cap 532, Vol.4, LFN 2004.”

    Welcoming the defectors to the APC, Governor Oshiomhole assured them that they will be treated equally as other party members. He urged all APC leaders at local government and state levels to commence the process of integrating the new members into the APC fold.

    “Let me assure our leaders; they have come to reinforce our leadership, and they will be part of our leadership. When we harness all these people together, we have a more potent political party. We are one and the same. There is no discrimination. Each of these leaders that have decamped today has come to join forces with you to ensure victory,” he said.

    “Those who are left there should remain idle. That is where they belong. The house is now complete. We only need these generals to do the infantry work, to mop up the few people remaining. We should integrate fully because if we don’t integrate, we will not be able to harness the gains of this exercise.”

    The defectors from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progress Congress (APC) include Patrick Ikhariale, former member representing Esan West, Esan Central and Igueben Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives;  Abbas Braimah (aka Congress man), former member representing Etsako Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives; former State legislator representing Igueben constituency Sunday Ereghan, Emma Ehiabhi, Bisi Idaomi, Sule Asemokhai, Hajia Hauwa, and  Kelvin Aigbe. Among the APC leaders who received the defectors were the State APC Chairman Anslem Ojezua, former Governor, Prof Oserheimen Osunbor, Gubernatorial candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in 2012, Maj-Gen Charles Airhiavbere; member Federal House of Representatives representing Etsako Federal Constituency Philip Shuaibu, Secretary to Edo State Government Prof Julius Ihonvbere, among others.

     

  • Dasukigate and controversial media payments

    Of all the fiery elements of Dasukigate, the scandalous arms deal and financial bazaar superintended but not necessarily wholly inspired by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), three controversial payments concerned the media and have fuelled animated discussions all over the country, some of them sensible, but most misplaced, confused and emotional. The arithmetic of the arms deal and slush funds payments is still being worked out, and no single, final sum has yet been produced. But as far as the media is concerned, three payments stick out like a sore thumb.

    The first, over N2bn, was made out in favour of chairman emeritus of Africa Independent Television (AIT), Raymond Dokpesi, ostensibly for publicity of indeterminate scope. The second, over N500m, was made out in favour of Nduka Obaigbena, publisher of ThisDay newspaper, ostensibly to compensate him for the damage done by Boko Haram to the ThisDay office in Abuja in 2012. The third, some N120m, was meant for media houses whose operations were disrupted by the army in 2014, but channeled through the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association of Nigeria (NPAN) and Mr Obaigbena in particular. The Nation newspaper bore the brunt of that attack and disruption.

    It is pointless debating the payments to leaders of the then ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), whether the funds were meant for politics, to buy consciences, or to appease or settle militants. For the purpose of this piece, the main focus will be the payments to media proprietors and media houses, in particular the latter. Both Chief Dokpesi and Mr. Obaigbena insist the sizable payments made to them were perfectly legitimate. Few believe them.  Indeed, their long-suffering media establishments will be shocked and embarrassed by the size of the payments. In addition to the general controversy regarding how the NSA became the former ruling party’s and the ex-president’s bursar, not to talk of the needless and infinite distractions the money and the payments constituted to the onerous work of the security adviser, questions have been asked about the processes as well as the objectives of the payments.

    Both Chief Dokpesi and Mr Obaigbena cannot plausibly argue that the payments did not influence their editorial judgements. The AIT was unabashedly pro-PDP, going in many instances beyond the bounds of propriety and decency to malign the reputation of ex-president Goodluck Jonathan’s opponents and impugning their character. The television station broadcast scurrilous campaigns with enthusiasm and reckless abandon. However, the television station retained the right to support  whomsoever it wishes, but given the huge payments involved, critics suggest that its editorial decision was consequently no longer independently made, contrary to the ethics of the profession. Chief Dokpesi will find it hard, if not impossible, to absolve himself of blame.

    Media watchers noticed that before and during the campaigns, ThisDay was also unapologetic about its support for the PDP and Dr Jonathan. It is suggested that that choice was also influenced not by altruistic reasons but by pecuniary considerations. There is nothing wrong with being partisan, or if not partisan, at least supporting a party for ideological or certain other reasons. What is reprehensible theoretically is how the decision to support one against the other is reached, whether by logic and reason, or by financial inducement. The onus is on both Chief Dokpesi and Mr. Obaigbena to prove they were not induced to flagrantly breach media ethics. First impression, however, suggests they compromised.

    Questions have also been asked, in the case of Mr. Obaigbena, how without a contract he was able to get over half a billion naira in payments. He has suggested that the federal government’s needless rescue of the United Nations, whose Abuja building was partially destroyed by Boko Haram, set a precedence for the payment he asked for and received from the Jonathan government. He is not persuasive. But by far the most damning piece of evidence was the N120m paid to harassed media houses through Mr. Obaigbena’s personal company rather than through NPAN.

    Consequently, what should have been a perfectly legitimate transaction between two parties seeking non-litigious way out of a dispute became embroiled in controversy. Indeed, the discussions have become so obfuscated that extraneous matters are creeping in and wholly misdirected and illogical inferences are being drawn. First, it is suggested that it was immoral of the affected newspapers to have collected any payment whatsoever from the government, and that anything outside of a transparent court process would be open to subversion or corruption of media ethics. This is pure nonsense. In the first instance, out-of-court settlements are a part of Nigeria’s jurisprudence. In fact, far better is alternative dispute resolution than a costly and time-consuming court process.

    Two, it is also suggested that it was immoral to collect payment from funds set aside to buy arms or prosecute counterinsurgency. But how on earth were media houses to know the sources of the payments they were beneficiaries of? Is it not silly to query sources of payments from a government? Indeed, is it not foolish and paralysing to question the account from which a company is making a payment after a transaction had been sealed? Critics are simply being wise after the fact. Some media houses had a dispute with the federal government, a settlement was reached outside of court, and payments made. It is foolish to worry about where the government is sourcing the money. Media houses which preferred to go to court were free to do so; and those which opted to settle out of court were also free to. None is ethically superior to the other. It is strange to begin to draw ethical lessons from exercising one’s lawful options.

    It is also suggested that now that it is evident the federal government’s payment was made through a disputed and inappropriate account, the beneficiaries should return the money and apologise to the military, especially the dead who lost their lives in operations against Boko Haram due to poor equipment. This is another sentimental buncombe. Let the government initiate moves to reclaim the money paid to the affected media houses; and let the media houses in turn sue the government for the full value of the disruptions to their operations. If the current government can’t draw a line in its anti-corruption war, then let them insist on full judicial processes and be prepared for huge judgement debts.

    The Nation newspaper was a part of the settlement midwifed by NPAN. It collected nine million naira. It should not apologise, for it neither did anything wrong nor influenced or exploited Mr Obaigbena’s unorthodox financial dealings. Of the few newspapers that opposed the Jonathan government and fought its predatory habits, none was as vehement as this newspaper, wholly on ideological and principled grounds. This was why it bore the brunt of the military’s clampdown on newspapers. Anyone who thinks this newspaper’s soul was bought with nine million naira must have contempt for this newspaper and what they think it is worth, and must also suffer from amnesia, choosing to forget the unrivalled role this paper played in the defeat suffered by Dr Jonathan and the victory the APC and President Buhari achieved early this year.

  • This Dasukigate

    This Dasukigate

    Certainly, these are uncertain times in Nigeria. Around this time last year, the ‘change’ slogan was at fever pitch. That was in the heat of the campaign for the 2015 elections. By that time, it was obvious that the country was somehow heading for the rocks. So, the clamour for change spread like wildfire in the harmattan. Everyone was involved – the old, the young, the urban dweller, the rural dweller, people with white collar jobs, artisans, beggars and even destitutes – all shared in the idea that a change was inevitable in the country.

    We all witnessed the dying days of the campaigns, particularly the campaign for the presidential election which revolved around the use of money, stupendous money. A lot of money was deployed into that campaign to either woo voters or buy votes. It was as if money was running out of fashion or that the outcome of the elections would be determined by the amount of money thrown into the campaigns. Lagosians will not forget in a hurry, the naked display of financial recklessness allegedly orchestrated by stalwarts of the then ruling party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP, in central Lagos at the last minute of the campaign for the presidential election. Tons of dollar notes were said to have been flung out of moving vehicles in some areas in central Lagos leaving the streets strewn with hard currencies while residents scrambled to pick them. A friend on the Island, also confided in me on how some party agents on the Island had wads of dollar, running into several millions, neatly stacked in their bedrooms.

    When it seemed that money alone may not do the magic, a number of crude but ingenious innovations came to play. One of them was the recourse to Boko Haram as an alibi simply to buy more time as there were indicators that the then opposition party, the All Progressives Congress, APC, may coast home to victory in the impending election. The APC is an amalgamation of all the ‘progressive’ parties or parties who shared in the ‘progressive’ ideas which the then Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, represented. The ACN fused with the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC to form the nucleus of the APC and attracted other political groups like the breakaway faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA and the renegades of the PDP into the fold.

    This amalgamation of ‘progressive’ forces drove fears into the ruling PDP so much that Sambo Dasuki, the then National Security Adviser, a retired Colonel in the Army attempted a solution by alluding to the fact that the military needed, at least, a few more months to be able to deal a decisive blow on the rampaging Boko Haram terrorists who were then occupying a significant part of the landscape of the North-east geo-political zone of the country. On the surface, this proposition appeared patriotic but there was more to it. Consequently, the presidential election was postponed by a further six weeks from February 14 to March 28, under the guise that the Boko Haram terrorists would have been routed from the country by March 28. But that was not to be. The reason for this was that in spite of the country obtaining a USD 1million loan to enable it to procure weapons and other war armaments to prosecute the war, the fighting troops were no more than a rag-tag army which Kashim Shettima, the governor of Borno State, aptly described as being inferior to the Boko Haram terrorists. If recent revelations are anything to go by, it seems that instead of fighting the war, Dasuki and his ilk, were merely lining their pockets while the terrorists were making kilishi of the soldiers.

    In my own opinion, those who participated in that bazaar, which is now turning into some sort of Dasukigate, are worse than Boko Haram commanders who are still visiting death and destruction on innocent people in the North-east and elsewhere. They are simply saboteurs and deserve to be treated as such because their actions have directly and indirectly led to the prolongation of these mindless killings, rape, abductions and other unimaginable crimes against humanity.

    The money involved in this unfolding drama of the absurd, especially the Abacha looted fund which has now been re-looted, is too incomprehensible and scandalous to be ignored.

    A fortnight ago, I was a guest of one of the country’s former leaders. The day was a Sunday and I had paid a routine visit at the request of the former leader. As soon as I entered the expansive sitting room, he fired the first salvo: “Dele, all these figures that are being bandied about as stolen money, are they true?” Initially, I was transfixed. I did not know what to say but I quickly put myself together. I replied: “Well, that is what we are hearing. But if it didn’t happen that way, I do not think the Buhari government is just making a fuss where there is none. It shows the depth of moral decadence into which the country has sunk in recent times.” I tried to prod him further to open up, but my attempts fell flat. All I got was the dismay which was visible on his face as he kept on shaking his head in utter disbelief. I told him that what comes out of this probe will determine the future of this country and where the war on corruption, which the Buhari government is waging, is headed.

    Honestly, Nigerians are eagerly waiting for the outcome of this Dasukigate probe. In fact, all other probes should be carried out to the letter. We cannot continue to recite the usual refrain: “If Nigeria does not kill corruption, corruption will kill Nigeria”. Indeed, the country is currently gasping for breath on account of the debilitating corruption which has, for far too long, thrown the most populous Black Country in the world into an asphyxiating coma. For too long, we have been treated to high falluttin phrases and semantics about how bad or evil corruption is in our body politic, but nobody has lifted a finger to exterminate this cancerous tumour. It is like everybody is involved. It is possibly the reason why many people will fight tooth and nail to go into government at local, state or national level. The simple attraction being the glamour of office and the fact that there is a lot of free money, absolutely free money to steal.

    The fear is that the Nigerian legal system is too porous and very susceptible to manipulation and manoeuvre by lawyers and their clients. The lawyers have perfected the practice of invoking all manner of interlocutory injunctions to either impede or frustrate the trial of suspects involved in corruption cases. A good number of law enforcement agents, too, are very insincere and unpatriotic. They easily cover up crimes and criminality in the society in return for filthy lucre. The lawmakers in the National Assembly and state assemblies are also seriously neck-deep in several corruption scandals instead of proffering any meaningful strategies towards checking the monumental corruption plaguing the nation. Besides, there are wastages in public expenditures, so much that nearly all contracts are grossly inflated to pave way for corrupt enrichment.

    If we must get our bearings right, there is the need to leave no stone unturned in the probe of this Dasukigate in order to convince Nigerians that the days of sacred cows are over in the country. Without this, the nation will continue to wallow pitifully in the slough of ignorance, poverty and bondage in which it is currently enmeshed. God help us!

  • Dasukigate and Buhari’s dilemma

    Dasukigate and Buhari’s dilemma

    WHETHER President Muhammadu Buhari likes it or not, he will have to grapple with a huge dilemma in the weeks ahead in his continuing war against corruption. On one hand, he acknowledges that if corruption is not tackled, it will be impossible for the country to make progress. As he put it during the campaigns, if Nigeria does not kill corruption, corruption will kill Nigeria. He is right. He can’t afford to go on with the mindset of business as usual. Fortunately for him, he is as stubborn as an aurochs in the pursuit of causes he passionately believes in. He is, therefore, pursuing his quarries with a relentlessness that is befuddling to his opponents, particularly in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Because the war is yielding fruit, and many high-profile cases are daily being uncovered, to the sordid amusement and entertainment of the grieving public, President Buhari appears encouraged to make the war virtually the single most pressing obligation of his presidency.

    Yet, on the other hand, by prosecuting the corruption war wherever the trail may lead, the president has opened a can of worms so pervasive and so putrescent that it may be difficult to arbitrarily close the lid at any point, let alone determine where and how far the worms will travel. So, damned if he does not fight corruption, and damned if he does. The suspicion is that fighting corruption at all, not to talk of how President Buhari is fighting it, will in the long run consume everybody. The president has not paid attention to such squeamishness. His resolve, he believes, will never be tested by the fear of where the trail would lead. He in fact seems determined that should the trail lead to his family, he would come down upon the offender with a sledgehammer. But sooner or later, his resolve will be tested; what is not clear at the moment is how he will respond.

    The first casualty concerns of course the much-publicised case of the former National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.) to whom is attributed a cocktail of benumbing corruption cases. He is accused of superintending an arms deal in excess of $2.1bn wherein much of the money was funneled to other sundry and unrelated uses other than arms purchase. The government presents a picture of an arms bazaar where rather than arms being bought and paid for, the Office of the NSA (ONSA) concocted a slush funds bazaar that squirreled money into the accounts of the immediate past government’s loyalists and party officials. The list is expanding by the day, and the amount squirreled away mindboggling and provocative.

    President Buhari’s persistence appears, however, to be paying off. As the list of those involved in this and other crazy deals grows, it appears to grow only in the direction of PDP’s big wigs. It makes sense, but in a perverse way. Under the presidency of Goodluck Jonathan, the main beneficiaries of contract awards were naturally members, sympathisers and leaders of the then ruling party. Any war against corruption by Dr Jonathan’s successor will invariably rope in essentially those who were the leading functionaries of the PDP. This also naturally triggers the accusation that President Buhari is deliberately targetting the PDP, with the mischievous intention to decimate or castrate the opposition. Whether that is the intention or not, and it seems it is not of course, the opposition will suffer from that collateral damage. They supervised the contract bazaar; they will suffer from the consequences of that undisciplined and offensive way of dishing out patronage.

    But therein lies one of the dilemmas the president will be confronting soon. Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State has been hysterical in accusing the president of decimating or persecuting the opposition. His hysteria is a face-saving ploy. A huge percentage of the mindless distribution of public funds is believed to have gone into the reelection campaigns of the PDP at the presidential and governorship levels. If Mr Fayose and other PDP officials are shouting from the rooftops, it is feared they are motivated by self-preservation, for none of them is free of blame. But whether the slush funds went into politics or not, the president will not be deterred from prosecuting the war. And if he is not deterred, as indeed many PDP leaders have charged, would he feign ignorance of the fact that his own election and the election of many governors on the platform of the ruling party did not resort to the services of huge public expenditure to procure their victories? To what extent then will he be ready to strike at the heart of his own party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), when or if the trail leads remorselessly in that unexpected direction?

    Chairman emeritus of Africa Independent Television (AIT), Raymond Dokpesi has also been caught in the widening gyre of Dasukigate. He is charged in court with money laundering totalling some N2.1bn. His defence is that it was a publicity contract duly applied for and approved by the Jonathan presidency. Former Sokoto State governor, Attahiru Bafawara, who also dumped APC for the PDP, is also sucked in. Many other highly placed PDP leaders will soon be drawn into the red gullet of the war, some of them certain to be bloodied and bowed. For instance, former Finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, is increasingly looking like she will be invited to clarify a number of financial transactions carried out under her watch. They will all cry persecution, but both the adamant President Buhari and the scandalised public, relieved that the massive rot is being uncovered, will not care a hoot. But what of when the shoe is on the other foot?

    Perhaps the greatest dilemma President Buhari will confront will be what to do with ex-president Jonathan. Virtually all the trails in the arms deal and other fund transfers lead to him. He is mentioned as the final approving authority, with the delicate line of difference between approval and fraudulent application greatly obfuscated. Already, the president has described as betrayal of trust the unseemly transactions that took place within the purview of the $2.1bn arms deal. He will find it difficult to continue to ignore requests by investigating agencies, if they come, to interview the former president. It is not clear whether the anti-graft and other security agencies will desire to invite the former president, as other countries do; or whether they will visit him to take his deposition. But to pretend the former president can stay aloof, or occasionally issue short expiatory statements, is looking increasingly farcical and untenable.

    If the relevant agencies invite Dr Jonathan or visit him to take his deposition, it will set a precedence, a precedence the Ijaw will find strange, deliberate and insinuating. They will recall how former military head of state Ibrahim Babangida did not as much as dignify the Justice Oputa Panel with his presence when he was invited. The Ijaw have indeed already argued that the North and the Southwest malevolently conspired to rob their son of a second term in office, and hinted that that electoral defeat humiliated him and his ethnic group. The coronation of Dr Jonathan in 2010 gave the Ijaw and the South-South a feeling of belonging; but his reelection loss, they said morosely, aborted what should have been a complete and comprehensive integration of the Ijaw and southern minorities into the idea of, and oneness that, Nigeria theoretically represents.

    Hauling Dr Jonathan before a panel of inquiry is justified, given the scale of the atrocious financial heist perpetrated by many of the suspects already incarcerated or about to be prosecuted. Whether after given his word to Dr Jonathan before the polls that nothing untoward would befall him should he lose, and that he had nothing to fear after vacating office, the president is at liberty to renege on his promise is anyone’s guess. What would the president do should pressures mount to arrest and prosecute Dr Jonathan, especially when none of the thieving former heads of state was ever hauled before a tribunal or a regular court? The coming weeks will test President Buhari’s understanding of justice.

    More, the weeks ahead will determine whether having let the genie of anti-corruption out of the bag, President Buhari can direct, restrain and constrain where the chips may fall. During the campaigns, when Candidate Buhari was fishing for endorsements, ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, tongue-in-cheek, made reference to the rot that also undermined the financial integrity of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) then headed by President Buhari as its chairman. The former president said he invited President Buhari at the time and showed him the report, and then asked if he benefited in any way from the sleaze. Chief Obasanjo said he dropped the report because he was satisfied with Candidate Buhari’s answer that he benefited nothing from the morass in the PTF. The ongoing investigations are already spiralling out of orbit, and may hit any of the former presidents, including Chief Obasanjo. Will President Buhari be capable of breaking the mould, damning the consequences, and unfettering the anti-graft agencies to carry out their duties without let and hindrance? President Buhari may be closer to that defining moment than he imagines.

  • Dasukigate and other affairs

    For a little while longer, Nigerians will be entertained by stories of President Buhari’s anti-corruption war. There is little else, regrettably. Whatever news will come from the economic front will in the near term be about factory closures, layoffs, unavailable foreign exchange, huge inventory, and generally sad and depressing news. Perhaps when the ministers finally settle down, some of them deployed in ministries they despise, they will give Nigerians sweet bones to chew. So far, however, the diet is a simple, single one: anti-corruption, which is supposedly all-important and all-embracing.

    At the centre of that news is Col Sambo Dasuki (retd.), the cancer-stricken former National Security Adviser (NSA). He had previously been interrogated for arms possession and money laundering, and then charged in court. But he was granted bail to attend to his health in a foreign country. Almost immediately, he was blocked from traveling in what some PDP faithful described as persecution, and then later rearrested and again interrogated. This second round of investigation and interrogation has allegedly produced startling facts about how the treasury was looted via an arms deal totalling over $2bn. More disclosures are on the way.

    As a recent ill-motivated Washington Times article written by Bruce Fein on November 18 shows, the Buhari presidency must nonetheless be wary of fighting the anti-corruption war in such a way as to lose both the domestic and international publics. It is undisputable that the scale of the thievery undertaken by some former government officials is staggering, with for instance some N2.1bn paid to a television mogul for publicity. There is therefore need for full investigations and where necessary prosecution. But it is also time for the government to mind the way the war is being waged as well as begin urgently to focus on the other affairs of the country. The country’s ailing economy and society cannot be put on hold because corruption is being fought.