No wonder, when attempts are made to beat the drums of a revolution to sanitize the system and post our tormentors to their ancestors, the guilty ones rush for security cover and cause arrest of the innocently cheated for throwing challenges to the criminally-minded leaders.Those that misuse the Holy Books accompanied with prayer beads and clothed like Afghan Taliban to deceive the gullible to access power for subsequent abuse for illicit wealth accumulation at the detriment of service delivery.Nigeria is truly a blessed country.
It is a country so blessed with abundant natural and human resources and thieving heartless leaders that parade themselves as near ‘Saints’ at the slightest opportunity to remain in the thieving industry they created in government. It may not be wrong to describe some Nigerian leaders as Satanic going by their actions and sordid past.
It has now reached a stage today that only few things surprise Nigerians excluding corruption and stealing in public service. We keep reeling from one scandal to the other, and it may remain so until we get it right possibly in 2027 as a people, we are scandal weary.
Reference to a published report by Mathew Page, an Associate of the London based Chatham House, revealed that no fewer than 35 past and present Nigerian governors and 299 public office holders have acquired choice properties in the United Kingdom and Dubai in the United Arab Emirate (UAE) that amount to several billions of US Dollars. The source of the purchasing power was from the public treasury, where they looted and re-looted until they vacated office, although not satisfied. It was reported that in Dubai alone, Nigerian criminals, I am not referring to Yahoo boys or their colleagues in the internet crime. But those who held positions of authority expended over $400million to acquire over 800 properties with many in stages of waste. Mathew Page did not name all the perceived thieves but indicated the positions they occupied and are occupying in Nigeria. He revealed that at least 13 former Governors, two former Deputy Senate Presidents and a former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), were notable persons on the list.
We are not talking of acquired properties with sleaze funds scattered in the United Kingdom, Germany, USA, Canada, France, South Africa, Egypt and few other countries. Others on the list include; 25 former Ministers, three Judges, 17 Police Officers, Security and top Military officers retired and serving, National Legislators, five staff in the presidency, 11 officers of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), and 16 Heads of Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government are among.
Mathew Page also said that 50 businessmen fronting for Politically Exposed Persons (PEP), 158 suspected PEP proxies and 13 known Nigerian Law Enforcement Agency suspects “enriched” the list of the suspected thieves of public funds budgeted for national development.
He elaborated on the report with reference to some specifics. For instance, that a former State Governor from the Northwest owns eight (8) Dubai properties worth $5million; a former National Chairman of the PDP acquired 11 Dubai and two London Homes worth $18million.
A former Deputy Senate President acquired 14 Dubai properties at $12million and one of his successors bought eight (8) Dubai Assets and three (3) UK properties at $15million. The list is long, disturbing and worrisome, and Page explained that Nigerian politicians and their fellow official accomplices have perfected the method of using the real estate sector and school fees as money laundering strategies over the years. This captures the recent whistle blown by Aliko Dangote against Farouk Ahmed formerly of NNPCL. This damming revelation implies that the agencies charged with the fight against corruption and other related offences in Nigeria, especially the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), ought to step up their games in preventing this satanic and senseless wholesale theft of the peoples’ patrimony.
Page referred to the case of the jailed former governor of Plateau State (now pardoned), Joshua Chibi Dariye, who while facing corruption charges, was still funneling money overseas for school fees “for his children in UK boarding schools and universities”, noting however that the “children were not implicated in any wrongdoing despite being beneficiaries of crime.” Dariye was said to have spent over 240,000 pounds sterling on school fees alone in the UK while his immediate community in Bokkos (Mushere Chiefdom), were and still are crying against infrastructural deficit and absence of reliable security network for protection against bandits.
Another national lawmaker of longstanding reportedly owns high-end properties worth over 665,000 pounds sterling in the UK. A ‘career’ politician who has been a parasite on the votes of his people from one of the impoverished Northern States owns property topping 861,000 pounds sterling in the same United Kingdom. Another thieving national legislator from one of the Southern States gulped luxury property worth 343,000 pounds starling. Another ‘career’ politician of no value to his constituents has a standing property worth over 447,000 pounds sterling in the UK.According to Mathew Page, those ‘Nigerian public office thieves’ are taking advantage of what he called “Global Nexus of IFFs, Accessibility, Permeability, Reliability, and Affordability”.
Just as a popular Igbo proverb popularized by the late Chinua Achebe in Things Fall Apart, as men have learned to shoot without missing, birds have also learned to fly without perching. Nigerian politicians are now the birds of prey on our resources that we shall continue to ridicule and curse. May the Almighty Creator burn their itching fingers with hell fire and destroy their evil intentions against our robust and healthy survival, and accommodate in the hereafter with Satan, Ameen!
Page’s report shows that the corruption acts have not abated despite the efforts of the anti-corruption agencies. Nor has the much vaunted and over trumpeted fight against corruption and other related offences under the present administration stanched the bleeding.It also shows that our architecture to fight corruption needs a rethink. The EFCC and ICPC seem to have become symbols of an intention. On many occasions, they have become weapons against the opposition and tools for browbeating election threats as alleged by several politicians and civil society groups.
The report indicates that politics in Nigeria is not a platform for service delivery within available resources as preached but a platform tailored to stealing from the commonwealth, self service and enslaving the people.A whole industry of larceny has been woven around it by the misfits in the system supported by senseless praise singers, sycophants, clowns, rogues and rabble rousers.
So we have businessmen and insane as fronts for crumbs. We also have politicians who do not have confidence in the country’s stability and progress. Hence they destroy our educational and health systems and in return, ferry their children and dependants abroad and buy homes there to shelter away from the very instability they consciously created at home.
As we always say, revolution is the only way to restore the fading glory of our country. The centre cannot hold under Tinubu who appears to be an advocate of corruption. We must have a rethink to do the obvious. There must be change of the claimed Renewed Hope Propagandists in 2027 or we should be prepared for the worst unless a sudden miracle happens! Not as a soothsayer, there appears to be a thick cloud of revolution in the sky. To borrow from Alan Paton, the South African born author of Cry the Beloved Country, I Now Cry Profusely for My Beloved Country, Nigeria under a Clueless and Inept Government led by Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Jagaba of Borgu Kingdom!
Muhammad is a commentator on national issues
