Corruption, which like voracious cankerworms, has eaten deep into the fabrics of our collective identity as a Nation became the most used word in our daily communications and especially since the Famous BUHARI/IDIAGBON regime of the mid eighties which unfortunately was deceitfully toppled by the self-acclaimed evil genius otherwise known as Mr. Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida.
He took a deceitful ride to power on August 27th, 1985, having cunningly studied the perceived shortcomings of the then people’s regime and with the support of the hypocritical West, he succeeded in luring the then STRONG Man of the People’s government, General Tunde IDIAGBON into a highly suspicious pilgrimage that paved way for their {Babangida and his cohorts} nefarious activities to be consolidated via what was then described as a palace coup.
He {they} succeeded in chasing the “righteous” out of power with the very insidious intentions of taking Nigeria back to the very dark age of executive recklessness, large-scale stealing, high profile murder and impunity like never in the history of our Nationhood. Even the so-called worst administration of the Sokoto-born gentleman wasn’t half bad the Babangida administration of “chop I chop” .
Perhaps, Nigerians wouldn’t have bothered their heads if the Chop I chop system of governance had had something dropping for them from the HIGH Table to take care of their daily needs but unfortunately, the unusual system of government was designed to benefit only a clique made up of the few who obviously were vulnerable to compromise, hence the frequent demonstrations that characterized his chop I chop regime and which unfortunately led to unwarranted loss of many lives at various times of his evil regime.
On several occasions and from several angles came fortune smiling at Motherland with little or nothing to show for it, rather, the already impoverished masses were daily getting poorer with many drifting into the very bottom of the pyramid where conspicuous uncertainty pervades regarding the source of the next meal to survive the next challenges. The most humongous of these atrocities was the STEALING of a whooping sum of $12.4b from the cookie jar, a windfall resulting from the crisis in the gulf region back then, when the invasion of Iraq by American military as necessitated by the Iraqis invasion of Kuwait led to shortage of crude oil production from the Middle East and the resultant increase in the output from other regions to which Nigeria was a beneficiary.
The theft of the proceed therefrom was discovered, the Pius OKIGBO panel was set up to look into the matter, mind bugling revelations were made and some of the humane amongst the Human Rights activists took up the matter against the indicted, Mr Babangida, and just like many other cases that have enjoyed the privilege of being swept under the Nigerian mysterious carpet, it has remained so ever since and whilst we all agree to the popular presumption of innocence until proven otherwise, the system with the highly compromised judiciary has never told us where the missing money lies since the end of THE GULF WAR and ditto for every other case of pen robbery from which the hitherto accused persons were left off the hook, the prime suspects have been given controversial freedom, yet the missing monies haven’t found their way back to the Treasury of our Common Wealth and recently, the Femi Fani-Kayode’s acquittal from the case involving some cool millions which have yet to be recovered leave much to be desired.
Attempts were made by another ruler who had ample opportunities to right many wrongs but unfortunately, he only did that to dissuade the accused, Mr Babangida from using the ill-gotten wealth to get back to power and no sooner than he withdrew from the presidential race, the case that was being gradually exhumed for proper burial through a clean judicial process suddenly went back to the very shallow grave, under the very popular Nigerian carpet of mystery.
The very ugly trend has since continued unabated as the common man has always dearly paid for it, even with the two-time president having a field day, this time as a civilian dictator who exploited the dilapidation in every sector to milk Nigerians dry and a good case study is that of the ever powerless Power Sector.
Resources that were more than enough to provide the entire Nation with quality cum uninterrupted power supply was squandered and ironically with the Watts generation dropping from the shameful 4000MW to less than 3000MW in many occasions.
The self-acclaimed larger than life president who was once presented as an institution well above the law did doctor the papers and influenced the probe and today, more than $16b has gone down the drain as there exists virtually nothing to show for the huge investment in the very problematic power sector of Nigeria.
The would-have-been Yar’Adua administration didn’t live long enough to do much wonders as he was poised to do before another marionette administration came on board only to perfect the act of STEALING that was instituted by the evil genius and nurtured to fruition by the Ëbora himself.
One had expected him to make a huge positive difference having gone to school supposedly “without shoes on his feet” but unfortunately, he was another HUGE Disappointment so much so that a well respected Professor of International Relations said THE VERY FIRST TIME THAT NIGERIA HAS THE OPPORTUNITY OF BEING GOVERNED BY A LEARNED FELLOW, HE TURNED OUT TO BE A HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT TO THE HOLDERS OF PhD DEGREES. Many thanks to the fearless Professor AKIN OYEBODE of the University of Lagos who had the gut to say this in an open forum even when “Dr” Jonathan was still holding sway.
The man at the center who had at many times contradicted himself by saying Corruption is just a matter of perception, Corruption is not stealing or stealing is not Corruption also agreed after loosing the elections which gulped over #2tr of our collective wealth mostly in electoral bribery and inducement that 80% of his cabinet members were NOT fit to be in the voyage, yet he paddled the canoe with them for six turbulent years until they anchored Nigeria at the shore of Poverty, Impunity, high level of domestic and foreign indebtedness amongst other status that only brought us ridicule in the committee of Nations.
Now that one of them has succeeded in bribing her way through to be on the board of a barely heard organization, Mr Clueless has come out again to say that he had World-class cabinet during his tenure, what a man and his mouth.
Perhaps “yes” especially considering the fact that Nigeria became the Continental Giant economically, though the much celebrated Africa’s Biggest economy could not boast of a thousand Mega Watts per 45 million citizens as obtainable in South Africa or Singapore where an Airport alone has up to 40,000MW supply of electricity.
This same super big and seemingly unparalleled economy ironically was so bad to the extent it succeeded in impoverishing the majority with many not knowing from where the next meal was going to come.
All these shortcomings and the least expected disappointments were not unconnected with the business as usual kind of mindset that “Dr” Jonathan’s ministers brought to governance and since the body language of the “head” wasn’t any different from those of his appointees, the Nation was against all expectations plunged into a state of severe doldrums and socio-economic redundancy and though it was a public knowledge ab initio that most of these workmen and women are of questionable characters, he nonetheless {in his usual characteristics} went ahead and appointed them to help stir the ship of the Nation BUT unfortunately, they only succeeded in raping the already battered Nation and her economy by looting her and sharing the loot amongst themselves leaving close to nothing for the helpless masses of the most populous Country in the continent of Africa.
The rest as they say is history now and with the arrest of the erstwhile Empress Number 2 in the United Kingdom for money laundry, an allegation she had vehemently denied when the going was good for her at the home front, one can only hope that justice would soon be done to her and to as many as have “colabod” meaning collaborated to empty our collective Treasury for their personal persons and purposes.
A proverb in the Yoruba parlance says “A fallen elder’s case is enough lesson for other youths and elders alike” hence my piece of advice to Mr President on his choice of Ministers.
It was a wild expectation that immediately after the 515pm Call of Tuesday March 31st that proved America wrong, machineries would be set in motion to get Only the BEST both from within and outside of the country to fix a nose-diving system like ours and that is if you hadn’t done that already, considering the fact that you weren’t an alien to the race for Aso Rock.
This did not happen and after a long wait, you unilaterally gave us the September deadline for the presentation of same to the appropriate quarter, this again did not happen until few hours to the end of the 30day long month of September. Whilst am not any angry with you Mr President on the hour the list was delivered to the National Assembly, since you were still operating within the confines of your promise, I found it somehow hypocritical if I keep mum about the components of the same especially coming from your stance on the MAJOR ISSUE that brought you to power, CORRUPTION.
If I decide to be somehow skeptical about the myriad of allegations levied against Hon ROTIMI Chibuike AMAECHI due to the widespread belief that he is being witch-hunted by his erstwhile Chief of Staff which is not far from the Truth anyways, how would I have explained my criminal silence on the choice of Babatunde Raji Fashola, the immediate past executive governor of the state of aquatic splendour.
If all the allegations of executive recklessness and flagrant stealing from the public vault of our collective wealth are anything to go by and undoubtedly they are, because Mr Babatunde Raji Fashola hasn’t denied the allegations, if anything, he worsened the already bad case by saying that the upgrade of his larger than life website added value to governance in the Centre of Excellence.
Arguments from some quarters that his deeds were blown open by another Big Thief just because they have fallen apart doesn’t seem to hold water because of the constant facts that have refused to change.
Some of these facts and figures are:
* That never in the world has any website been built let alone upgraded for a whooping sum of $312,000 or the Naira equivalent of #78,000,000.
* That only #10m out of the entire contract sum went to the company that did the controversial upgrade.
* That every other contract of controversial terms has NOT been refuted by the Mr ex-Governor.
Now, if this is the kind of CHANGE that PMB is poised to bring to the center, then, a special squad might just be necessary to mount surveillance on the likes of Fashola to forestall over invoicing and inflation of contracts notwithstanding his record of performance while in Lagos.
Also, I advocate that a task force be set in motion to make sure that the likes of Olagunsoye Oyinlola {i. e. if indeed he’s among those on their way to making the next batch} doesn’t bring a repeat performance of his old self when he fraudulently occupied the seat of Governor in the southwestern state of Osun with nothing to show for his stay in office even till he was sent packing by the election tribunal.
Time might not permit me to further X-ray the likes of Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo and some others with question tags on their names, {i. e. if truly they are on their way to making the next batch} though not everyone on the list has a stinkingly dirty past but Sir, if your Party’s CHANGE mantra is anything to go by, l would advocate a complete paradigm shift from the status quo so that both Nigerians at home and those in the Diaspora including citizens of other countries would take us very seriously at least this time around.
I had written you an open letter earlier suggesting the likes of Olisa AGBAKOBA, Jimi DISU, Gabriel AIREWELE, Olujimi BOYO, Bolaji OGUNSEYE, Tunde BAKARE amongst other very credible Nigerians with enviable record of performance but it obviously looks as payback time for the party boys, no problems Sir, but please, ensure a high level Probity, Prudence and Performance so that The Creator Himself would give you a pat on the back when you’re done with your Earthly assignments and history itself would have something good and enviable to write about you as one of the very few uncommon species that this world ever produced.
God bless AKIN-AYOADE,
God bless Mr President,
God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Yours Sincerely,
AKIN-AYOADE Omotayo Chris
MC Edaghor,
aka AKINdGREAT
Tel: 08023087097, 08173087097
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