Let me, first and foremost, seek the readers’ indulgence to define narcissism as the ‘excessive love of oneself”, the very decease underpinning most of the massive systemic corruption enveloping Nigeria today; one in which public service thieves, and politicians, no longer steal in millions, but billions. Given what now passes muster as Public/Civil (Evil) servants in Nigeria, the likes of Chiefs Simeon Adebo, Jerome Udoji and Sunday Awoniyi, all of blessed memory, must be squirming in their graves.
The other day, Nigerians saw a contrite President Muhammadu Buhari apologise to Nigerians but not so with our all-powerful, self-loving public servants who continue to show nothing but disdain and outright disrespect for Nigerians. Were this not so, a member of the Senate Appropriation Committee would not have claimed, again, only this past week, that their committee discovered a FRESH (emphasis mine) padding of over N500 billion in the budgetary proposals for MDAs and Service Wide Votes in spite of the overwhelming hue and cry by Nigerians over the initial padding which probably ran into trillions. This impunity, this disrespect and total lack of shame on the part of our public/civil servants, is reprehensible and could only have been the result of the president’s in-explainable failure to dismiss from office, all those who were implicated in the initial budget padding. But nothing epitomises the Nigerian public servant more than the story below.
That national budget embarrassment of a few weeks back pales into insignificance compared with the shenanigans allegedly going on at the Central Bank of Nigeria to properly situate which, I paraphrase Sam Omatseye in a recent lecture where he defined impunity as the impossibility of bringing the perpetrators of violations to account- whether in criminal, civil or administrative proceedings, arising from a failure by state to investigate violations and take appropriate measures in respect of the perpetrators.
By the time readers are fully seized of the inherent illegalities in the matter under discussion, their only question would be: are these people above Nigerian laws? I don’t think anything would compare with the cheer effrontery of the Emefiele-led management of the Central Bank of Nigeria which, in its now well-known tradition of illegalities, allegedly surreptitiously recruited over 100 children and relations of the Nigerian high, and mighty, against all known employment protocols in the Nigerian public service. These are the children of persons who had lived literally all their lives,or are even currently living large, on the country who, were they considerate, should have spared a thought for the children of the poor and needy who remain unemployed many years after graduation. These are people in the same opportunistic class of those who EFCC alleged bought houses costing hundreds of millions of naira for their children who, in turn, rejected them for better ones. They did not insult Nigerians in this manner because their children could ever lack anythingbut simply because they have this stupid notion of entitlement over and above every other Nigerian.
And, once again, nowhere do you find this nauseating attitude as much as amongst the northern elite who not only assume a superiority over and above other Nigerians but actually believe they can readily get away with murder, no matter how heinous. They pose like they are the most religious but probe deep to see how unfeeling they are towards the poor and down trodden, even in their very neighbourhood. It was this lack of empathy for the poor around them that led some disconcerted young men, especially in the Northeast, to believe that education is ‘haram’ since going to acquire degrees did not make them any better than the ordinary almajiris.
That is how we eventually ended up with Boko Haram with all the disequilibrium it has brought on Nigeria. In other words, the northern elite, by being so selfish, sowed the wind but Nigeria as a whole is today reaping the whirlwind, not only in the billions of dollars spent fighting terrorists, but much more in the countless deaths and the millions of their own poor and needy now living as internally displaced persons. It is so unnerving that you hardly find these super rich coming to the aid of these victims of their actions, preferring instead, to make their care the sole responsibility of government.
I urge readers keen on knowing the full story of CBN’s impunity, as well as its effete defence, to Google saharareporters.com to see who and who took advantage of us, poor Nigerians, and wherea preponderance of them come from. You would discover that among them are those who are, indeed, richer than some states in the country; persons who can very well appoint these heirs over pampered children managing directors of companies the very day they graduated.
The poor is treated this unfairly because we have a Central Bank Governor who, having permitted himself to be used anyhow by the former government, is now only too willing to do just about anything to retain his high office. Those who Google the story should please look out for the serial illegalities committed against extant laws in Nigeria. Not only did the CBN allegedly tweak the employees’ names, turning their surnames into middle names, it completely turned a blind eye to the government’s federal character policy. By the way, what names are on these super brats’ certificates? Can a trained head of a personnel department, in any organisation whatever, let theseanomalies pass? Worse still is the fact that although this sordid story has trended for over a month, with the name of the president’s niece opportunistically thrown in, mum has been the word from the presidency.
It behoves his media aides, who cannot claim ignorance of the putrid story, to please urgently draw the president’s attention to what could be its putrefying consequences. The other day, the Minister of Education appointed 3 or 4 Vice-Chancellors from Kano; it should not beheard again that President Buhari’s niece is a beneficiary of this mother of illegalities. Nigerians believe too much in him to let that happen. Indeed, niece or no niece, the president should immediately call the bluff of these social climbers and order the sack of all those so illegally employed and due comeuppance visited on all the implicated CBN staff. Those who wanted to take advantage of a country of 170 million people will have their conscience to contend with; that is assuming they still have.
NATION
END
Be the first to comment