Am Ashamed Of Yaradua's Nigeria

The following were published in Punch newspapers by me in the first few months of YarAduas regime.

By Naiwu Osahon

When YarAdua was nominated as the PDP candidate for President, I applauded because I was persuaded that he had played fair and above board as a state governor. We were told that he was principled, well educated and that he came from an illustrious family background, not impeccable, but sufficiently trustworthy. He taunted us with strong people oriented achievement credentials to bowl many difficult to please Nigerian patriots over to his side.

Of course, every one could see that he was a little on the slow side but he appeared fired by the kind of zeal that could transform our society for the better. He was definitely a cut above his peers for the post of President of our troubled nation. A breath of fresh air after nearly 47 years of rogue leadership and the theft of over $350 billion of our hard earned commonwealth.

I was ready to begin to dream that YarAdua could be the leader to help clean out our Augean stable. Project 20:20:20 did not look too outlandish to me any more. I was convinced that Nigeria could begin to aspire again to ride the waves for our terribly traumatized race. I campaigned for YarAdua. I do not belong to any political party but I told every one who cared to listen that Obasanjo was using YarAdua to quietly establish himself as Nigerias last blatantly corrupt leader, and that I respected OBJ for that. I said that much too, in the first edition of my book, The Vipers Den, published soon after Obasanjos third terms debacle.

But all along, the rogue leaders were having the last laugh, playing a fast one on all of us. They had played their deft card, a seemingly innocuous smokescreen, and we all rubbed it off our faces as if it was nothing serious. All the EFCC indicted governors at the time, had come together to endorse and sponsor YarAduas candidacy and they backed their resolve to the hilt with their loot from our treasuries. They spent heavily to daze us and rig him into power.

Even YarAdua himself admits that his election process was grossly flawed. He has also admitted rather inaudibly though, that he has not promised his rogue sponsors a soft landing. The problem these admissions pose is that YarAdua wants sane people to believe that although he knows that stolen money was used to rig him into power, he is not a thief. A pastor who accepts stolen money to build his church also makes such a claim.

Platitudes aside, where does zero tolerance for corruption begin and end? YarAdua is not naïve. I dont think he sees us, his subjects, as dundies either. He went into the crooked arrangements that brought him to power with both his eyes wide open and now the unworthy baggages he is carrying are weighing him down in office. YarAdua is under severe PDP pressure. The rogues, who sponsored him into office, have threatened to submit evidence of their expenditure on his behalf, and their rigging of his election, to the Presidential election tribunal. How to translate soft landing into gains for his sponsors without appearing to be denting, scuttling or derailing the vigorous anti-corruption crusade society expects of him, has become his greatest dilemma.

At first, it was thought that it was a simple matter of sacking Ribadu, the chairman of the EFCC, or replacing him with a more pliable client of his rogue sponsors, but doing that so soon in the life of the new regime would have sent unfavourable signals to Nigerians and the International community that had come to love and revel in the exploits of the young, dedicated and dynamic chairman in the fight against corruption.

Then, the idea was hatched to appoint a crony of YarAduas rogue sponsors as the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, to keep Ribadu in check under the guise of promoting due process and human rights. The strategy was simple but perfect because it not only provided an escape route for YarAdua to look like he is doing something for society while quietly loosening the noose on the necks of his colleagues, it won over a motley crowd of hard starved lawyers who survive on skewed, open ended litigation processes they could drag for years.

In came Aondoakaa who made a fortune defending some of the rogue ex-governors before becoming a Minister. He, as a lawyer for the embattled Dariye government against EFCC, submitted a case to the Supreme Court, the case has not been vacated yet, asking the court to outlaw the EFCC as unconstitutional. Aondoakaas interest on corruption is, therefore, at variance with that of the EFCC. It seems, his appointment is to facilitate the usage of legal and illegal loopholes in the name of the constitution to help rogue ex-governors escape prosecution or justice without appearing to contravene the law or where he does, he arrogates to himself the final interpreter of the law.

To try to intimidate Ribadu, when the rogue ex-governors were first invited for a chat, they dropped in, one at a time, for a chat with YarAdua before seeing Ribadu. Urji Uzor Kalu, shortly after being released from detention on bail, visited YarAdua and then Aondoakaa to perfect the strategy to undermine the authority of the EFCC at Kalus next hearing in court. Aondoakaa used the hearing in late September 2007, to stage a disgraceful, ill-informed drama in court suggesting that YarAduas government lacked focus or was at war with itself.

Mr. J. B. Dawodu, a member of the inner bar, said after Aondoakaas drama in court that: “It is strange that the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), will put forward the excuse that there is a subsisting order in a fundamental rights case emanating from a state high court barring prosecution for alleged crime brought by a Federal agency before a Federal court. In the first place, criminal prosecution is a non-negotiable power of the state, no individual can avoid prosecution by the enforcement of alleged fundamental rights as the right to prosecute for alleged crimes cannot be waived or displaced by perceived civil rights.”

Aondoakaa, the AGF, has become so powerful, thanks to the seeming backing of his boss, that he has become a law onto himself, encouraging ex-governors, the latest being Odili, to obtain illegal injunctions in state courts to escape criminal prosecution by the Federal government. Aondoakaa is arbitrarily extending immunity in perpetuity to the ex-governors against wrong doing in office, and he has no constitutional power to do this. We are now waiting to see if he would extend this his carefully crafted illegality to other criminals in society, such as armed robbers?

Aondoakaa now waxing strong interpreting the laws of the country in the ways that suit him, boasted in early October, 2007, that the era of the “seizure of assets is over.” This, of course, was intended to send the necessary signals to the new political leaders around the country planning to steal their state coffers dry, that all is well, and to assure ex-governors who used their state treasuries to set up private commercial airlines locally and abroad, build refineries in South Africa, build 175 houses for themselves and higher institutions which they sold for three to five times their costs to their states, to feel justified for robbing their state treasuries.

When a team of London police investigators needed YarAduas governments support at the Southwark Crown Court, UK, on the 1st of October, 2007, to continue to deny access to Thirty-five million pounds (nine billion naira) assets acquired by Ibori while he was governor, Aondoakaa wrote to encourage the court to vacate the restraining order because Nigeria had no case against Ibori. The court process was initiated in the first place by Nigerias previous government. The new government had to make us look stupid and unserious a people before the London authorities.

The nine billion naira loot could have made a huge difference to the lives of the hapless people of Delta State but Aondoakaa argued that Deltans would revolt if their rogue leaders assets stolen from the state are seized. In other words, that Deltans are all rogues and support their rogue leaders, and that in any case, do not know what is good for them. To the joy of Aondoakaa, the new governor of Delta state threw a party and thanksgiving service, attended by Aondoakaa or his representative and the rogue ex-governors other cronies, at the state house, to celebrate their success at further impoverishing the people of Delta state with their London court performance.

It is such deviousness by our governments that encouraged the new Speaker of our House of Representatives, during her first few days in office, to pounce on N628m of unbudgeted for public funds, to privately renovate government property. The House of Representatives, spent its first 135 days doing nothing but to sit and watch the shameful antics and hopeless defiance of Madam Speaker as she clowned around trying to avoid impeachment threat. Wabara, former president of the Senate, went down for much less during a different era, but Madam Speaker feels protected and on safe grounds. The PDP Chairman, Ahmadu Ali, assured her of this at the time and hailed her as a great Nigerian.

YarAdua has made some good moves in his first 135 days in office as president but has failed woefully where it matters the most – the war against corruption. Ribadu moved us from the bottom of the list of the most corrupt nations in the world to around 32 most corrupt. We are expecting YarAdua to move us up to number 20 least corrupt, as he promised to do by 20:20:20. He cannot move us up with the likes of Aondoakaa I his team. Aondoakaas past, needs to be investigated immediately by the EFCC. His certificates need to be checked too because of the way he is bungling our laws. There could be another Toronto in the corridors of power. In the meantime, he must be replaced by a Ribadu type Nigerian, ready to serve and die for the interest of our people rather than for the possible lucre some rogue leaders can provide.

LISTEN, NIGERIA HAS NO LEADER

Of course, many would say, we have a President. It is more in name than in action. Perhaps, that is what servant-leader means…..to take directions from several masters. Whether it is because of ill-health or not knowing how to lead or the need to be loyal to people who contributed to election campaign fund, there is no central control in our affairs right now. All sorts of anti-Nigeria interest groups are taking decisions for us and we are not moving forward. For instance, Yar Aduas Attorney-General, rather than Nigerias, last week celebrated the dismissal of the London police evidence against Ibori, as the greatest thing to have happened to Nigerias sovereignty. His grouse was that he did not support the London trial of Ibori in the first place, and Yar Adua was tongue tight.

In October last year, Yar Aduas boss threatened not to cooperate with the London police. Ribadu was still at the EFCC then and Yar Adua was out of the country. I wrote at the time that I was ashamed to be Yar Aduas Nigerian. The day he returned from his overseas trip, he meekly asked the boss to cooperate with the EFCC and the London police. Just before the boss succeeded in removing Ribadu from the EFCC, Yar Adua again insisted that his anti-corruption agencies should co-operate with the London police. That was the basis on which the London police got documents from the EFCC. They did not go and fish out the documents on their own from the Delta state governments archives. The Federal Republic of Nigeria cooperated with them through the EFCC, the same way the Nigerian police cooperates with INTERPOL when evidence on nationals are requested. It was the same process used to rescue some of Bayelsa and Plateau states money from London although the boss made his name and fortune then, trying to stop the Plateau gains.

The INTERPOL does not ask the Presidency directly for permission before coming in. They come through the Nigerian Police and when the Nigerian police gives the go ahead, it is assumed that Nigeria as a sovereign nation has given the go ahead. Obasanjos EFCC first gave some documents to the London police and when the boss protested on assuming power, Yar Adua, tongue-in-cheek, gave instructions (which the boss ignored because he knew it was a press show), that the boss and the EFCC should co-operate with the London police and give them what ever documents they required. So, how was Nigerias sovereignty breached in the circumstance, if the boss is not superior to the President?

If someone steals from his countrys treasury and launders the money through another country, has the country through which the money is laundered no right to try the person if he has violated the laws of that country? Does the trial of one who steals in his country exempt the thief from being tried for violating money laundering laws of another country? Is it a crime for one sovereign country to cooperate with another to fight crimes? Is that not what the agreement between Nigeria and Britain is about? Why did Aondoakaa dissociate himself and Nigeria from the EFCC documents presented by the London police at the London court?

While the boss was busy ensuring that the London trial would come to naught by not cooperating, he was encouraging the trial at home to be thrown out on the technicality that Kaduna is far from Koko. It was not the first time a criminal case was being tried outside the state of the act, but the boss had to snap the trap open for Kalus trial in Abuja and Nnamanis trial in Lagos to suffer similar legalistic hemorrhage. That is the farce of Yar Aduas anti-corruption fight, bubbles without substance.

The boss was at the graduation ceremony of the EFCCs new graduates last week, warning them that they have him to answer to. I am not aware that he boss Okiro or the ICPC chief around, so what is it with Farida? The poor woman is not allowed space of her own; she sits in the boss shadow in court. He does not want the EFCC to succeed and does not want certain people to be tried whether in Nigeria or anywhere else.

In the mean time, all those discredited by the previous regime have found favour as Ministers or in the National Assembly. One new Minister did not hide his disdain for his people when he was in power. His main pre-occupation was not the development of his state but war of self-survival. He turned his state into a battlefield of small war-lords with pockets of private armies all over the place and terminated the lives of many innocent opponents. Groups of armed men, some in police and military uniforms, moved about in convoys on election days, shooting in the air, shouting at the opposition to come out to vote at their peril. They hijacked election materials, closed down several polling stations and stopped even a previous leader of the state from coming out to vote, by threatening his life if he dared. One Assembly member used public funds to build a higher institution and sold it at huge profit to his state, and built over 175 houses for himself before leaving office.

Another took a lion share of every contract he awarded, and from the allocations that passed through his office to his local governments, so that what was left was never enough to work with. No development, therefore, happened in the state. Even the road directly outside his office was riddled with pot-holes. He did not pay salaries of his civil servants for months. Many lives were wasted for trying to oppose him. Within four months of first coming to power, he acquired two choicely housing estates in the USA. He had four more years to amass colossal fortune abroad. Members of his State House of Assembly tried to impeach him twice but had to succumb to threats of assassination and were eventually largely paid-off. He moved about with an army of bare-chested thugs to intimidate all and sundry, and the thugs were busy all over the state for him during the election that gave him landslide victory for a second term in office. No one in the state rejoiced when he returned to power. Do Yar Adua and his security agents not have the means of verifying these things or is locking up journalists and sealing up media houses like Channels TV, all that they are trained to do? The Senate does not do background checks either. They have no measure of standard. They clap for every one that stands before them, even if it is a rat. Take a bow, you are one of us.

Reports coming from Europe and every where, allege that another of our leaders has booming businesses around the world, including an oil refinery in South Africa. A giant leap if proven true, for someone allegedly sentenced for petty theft just before rigging himself into power. He himself admitted being sentenced but not convicted and someone wants us to award him a national honour for that?

Our Foreign Minister said the other day that the New York Times and the Washington Post do not assassinate their leaders in the press. So sir, how do we get to hear about their scandals when they break open in the USA? The only difference between us and them is that they have fewer thieves in power so scandals are relatively fewer. Reports about a country with a thousand thieves in power is bound to be different from that of a country with three or five thieves. That is our dilemma, and if a leader wants to fight crime, why would reporting it bother him or his Ministers?

We have a high up leader in the Senate who has one of the largest gulf courses in the USA. How many American government officials have football fields in Nigeria? Our supposed leaders steal us dry to go and invest in other countries while millions of our university graduates are idling away at home jobless for ten or more years. We have untouchables who used our money to set up private airlines and are now sitting pretty on filthy, mind bogging wealth, and Chief Ojo Maduekwe does not want us to talk.

We have the NPA saga and the third term debacles stained fingers. We have officials who served in Babangida, Abacha and Obasanjos failed governments, who are serving again in this one. What lessons are they teaching us? We take one step forward, ten backward. I hope Yar Adua would love Nigeria enough to spare us the agony of trying to come back in 2011 because to be honest, I dont know how we are going to survive the next two years with so many devious masters and no positively decisive helmsman.

AONDOAKAA IS NIGERIAS

DE FACTO PRESIDENT

When Obasanjo pushed Umaru Musa YarAdua for president, I was sold on his credentials as a possible leader who would not steal from our national treasury. Of course, I did not know at the time that he is slow in making decisions to the point of appearing indecisive and even naïve. I also did not know that his health was so fragile, that it would soon become a major factor in his presidency. I definitely did not know that he would not hurt a fly even if the fly entered and blocked his nostril. He would accept his suffering quietly as his destiny and leave the faith of the fly to Allah, as he is doing now with our fingered rogue leaders.

The enemies of Nigeria knew about his weaknesses and quickly began to capitalize on them. They contributed lavishly to his campaign chest to win his trust and gain the opportunity to emasculate him in power. Nigeria was already an orphan before many of us realized what was going on. The first sign of what was to come, was when Babangida, a mortal foe of the YarAduas family, warmed himself into YarAduas heart by claiming to withdraw from the presidential race because of YarAdua. He lied, because he had no chance of contesting in the first place. Obasanjo had made sure of that and Ribadu had assembled sufficient dossier on him to sink his private palatial abode.

Babangida who had promised Abiola the Vice President position for financing his coup, and pledged quick hand over to the late retired Gen. Yar Adua for facilitating the success of his coup, vilified and humiliated the two accomplices throughout his reign, and with Abacha, eventually hounded them to death.

Odili, Ibori, Igbinedion, Saraki all bought into the Babangida scheme to take advantage of Yar Adua weaknesses, to control him. The first thing they did was plant Baba Gana Kingibe, a chronic stooge of Babangida, on YarAdua as his head of service. Kingibe was the campaign manager in the eighties of the late YarAdua, when Babangida sponsored him to betray and compete with the late YarAdua for the presidency. Then Babangida planted him on Abiola and when annulment came, Kingibe betrayed Abiola by not protesting and by quietly withdrawing from public view as if Abiola did not happen. YarAdua was so naïve he was virtually treating the betrayer of his late brother as his Vice President. It did not take long before Kingibe began projecting himself as YarAduas possible replacement. Kingibe began taking and announcing serious decisions which YarAdua kept reversing almost too late, including Kingibes threat to sack all the civil servants that participated in the national strike that heralded YarAdua into power.

To destroy Nuhu Ribadu and his EFCC, the enemies of Nigeria brought in Aondoakaa, a sworn and paid foe of the anti-corruption struggle, who vowed from the first day in office to “clip Ribadus wings.” The first thing he did was to try to sell YarAduas slow decision making process to Nigerians as the due process ideal and respect for the rule of law. But respect for the rule of law was jettisoned when it became necessary to sack Kingibe or prevent Ribadu from graduating or close down Channels TV station or withdraw from Nigerias commitment to host FIFAs under 17 world cup in 2009.

Aondoakaa at first tried to take over Ribadus prosecution cases in court so as to have them thrown out. When that failed, due to public outcry, he decided to remove Ribadu from the EFCC by having him sent on a dignified training course at Kuru, that Ribadu would be hard pressed to reject. In reality Kuru offer was a Trojan horse, laced with bobby trap. Soon as he got there, the de facto president sold the idea of reversing Ribadus promotion in the Police force, to the Police boss, Mike Okiro, and the Police Service Commission.

No one has told us yet whether Nuhu Ribadu personally promoted himself in the Police force or falsified Police records to put himself forward for promotion. Someone who had the authority to appoint the police boss and set up the Police Service Commission obviously was happy with his performance, and Nigerians applauded the promotion because it was well deserved and the least Nigeria could do to honour someone who had put his life on the line for the good of the nation. Therefore, if someone must be punished over the promotion, it is not Ribadu, because he committed no offence by accepting his promotion, but members of the Police Service Commission and the Police boss who dance to the tune of whoever is in power.

While the Police authorities were having a field day persecuting one of the best officers they have ever raised, the de facto president recommended his crony to take over at the EFCC. All that Farida has done since taking over at the EFCC is to chase every one that worked with Ribadu out of the agency and keep investigating them to look for cobwebs with which to hang Ribadu. All her cases in court were put there by Ribadu; she has not initiated even a single one of her own so far. As a diversionary tactic, she claims to be pursuing crime prevention measures as if those she cannot prevent, or have happened before she took over the reigns at the EFCC, are to be ignored.

After eighteen months in office, we are still waiting to see the first person to be successfully prosecuted for corruption by the de facto president and his EFCC agent. The former Governor of Balyelsa state, who was let off the hook lightly, now present papers at government sponsored forums as if he is a moral icon. Ibori, Igbinedion, Kalu and others are threatening to return as Federal Ministers without a tinge of conscience, after all some of their colleagues are already Senators or Ministers, while others succeeded in rigging their way back as governors. Iyabo Obasanjo, in the meantime, was caught dancing provocatively and with abandonment at a pubic function, trying to knock the hat off the head of her state governor because her father, the Odilis and the Babangidas, control the EFCC, and Farida has no files on them.

When the de facto president was asked about Ribadus botched graduation, he bawled that Ribadu did not wear police uniform. For a start when was he mandated to decide what costume to wear to receive certificates? Ribadu has not worn police uniform for at least four years and was not wearing one when he was sent to Kuru. Statements like this make one wonder if we bother to vet the certificates people present for exalted government positions. The de facto president has threatened too that he wants the documents Ribadu sent to the London Police on Iboris case because, London has no right to hold on to them. He does not support the London trial because after all, his benefactor is already going through his laughable motions of open-ended trial in a Nigerian court. An Attorney General of a country that tells another country helping him to fight corruption in leadership, that he would not co-operate with them and does not need their help, is not an Attorney General but an adversary of his country.

I supported YarAdua for President and not Aondoakaa. YarAdua definitely is not a thief but he is surrounded by the wrong people undermining his mandate. If sickness is the reason he can not have a firm grip on his leadership, we are praying for his full and quick recovery because we need a leader who would not steal and his stepping down now would create serious tribal leadership problem for Nigeria. But not stealing does not excuse not fighting corruption. YarAdua must set up a special court to fight corruption and must remove Aondoakaa and his agents because they are causing him to reverse himself too often, and giving the impression to the rest of the world that we are not all that intelligent or serious as a people. We have no hope of achieving vision 20 20 20 or any other ennobling vision for that matter, if we keep celebrating rogues, muckworms, mediocres as our leaders.

 

NAIWU OSAHON Hon. Khu Mkuu (Leader, World Pan-African Movement); Ameer Spiritual (Spiritual Prince) of the African race;  MSc. (Salford); Dip.M.S; G.I.P.M; Dip.I.A (Liv.); D. Inst. M; G. Inst. M; G.I.W.M; A.M.N.I.M. Poet, Author of the magnum opus: The end of knowledge.  One of the worlds leading authors of childrens books; Awarded; key to the city of Memphis, Tennessee, USA; Honourary Councilmanship, Memphis City Council; Honourary Citizenship, Countyof Shelby; Honourary Commissionership, County of Shelby, Tennessee; and a silver shield trophy by Morehouse College, USA, for activities to unite and uplift the  African race.

Naiwu Osahon, renowned author, philosopher of science, mystique, leader of the world Pan-African Movement.