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Sideview: Blood, Tyranny and Corruption

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Author: Dimgba Igwe
Posted to the web: 7/8/2005 5:45:18 AM

The story is told of a former minister of Information who prefers letter writing to stealing public funds like many of his colleagues. Perhaps, unknown to him, his “activities” were also being closely monitored by the various security organs and network of spies. But all the surveillance simply drew blank. Which was strange, indeed. This became a kind of problem because in that regime, it was an abnormality almost tantamount to a crime to remain untainted by graft or at least, a secret moral weakness which the security goons are privy to. By the unwritten code of practice in that regime and subsequent ones, to remain untainted smacks of intolerable moral arrogance which rankles the very fabric of the regime.But then, the president was a generous and a jolly good fellow—a sharp contrast to the present truculent and tight-fisted present tenant at Aso Rock. He invited his minister to a private audience watched only by hidden camera.“My philosopher prince,” the gap-toothed president enthused as he welcomes the puritan minister. “I hear you’re the only minister that is not taking care of yourself against the future. That is very good and I am very happy with all the reports I get about you.”Of course the minister was flattered and said so. The president then handed him a token personal gift that amounted to a huge sum of money. The hefty personal gift was meant as something to take care of the future. The minister was overwhelmed by such kindness but the president has made his point: nobody wins a moral battle in this regime. Disciples of President Olusegun Obasanjo would have you believe that the president is an avowed anti-corruption crusader, an apostle of moral purism. Evidence? Consider the president’s high moral exertions against corruption, his seeming intolerance of anything that smacks of corruption and violates the due process. It was, after all, a measure of the president’s moral persuasion against corruption that one of the earliest bills he sent to the National Assembly was the Anti-corruption Act, even though the bill spent over two years at the National Assembly before it was passed. Maybe the greedy legislators were waiting for the president to first grease their filthy palms before passing the bill; but our president would have none of it. You don’t use fire to fight fire! So the anti-corruption bill languished for as long as it took the National Assembly to pass it. But when it came to the anti-labour bill, the president knew what to do. Whatever it was, the bill sailed through the senate at the speed of light. Distinguished Senator Uche Chukwumerije who counseled caution in the rabid haste to pass the bill as demanded and lucratively enforced by the executive (read: president) was threatened with sanction by the Senate President Adolphus Wabara, the president’s lackey, if he so much as exercised the liberty of free speech on the matter! That says something about the president’s priority, indeed, as much as it speaks volumes about his sticking out for due process.But then, you are quickly reminded that it was this president that demanded and got open letters of resignation from his cabinet members, save three distinguished members whom he was convinced about their integrity: Mallam Adamu Ciroma, General T. Y. Danjuma and the late Chief Bola Ige. But what happened to these three distinguished individuals? Chiroma and Danjuma resigned in frustration and Ige was mysteriously bumped off by the “nest of killers”(?) before he could carry out his plan to resign, as we learnt from his confidant, Wole Soyinka. That left us with a cabinet made up of largely the famous “come and chop” ministers who joined “penniless” and left with robust pockets. The point was that Baba didn’t catch any of them red-handed with his hands in the till. One ex-minister was repeatedly accused of mismanaging over N300 billion budgeted for roads. Well, the government said not as much money was actually released, only about N150 billion. So what about that, if only so little amount? How was it utilized? I mean the N150 billion! Nobody was forthcoming with answers. Instead, Baba simply elevated the ex-minister in question to a demi-god who enforces Baba’s will, no matter whose ox is gored. In other words, when Baba’s imperial and impulsive will is at stake, due process and all such craps are discarded. Brutish force and gunpoint diplomacy takes over, aided only by lorry-loads of Ghana-must-go sacks. The end justifies the means. One minister, Chief Sunday Afolabi, was unlucky to be caught in the web of EFCC’s investigations. Baba sacrificed him, appropriating the public relations benefits. It was anti-corruption crusade at work. Consider the latest public exchange of letters between Baba and Audu Ogbeh over the Anambra State debacle. Ogbeh had the impudence of upbraiding the president for blatant double standards and complicity in the brigandage in Anambra State. But as the saying goes, you don’t argue with the man with the gun and win. As Lord Acton argues, power corrupts but absolute power corrupts absolutely. Baba classically demonstrated this when Ogbeh was ordered to resign, allegedly at gunpoint right inside Aso Rock. All the party machinery and democratic processes were completely sidetracked in favour of purely jungle tactics. Tomorrow, historians may argue with justification that Ogbeh was a victim of political armed robbery. If so, it would be a matter of semantic sophistry trying to argue the difference between political armed robbery and the routine armed robbery. The Ogbe scandal, in my view, perhaps represents the greatest abuse of presidential power since Nigeria’s independence. So, is that corruption by any stretch then?Today, the man of the moment is the Inspector General of Police, Tafa Balogun who, we are told, was forced to resign by the president following overwhelming evidence of gross abuse of office. Going by the various reports in the media, Balogun is gargantuan not only in size but even much more so in his greed for money. At the last count, the former IGP has helped himself to billions of naira meant obviously for the welfare of the police as well as those coming from graft from those who have good reason to seek his cover.With a man like Balogun at the helms, we could then understand why the brigandage in Anambra State was possible. To the IGP, it was not only a matter of cash, it was his own way of satisfying the biddings of Aso Rock. It was a matter of scratch my back and I will scratch yours. The story in town is that Baba was outraged by the IGP’s voracious larceny. Tell that to the marines. You can believe that if you like. I don’t. And, I won’t. After the 2003 general elections in which the police was used to organize the greatest electoral heist in the nation’s history, IGP has taken his tenure under this president for granted. Balogun knew too much of how the elections were rigged that he thought he was now entitled to a charmed life under Baba’s presidency. And, why not? He probably has facts and figures about where PDP lost but was returned as winners with the help of security forces. If Baba could have his way with the elections, why can’t Balogun have his way with police money? After all, every policeman knows that he is entitled to go to the streets to extort money from just about anybody, or to turn the police stations into a shop where they fish for money. But Balogun was misreading Baba. The fact that the presidency has turned deaf ears to his excesses has nothing to do with balance of power. It was only a matter of an ultimate predator bidding his time for the most expedient moment to strike. In my view, it has nothing to do with Baba’s moral repugnance to Balogun’s actions, seeing that there are so many others probably worse than the fallen police boss who are still in Baba’s good books despite public outcries. It is more of Machiavellian reflex that sees everything else as dispensable in pursuit of a goal. Balogun has outlived his usefulness, so in dispensing with him, Baba might just as well score some public relations stunt. It is not a matter of coincidence but more of an orchestration that EFCC was so quick in releasing Balogun’s various scams to the public the moment he was retired. It reminds you so much of EFCC’s usual overzealous crusades against Baba’s political enemies. Pointing out these pitfalls, however, has nothing to do with justifying Balogun’s alleged larceny. In my view, he is simply a disgrace to his calling. From the look of things, it seems that the legacy of this era may revolve around three words: blood, tyranny and corruption.

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