I received an unfortunately high number of emails last week from readers attempting to excuse those involved in #DasukiGate. I was not just appalled but flummoxed: how does one reason, overlook or explain spending money meant for the purchase of arms on private individuals?
How does one so easily forgive such an allegation, knowing that as we speak, innumerable children have been orphaned and displaced precisely because the military was not appropriately equipped to fight Boko Haram? Have we no conscience?
What about the soldiers whose deaths might have been avoided? What if they were our friends or relatives? What if, if not for the vagaries of fortune and circumstance, those defending such crimes had been soldiers themselves?
On the subject of conscience, I’m also taken aback by the continuing flow of opportunists and defectors from the PDP to the APC. But back to the defenders of the would-be frail, little innocent lambs. The PDP’s Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Abdullahi Jalo said “Haliru Bello did a contract with the office of Sambo Dasuki to the tune of N600m with his company’s name, not PDP.
In the case of Olisa Metuh, his company allegedly had transactions with the office of National Security Adviser. So, what is PDP’s business with that?” If the PDP can disown its own members or seek to distance their wrongdoings from the party’s internal workings (a difficult, almost impossible feat), how do Nigerians benefit from defending people accused of doing terrible wrong to this country?
Former National Security Adviser, NSA, to former President Goodluck Jonathan, Col. Sambo Dasuki.
Internal workings
Or, in other words, how do we benefit from crying more than the bereaved? In truth, we are the bereaved, not the PDP. It is our families who die on bad roads because of corruption. It is our children who are out of school. Yet, some choose to defend those who wouldn’t give them the time of day. Puzzling.
The PDP leadership has clearly stated it didn’t instruct any of its members to either ask for or receive any money from the former NSA – although allegedly, Tony Anenih, a PDP trustee, received, along with other PDP elders, part of the money—therefore, anyone facing trial for their alleged financial relationship or undue links with Sambo Dasuki is on their own.
Defeat, they say, has no fathers. How callous yet fascinating and understandable as Jonathan, Patience and even Akpabio said at various times during the past electoral campaign, “nobody wants to go to jail for 300 years under Buhari”.
It was part of the campaign narrative: in a curious, inexplicable way they told us, in Patience Jonathan’s manner for example: “vote for my husband, I can’t carry food to feed him in jail”. Or in Akpabio’s case, “as for me, my children are too young, I can’t go to jail”. The defenders of the lambs should ask if this is an admission of guilt or a “mea culpa,” an attempt at making amends.
Italian Renaissance writer, Machiavelli, said, “he who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived”. So, somehow, PDP stalwarts convinced some of our uneducated masses and some greedy, emotionless people that defending their right to Nigeria’s commonwealth was in the people’s interest.
This brings me to the question “why shouldn’t I be corrupt if it makes my life easier?” which I am certain, is the tacit or unspoken interrogation the defenders of the dishonest lambs often utter. Their depravity and prowess at feigning innocence is so potent that they have convinced even themselves (talk less of others) that they are hunted rather than being hunters themselves.
Psychopathic tendencies
To fight anyone with psychopathic tendencies, psychologists advise preserving the truth and keeping it out of the psychopath’s reach. Nigerians, we are failing at this.
Psychopaths operate outside the rules: they are ruthless and willing to do anything to protect themselves, even destroy everyone around them. Psychopaths are incapable of guilt or remorse, they are master manipulators, liars and abusers of (public) trust, who take advantage of everyone else by asking, again, “why shouldn’t I be corrupt if it makes my life easier?”
The psychopaths who have ruled us and oppressed us with their ill-gotten wealth continue to confidently clamour their innocence, or worse, to pretend they knew nothing about anything that went on under their watch. The sort of people who defend them are duped by their mild mannered smiles and unsophistication, the cultivated aura of childlike harmlessness and lack of worldly experience, which doesn’t point to incorruptibility or lawfulness but to the evil desire to destroy Nigerians by taking from them all that could protect and develop them.
Some of those who defend them envy that freedom to oppress because they have been repressed and kept down themselves, so why not do it to others? Some do not see loss of life as anything important: they have psychopathic traits themselves.
Others are simply ignorant and here I blame the presidential media aides for not doing more to break things down for the masses: what exactly is the problem with corruption? Why are we fighting it? Why is it wrong, evil, to divert public funds for private use?
Why shouldn’t any of us be corrupt if we get a chance? Why is it dangerous, in our context of porous borders, where public officials ridiculously attempt to escape the long arm of the law dressed as members of the opposite sex, for the EFCC to release suspects, even if ill-advised, possibly corrupt judges grant them bail? Do we all agree corruption is heinous? Nothing is less sure.
So that is the first thing Buhari’s media aides must do: get the public on the side of the anti-corruption war, make people understand why it is not in their interest for anyone accused of corruption to escape to a private island somewhere with billions in foreign currency which could have empowered Nigerians.
Appalling behaviour
The psychopaths who commonly show contempt for the masses who elect them cannot conceive that they will be punished for their appalling behaviour. Nigerians, don’t give them the guts to defend stealing as a way of life by upholding the bankrupt moral system they believe in, one where selfishness and one-upmanship are worth more than your lives.
There are people of all religions and ethnic groups listed as those who took part in the arms scandal, meaning when it comes to sharing the loot, nobody is interested in where anyone is from or how they worship.
Interestingly, those questions resurface when it is time to vote or to defend those who do not deserve our compassion or pity. What interest have they shown in the Nigerian masses? Why should the poor care about them, because they come from the same village?
Did that matter when the going was good? In national interest, we must leave illogical reasoning and bigotry behind and save Nigeria from a group of psychopaths who have been pillaging and destroying Nigeria with glee.
Chief Judge
Justice Ibrahim Auta authorised the transfer of some judges (e.g. those handling the Buruji Kashamu and Stella Oduah cases) who peculiarly halted investigations into possibly criminal matters. It’s a welcome development. Our justice system is the greatest impediment to the fight against corruption and it is urgent, to save Nigeria from both financial and moral bankruptcy that funds are recovered and convictions secured.
Doyin Okupe
He claims Buhari is losing respect from the international community due to his fight against corruption, which probably explains why IMF boss, Christine Lagarde visited Nigeria and had such positive things to say.
As for the idea that the fight is “selective”, two wrongs don’t make a right: that other people are possibly corrupt doesn’t influence the fact that those the EFCC is investigating probably are too. Mr Okupe should rest assured; no one will be left out.
A day in court is the least the government can do for those “poor” hounded lambs.
VANGUARD
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