Left alone to face his own demons, ex-President Jonathan has gone through severe stress and stains in the past two years. He has had to account for the monumental looting of our national resources during his presidency. Some of our stolen funds, according to EFCC, have been traced to his aides, trusted ministers, governors and even his immediate family members. This development seems to have overshadowed his act of statesmanship in conceding defeat after the 2015 General Election despite Elder Orubebe and other PDP stalwarts’ resolve to pull the edifice down over their heads rather than allow power they had sworn to hold for 60 years slip away. If we forgot Jonathan’s huge sacrifice because of his current travails, some of his sympathisers have reminded us. First was Bishop Matthew Kukah of Sokoto Catholic Archdiocese who reminded us that the nation owes Jonathan some respect for conceding defeat instead of behaving like his other African leaders who would rather turn their nations into a killing field than relinquish power after losing election. A few days ago, Col, Umar Kangiwa, former military governor of Kaduna State who along with embattled. Col. Sambo Dasuki sold Buhari to slippery Babangida during the night of long knives in 1985 also reminded us of Jonathan graceful exit.
However, majority of Nigerians hold Jonathan responsible for the level of debauchery that took place during his presidency. First it was the $2.2b arms funds said to have been ferried in boxes under the watchful eyes of the current CBN governor, brought in to replace cantankerous and stiff Lamido Sanusi who had just then raised an alarm about missing $20b from NNPC account to the office of Dasuki, Jonathan’s National Security Adviser.
The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, has since asked Jonathan to explain to Nigerians what he “knew or had reason to know on the apparent diversion and sharing of over $2 billion meant for purchase of arms to fight Boko Haram.”.There was Diezani Alison-Madueke, his minister of petroleum who according to EFCC invested huge sums of money she allegedly pilfered from NNPC on properties in and outside Nigeria. His closest confidants including t Babangida Aliu, the self-styled chief servant of Niger State that was dragged to court by EFCC two days ago over an alleged theft of N3billion are in various courts trying to defend their honour. Before then, huge sum of funds had been traced to Jonathan’s wife, cousin and other relatives. Some N1b, $2m and 4m pounds suspected to be stolen funds were seized by EFCC between Buhari’s inauguration in May 2015 and Dec 2016. Following the introduction of government’s whistle blowing policy, the haulage has been in droves with about N145 b, $217m and 2m pounds raked in between December 2016 and April this year according to SB Morgen Intelligence.
But shoeless, ex-President Jonathan, in spite of the haulage of these huge sums of loose is funds is just a symptom of our problem. The rain started beating us long before he became President. All Jonathan, who admitted he was caged by PDP all through his presidency did, was to build on the legacies of his predecessors beginning with General Babangida, the man he described as his ‘father’ and General Obasanjo who he once described as the third greatest influence on his life after God and his biological father. These two leaders should be held responsible for our current nightmare. They presided over systematic sales of our national assets and sharing of a national patrimony, handed over to Balewa, Zik and Awo by the departing colonial masters which they in turn preserved for our children.
Our nightmare started with IBB who along with his military prefects sold off many of our once viable companies covering hospitality, pharmaceutical beverages and other industries to themselves and their fronts sometimes at less than the cost of land on which they were built. Obasanjo and Atiku under the ill-managed privatization exercise sold off what IBB could not sell off before he was forced by Nigerians and civil society to step aside after he had annulled the most credible election in our nation’s history. El Rufai, current governor of Kaduna State who presided over BPE at the period , is on record as having told a House of Representatives probe that what the nation recouped from an investment of over $100b was just a little over $1.5b.
President Jonathan was programmed by those who imposed him on the nation to continue with the legacies of his predecessors. Unfortunately there was little left to sell or share by the time he got into office. Tormented and harassed by those he claimed caged him, he came up with his crooked, logic that ‘stealing of government funds is not corruption’. From then on, Jonathan was unrestrained. The huge earnings from the oil sector which dwarfed the total accruable to the nation between 1999 and 2010 ended up in the pockets of politicians and their fronts. Jonathan did not forget his family members. Only this week, it was revealed that the sum of $43.4million haul made from the Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, was part of the $289 million allegedly withdrawn from the National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS) Company’s accounts then headed by Jonathan’s kinsman.
While aggrieved Nigerians most of whom live below $2 a day have the luxury of engaging in the drama about alleged stolen billions traced to peoples’ homes, abandoned at airports or bureau de changes offices, or buried in cemeteries, Buhari and his APC were given a mandate to resolve our economic crisis and our crisis of nationhood through politics and not through the judiciary which we all know has remained the scourge of the nation since independence.
And here, no one is asking Buhari and APC to invent the wheel. Faced with similar crisis a few years ago, Russia under Putin chose politics over judiciary. Like many other nations did before him, he refused to engage in a battle with the enemies of his nation who subscribed to the rule of the jungle, using rule of law. He was however fair to those who had turned Russia into a candidate for western aids. Those who shared Russian national patrimony through dubious privatisation programme under drunken Yeltsin and who had failed to keep to the terms of sales were forced to cede the confiscated assets to the state. We have more than enough evidence that our nation was short-changed during the ill-implemented privatization programme. We know many of the new investors embarked on asset stripping while some others have gone ahead to sell the confiscated national assets to foreigners. These are some of the reasons why our graduates roam the street while we import the labour of other societies in form of fake products including drugs. Recovered billions can change this narrative.
Those who brought our nation to its knees did so by exploiting political power. This was why we gave President Buhari and his APC political power to resolve our economic crisis and our crisis of nationhood through restructuring. They have spent two years unable to appreciate the value of political power at their disposal. In less than two years, they will have to face the electorate to account for their stewardship. Drama about recovered billions will be an appendix.
