These cases went to the Supreme Court until the fourth time in 2015 when God agreed that I will be President.” Clearly, President Buhari was expressing his frustration with the Nigerian judiciary, which has increasingly come under critical fire for surreptitiously allowing hideously corrupt top public officials to escape justice. That said, the virus of corruption has penetrated every aspect of our national life to a debilitating degree, such that only a sustained moral reorientation led by a more scientifically minded improved Nigerian equivalent of Mahatma Gandhi can reverse the situation, in the long run. President Muhammadu Buhari By May 29, 2016, the present All Progressives Congress (APC) government would have spent on year in office. As things stand right now, many Nigerians who voted for President Buhari are regretting why they did so, because their existential situation has been worsening instead of improving since Jonathan left office.
Part of the disillusionment stems from the unrealistic promises, which the APC made during the electioneering campaigns, including the promise to quickly re-engineer the economy, improve power supply, and dismantle Boko Haram terrorists. Of course, discerning Nigerian knew that the promises could not be kept, mainly because of the murky antecedents of agbata ekee prominent politicians propping up Buhari for the presidency as well as the depreciating price of crude oil, the lifeblood of our economy, in the international market. We must also consider the fact that the President is ageing and, despite desperate attempts by his subalterns to present him as a converted democrat, he is yet to jettison the military mentality of “command and obey with immediate effect.” Therefore, there are powerful internal and external factors that will prevent Buhari from actualising the fantastic promises he made to Nigerians. And because there is no good reason to believe that those factors will no longer be present in the next four years, we should recalibrate our expectations from the present administration.
Now, based on media reports, the federal government is preoccupied with recovery of monies allegedly stolen by key members of the Jonathan administration, epitomised in the $2.1 billion dollar arms Dasukigate. Recent revelations of corruption in “high places” are nothing new in our country. Plausibly, 1970 marked a decisive turning point in the emergence of corruption as a disease killing Nigeria slowly. Although ringleaders of the aborted January 15, 1966, claimed that corruption was one of the major reasons why they staged the coup, it was after the Biafran war that corruption mutated into an unofficial philosophy of leadership in Nigeria. Unfortunately, the cartography of corruption and the quantity of public funds and assets stolen by mentally deranged public servants, from top to bottom, have been increasing with each successive government. In my opinion, Nigerians should support President Buhari in his efforts to deal with corruption. But the best way he can earn our support is by ensuring that the anti-graft and law enforcement agencies adhere strictly to the rule of law and democratic norms in prosecuting the war against corruption, contrary to the bizarre recommendation by some so-called eminent scholars with highfalutin academic titles that “a limited rule of law” should be applied in dealing with high profile corruption cases. On this issue, the President’s scorecard is just average: we should not allow ourselves to be carried away by the figures and names peddled by the media to the extent of keeping silent about, or tacitly endorsing, any unconstitutional means deployed by government to fight corruption. This point is very important, because Nigerians should be reminded constantly that the slow-and-steady methods of democratic governance are the price we have to pay in order to avoid the dangers of totalitarianism.
In this connection, granted that the Nigerian constitution is gravely flawed and that government must kill corruption before it destroys the country irreparably, we must insist that due process must be followed in dealing with corruption cases, from the investigation phase up to the prosecution phase. For example, reports of unlawful detention of suspects and disobedience of court orders tend to bring back memories of Buhari as a military dictator who has little respect for democratic principles. Moreover, the perception in certain quarters that the President is surreptitiously shielding corrupt politicians who made his electoral victory possible by targeting opposition politicians only so that APC could consolidate its power casts aspersions on the real motive for the anti-corruption programme.
Leadership is largely about perception, about how the citizens understand and interpret the actions of their leaders. Consequently, when people lose confidence in their leaders and start imputing ulterior motives in the activities of government no matter how well intentioned, then there is a serious problem, the problem of alienation or disconnection between government and the governed. Without the trust and willingness of Nigerians to support the war against corruption, President Buhari would not achieve much success. I believe that the President made a tactical mistake by stating categorically that his anti-corruption searchlight would be beamed solely on the predecessor; which implies that he is unwilling to do anything about the elephantine corruption perpetrated between 1985 and 2010. I think that the anti-graft agencies should be allowed to do their work and pursue corruption diligently irrespective of who was implicated and the time it was committed.
That way, some of the prominent members of the ruling party would fall into the anti-corruption dragnet, which would boost the credibility and reputation of Buhari as a leader who is really committed to the death of official corruption in our country. In any case, President Buhari is duty bound to do fight corruption beyond Jonathan’s administration, because the roots of some corruption cases being investigated presently can be traced backwards to several years before Jonathan became President in 2010. Therefore, whether Buhari likes it or not, some of those running around him now hoping to avoid his anti-corruption dragnet might eventually be causalities in his war on corruption. That the current government is mishandling the economy can be seen in the scandalous 2016 budget which, according to one of my friends, suffers from “gross elephantiasis of corruption” caused by padding extravaganza.
On December 22, 2015, President Buhari, while presenting his first budget, boasted that “we are determined to ensure that our resources are managed prudently and utilised solely for the public good” and that “one of our early decisions was the adoption of a zero based budgeting approach, which ensures that resources are aligned with government’s priorities and allocated efficiently.” This is precisely what is terribly wrong with this government, that is, the conviction that fine rhetoric, good intentions, reputation and strong faith are the essential ingredients required to run a government successfully. The shambolic manner this year’s budget was prepared could be interpreted as evidence that the APC was never prepared for governance, never mind the belated sacking of the Director-General for budget, Mr. Yaya Gusau by the President. Remember, while campaigning for President, Buhari promised to run a financially prudent government by blocking the loopholes through which public funds were siphoned.
But consider this: according to information available in the media, Buhari earmarked N1.7 billion for domestic expenses at Aso Rock villa; N3.4 billion for the clinic there, N3.9 billion for renovating the presidential villa, whereas N3.6 billion was voted for the acquisition of state of the art BMWs. Now, although all these figures demonstrate profligacy of the worst kind, especially at a time the economy is asphyxiating due to plummeting prices of petroleum, the most outrageous is the allocation for vehicles. What are President Buhari and his cohorts going to do with cars worth over N3 billion? What about the ones used by former President Goodluck Jonathan? Were they damaged beyond repairs or did the former President take them away when he left office on May 29 last year? Tobe continued.
VANGUARD
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