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I am very worried and concerned about the government’s hate speech mantra. That is why I am being extra careful, especially with the selective interpretation of the laws in Nigeria. Did they not tell us that the law is an ass, particularly the Nigerian variant?
And so, I’m being extremely careful in my choice of words as I put pen to paper. This is more so because I don’t want to preempt the immediate past President Muhammadu Buhari’s relocation to Niger, as he warned us.
But, seriously, I think that warning was needless. Nigerians have always known that he had his kinsmen across the border, and also knew he could japa to Niger any day. If he was not planning to, how could he invest so much of Nigeria’s sweat in unviable projects in that part of the world when his countrymen were in need?
However, whatever he decides, it would be nice to peep into his last moves in office a little.
Under Buhar’s watch, the ex-aviation minister, Hadi Sirika, pulled wool over our eyes in the name of giving us a Nigeria Air. Despite all protestations and even judicial interventions, Sirika went ahead with his plans and on the day Buhari’s administration breathed its last, he ‘launched’ Ethiopian Airlines in Nigeria’s colours. The Boeing 737-800 aircraft, which was displayed by Sirika, as belonging to Nigeria Air, has since returned and resumed operations in its parent’s fleet in Addis Ababa and what we hear now is that Sirika hired it.
My goodness! Such barefaced, brazen heist, as if he dared the country to come after him if it could. Where else could that be done except in the land of absurdities called Nigeria?
Despite protestations by local airline operators that the firm that served as transaction adviser for the transaction was recently incorporated and allegedly linked to Sirika, nothing came out of it. So, after seven years and billions of naira down the line, capped with an international embarrassment, Sirika has retired home and nobody is batting an eyelid over that, whereas petty thieves are languishing in jail.
But for President Bola Tinubu’s unavoidable sting via removal of the controversial fuel subsidy, Nigerians were relieved that, at least, the pain in their neck for the past eight years was finally unplugged on May 29 when former Buhari bade farewell to Aso Rock. Tinubu’s sting was unavoidable because it was all part of the trap Buhari set for his successor. I’m afraid some more stings are around the corner, whether Tinubu continues in office or vacates for Peter Obi or Atiku Abubakar.
In fact, sometimes I wonder what the contest over a crushed and scorched country is all about. Before Buhari left, his government had plundered both the soul and body of Nigeria, using unrestrained corruption. Ironically, he came to power on the crest of promises to squash the endemic corruption in our polity but, unfortunately, by the time he left, corruption had overwhelmed and conquered him.
Buhari sought the presidency of Nigeria as if his life depended on it. Thrice he tried and failed but intimidated ex-President Goodluck Jonathan out of office on his fourth attempt. However, his lacklustre performance in his eight years in the saddle was an anti-climax. He made so many promises to the people, including exterminating insurgents in the North-East. Sadly, by the time Buhari left, virtually all parts of the country had experienced insurgency. On one occasion, the daredevil terrorists almost took off his head in his native Katsina State.
Of particular interest to the people was his declaration of war on corruption, saying: “If we do not kill corruption, corruption will kill Nigeria.”
Indeed, corruption was an intractable problem to deal with in Nigeria and had assumed dizzying heights. So, when the ‘General’ spoke what the people wanted to hear, they were assuaged. Actually, he went to war against the monster. He pounced on many members of the previous administration with his cleansing broom and clamped some in jail for years in what many described as selective vendetta. Many were forced to cough out much of their loot.
The people clapped when security operatives raided the official quarters of Sylvester Ngwuta (now deceased) and John Okoro, both justices of the Supreme Court, at ungodly hours.
Who does not know that Nigeria’s problem is compounded by a shifty judiciary that can longer be trusted? Senator Adamu Bulkachuwa’s feisty confession to this on the floor of the Senate has confirmed the people’s fears all along. In all, seven judges were arrested by the SSS; two of them – Sylvester Nguta of the Supreme Court and Adeniyi Ademola of the Federal High Court, Abuja, were prosecuted but the case was lost.
Sadly, Buhari’s broom got entangled along the way and even much of the recovered loot was re-looted by officials of the new sheriff in town. Corruption took on a life of its own, and they competed hard to ensure that the looting in Jonathan’s era paled into insignificance.
It dawned on Nigerians that it was a script out of Nollywood and mere red herring after all, probably orchestrated to make us feel that the government’s war against corruption was bold and spared no one. His attorney-general, Abubakar Malami, almost sneaked back into service Abdulrasheed Maina, the pension fund’s looter. The same Malami terminated the N25 billion fraud trial of ex-governor Danjuma Goje, in “overriding public interest.” The NNPC became a bastion for corrupt practices, using spurious fuel subsidy regimes and non-remittance of revenues to federal coffers, among others.
Then the worst happened: Buhari eventually blew up the anti-corruption fight by pardoning convicted former Governors Jolly Nyame of Taraba State and Joshua Dariye of Plateau State, whose convictions had even been already affirmed by the Supreme Court.
It was an irony that Buhari swept away a corrupt government but ended up foisting a worse system on the country. Nigeria plummeted in ranking on the Corruption Perception Index, by Transparency International.
Recently, Transparency International’s corruption perception index indicated that Nigeria dropped to 149th out of the 180 countries surveyed after scoring 25 out of 100 points.
On another level, Governor Sule of Nasarawa State shocked not a few Nigerians with his recent revelation that Buhari’s government spent a whopping $19 billion on the moribund Nigerian refineries without a drop of fuel anywhere. That is about the amount one individual, Aliko Dangote, used to build his refinery in Lagos.
Despite the snide rumours about how the refinery was funded, Dangote deserves grand applause to our collective shame that he did what the entire country could not do.
The most annoying aspect of the sleaze is that Buhari has eventually signed off his presidency of Aso Rock tainted by the same corruption he came to fight. Nobody knows where he was looking when his aviation minister played that fast heist on the country and embarrassed us globally.
Now I understand why the former president took the time to build the Niger Republic while starving Nigeria. He told a bewildered nation that he would relocate to Niger if he is disturbed.
Truly, nobody should envy President Bola Tinubu; he has brought this trouble to himself. The suspension and arrest of Godwin Emefiele or Emefailure, who should have quit since he chose to run for president even as he retained his position as Governor of the Central Bank, is relieving. Nevertheless, Buhari lined Tinubu’s seat in the Villa with landmines. How the president would navigate without being blown up is his problem.
Tinubu should go beyond Emefiele and Abdulrasheed Bawa of the EFCC in his cleansing activities. He will most likely try to shield Buhari.
Although he is yet to tell us what he met in the tattered treasury handed over to him, Nigerians already know about the trillions of naira debt. Tinubu may try to cover the putrid smell he inherited but by and by, it must ooze out when he can no longer endure the odour alone and start saving his own head.
Buhari is surely Niger-bound. There is no way he would not be disturbed by the avalanche of scandalous occurrences trailing his tenure. One only wishes that Sirika would magnanimously carry his former boss on this last flight to Niger at his own cost. After all, the Ethiopian Airlines deal must have come with juice perquisites.
