One may be wrong to describe the anti-corruption fight waged by the former Buhari administration as one of those comedy drama series we watched when growing up as kids in Jos tin city on television screen aired from studio of former Benue Plateau Television (BPTV) spiced with elements of witch hunt for political stability because the pervasive neediness which proceed from the asphyxiating socio-economic challenges is the harsh consequence of the nation’s rapacious elite whose criminality is legendary.
And, aside been evasive, the reality on the ground is unashamedly obfuscated by their minders as well as their overt or covert accomplices.
The elite criminality is quintessentially characterized by wanton plunder of the nation’s resources which is done with mindless impunity putting everything in dysfunctional state.
Like swarm of wild frightened locust, they descend on national resources without utter concern for desperate state of those battling hunger and disadvantaged. Feeding their greed is the ultimate fixation.
So few, yet they have ingeniously muscled out the majority from the commonwealth. They have effectively held the destiny of the citizens and nation hostage by their reprehensible act which breeds different brands of crime tailored to survival.
This scenario brings one to a statement credited to the Group Managing Director of Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) Mele Kyari on the removal of fuel subsidy by President Tinubu.
Kyari said: “The elite are the main beneficiaries of the subsidy with 38% of fuel supplies going to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Lagos, Port Harcourt and Kano”
On the impoverishment of fellow citizens and decrepitude of the nation, they gain in power and wealth. As though, blinded by the surfeit of perks that accompanies their privileged positions, many hardly betray emotions to the plight of the impoverished citizens.
Recall the huge pile of Covid-19 palliatives criminally and wickedly stashed in warehouses by some state governors and privileged politicians targeted for campaigns while the citizens rotted in hunger only for those items to be exposed and carted by mobs during #EndSars protests.
Effectively, the elite constitute themselves as something of a god that must be propitiated and worshipped for crumbs of favor that unconsciously fall off their massive butchering tables. They have all become insouciant to the routine inconveniences and struggle of the ordinary citizens. When people swear by the Holy Books they claim to respect to serve the nation, they turn around to abuse same Oath with pride by serving selves at the detriment of the nation as if the God Almighty we sincerely worship is their playmate or differs from theirs.
It breeds insufferable pang of disenchantment and cynicism in citizens especially having attached credibility to the catalogue of promises and assurances made in the name of the Living God.
However, it beggars belief how hitherto normal and rational people brimming with bright ideas and intellectualism are immediately hobbled after moving into the ring of power from where they return battered by the heavy punches of corruption, ethnicity, regionalism and religious bigotry.
Of recent, I met one of such misfits that can reach any length to prove his innocence in the absence of any. From his points of argument, he erroneously believes God is his playmate for play at anytime of the day.
The primitively-educated retired federal permanent secretary is undoubtedly an award winning liar any day. He is a supersonic pretender, a clownish comedian and probably, an atheist in reality because whatever comes out of his mouth is laced with lies and dishonesty typical of an atheist garbed in Islamic attire from Gombe State.
Nemesis caught up with the clown by fool himself with what he stole to aspire to fly the gubernatorial flag of PDP in his native state in the Northeast. That state is the luckiest in 2023 to have consigned the aspiration of the pen bandit to the garbage and escaped to safety from the greedy unrepentant criminal of yore.
It is safe, to point at the extant chronic systemic weakness in our country as the culprit that also sucks sincerity, energy and enthusiasm to work for the general good.
Confronting the weakness headlong hasn’t really attracted sufficient attention and the will of the powers that be, which further strengthens the audacity of the perpetrators.
The huge scam called Oil subsidy now scrapped, Anchor Borrowers Scheme of NIRSAL under AbdulHameed Aliyu, Economic Empowerment and Home Grown Feeding Scheme of the Federal Ministry for Disaster Management and Social Intervention under Sadiyya Umar Farouk, Ecological Fund Contracts Award under Habiba Lawal, Management of the NNPCL superintended by Mele Kyari, Execution of Constituency Projects in Federal and State Constituencies by several contractors, alleged scandals in the North-east Development Commission under Alkali, the Niger Delta Amnesty Programme etc are a fitting example of the elite criminality.
The country buckles under its massive weight and weak from the haemorrhage of vital resources. The only time prosecution over the oil subsidy fraud was instituted it ended in damp squib. The Niger Delta Amnesty Programme is yet to be probed to unearth several scandals that defeated the sincerity of the programme forcing government to fold it up.
NIRSAL operations including staff recruitment from onset and those in the CBN should be probed so also the disbursement of funds for the various economic empowerment programmes.
Should the management of our federal universities and tertiary institutions be ignored where funds released and realized from consultancy services are siphoned through fictitious contracts etc? They deserve a forensic auditing just as the federal ministry for education is stinks of corruption of the immediate past. Efcc itself should not be spared.
Still on the fraud called oil subsidy, the daily fuel consumption of Nigeria stands at N66million per day from N40million in 2019 representing about 60%! The fast-paced movement of the figure leaves a huge margin for suspicion. Already, it’s a fact that smuggling across the borders and falsification of documents to claim money for never imported fuel into the country in the name of subsidy had characterized the programme as revealed by the former governor of Bauchi State, Malam Isa Yuguda in one of his recent interviews.
The staggering amount of N108 billion heist smartly and crudely spiced with professionalism stolen by an indicted former Accountant-General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, a criminal with an innocent face and his cohorts couldn’t have happened without some illustrious accomplices within and without. The princely amount, no doubt could have done wonders in transforming lives and communities in several areas, but brazenly stolen by a greedy criminal.
It eloquently tells the story of how our national resources have been turned into game, hunted for personal, pleasure by the criminals that found their ways into positions in government.
Furthermore, the organized crude oil theft has been a shocking revelation. It is such a sophisticated operation that carries again, the imprimatur of well placed and connected interests. The lost is quite staggering and unbelievable going on unchecked.
Muhadeen Asari Dokubo, a Niger Delta based unrepentant tattered ‘bandit’, had of recent revealed that oil bunkering in most instances is sponsored by top military officers. That was his allegation for the president’s attention and action while we are in the waiting.
The ‘poor guys’ engaged in crudely refining the oil in the prone areas are always the whipping child and with the lid now blown wide open, it has exposed the constant spotlight on them as a smokescreen to divert attention from the activities of their well heeled cousins who are the bigger thieves in hiding including the alleged military top brass.
The government claims to know the saboteurs yet it’s taking forever to make them public. It only heightens suspicions such as that of Asari Dokubo.
The ordinary citizens are for the most part importune to make sacrifices for the shambles created by a dodgy few. It’s a clear gentle travesty that the law on gets gentle on the elite criminality while hard on the ordinary citizens. Where a system, really works, people pay for their crimes regardless of their standing on the social ladder- it serves as deterrent and an unmistakable message that no one is above the law. Much needed socioeconomic development takes flight where the elite get away with blue murder.
At every turn, the footprints of the elite criminality lays bare. Nigeria has become a crime scene of sort over the criminality of the privileged few. Regardless of the fantastic agenda anunciated by president Tinubu, the capacity to deal with manifestation of the elite criminality will infinitely define the success of his premiership.
On a final analysis, Tinubu should return us to the basic. Outfits such as Federal Tenders Board, Federal Scholarship Board and few others silenced should bounce back to service. All federal contracts including maintenance of the Villa and Aguda House should be awarded by the Federal Tenders Board not by respective federal ministries, departments or agencies including award and execution of all constituency projects captured in the budget.
The Federal Tenders Board should be managed by representatives of the 36 states of the federation as well as seven appointed members from EFCC, ICPC and the DSS for transparency and probity to reign.
Not only that, there is a need for the establishment of a Presidential Security Monitoring Committee (PSMC) to be chaired by a renowned security expert from the pool of retired military officers not below the rank of a Lieutenant-General or at worst, a Major-General. PSMC should establish six zonal offices in the six geo-political zones of the country to work closely with other security organs of government for effective monitoring of security challenges and operations in the country.
The task ahead of whosoever is the president of Nigeria is not easy if he is determined to succeed. We have to go back to our starting point to have a real direction. For now, we have missed the way to the Promised Land!
Muhammad is a commentator on national issues
