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Author: Pini Jason
Posted to the web: 8/30/2005 5:58:26 AM

You can say Amen to that. Last Friday, we dwelt here on the ethical (please don’t mention morals to our politicians) burden of the Chairman of the People's Democratic Party, PDP, Col. Dr. Senator, Chief Ahmadu Ali, of the Ali-Must-Go fame. Okay, you missed the gist. Just recently, the President approved some Board appointments. In the list for the chairmanship of the Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, was one Dr. M.N Ali. On the list for the board of the Nigerian Railway Corporation, was one Ali Ogala Adah. There was also another name, Alhaji Abdullahi Adejo Ali Obaje on the board of the NICON Insurance. There was nothing wrong with these names, as they are all Nigerian names, probably with Nigerian passports. So you cannot deport them. I say this because the President who approved the appointments could not place the names. But it was alleged that it turned out that Dr. M.N. Ali is actually encrypted Dr. Mrs. Mary Ali, decoded as the wife of Col. Dr. Ahmadu Ali, the chairman of the PDP. Ali Ogala Adah was alleged to be Adah Ogala Ali, the son of the PDP chairman. It was suspected also that Alhaji Abdullahi Adejo Ali Obaje could be another relation of the PDP chairman by the time you decode the name! When the President discovered this alleged hanky-panky of the highest order, he erupted and stopped the planned inauguration of the NPA Board. It was in fact said that his relationship with the PDP chairman crashed on the ground. Why have I returned to this matter today? It is not for what the PDP chairman was accused of doing, but for the code of misconduct, which a highly-placed member of the PDP tried to foist on the nation. I was alarmed but not surprised by the defence offered by Commodore Olabode George (rtd) on this scandal. Alarmed because Olabode George wants to drag us all into a cesspool of immorality and unethical conduct. Not surprised, because George himself left the board of NPA in a rather un-edifying circumstance. Olabode George, who is the National Vice-Chairman, South, of PDP, supports the PDP chairman for allegedly nominating his family members into various boards in a rather deceptive manner. According to George, there was nothing wrong in the nominations as long as the nominees were politicians who worked for the success of the PDP at the elections. He even disingenuously called the general criticism of the clear malfeasance a 'pull him down syndrome'. Chei! Hear the PDP leader, who himself is a striking distance from the chairmanship of the party: 'The issue to note is this', he lectures, 'Board appointment is a recognition of your political activity and so if the people are politicians, what is wrong there? Is this the first time such a thing is happening in Nigeria? We have had Mrs. Anenih here who is a known politician and The Leader is here who is also a politician. It is not job for the boys. This is recognition. I don’t know the activities of the Chair but you can ask him. But to me, anybody who is an active politician, who has done well on the field, it is symbiotic relationship to recognize such a person in that area. That is all there is in this Board thing'. Commodore George does not get it. He is writing a new ethical derangement that can only further aggravate our national shamelessness. We are talking about leadership here. But to George (and I’m sure there are many who think like him), it is simply party time (excuse the pun); and it is come and enjoy, everybody. Just show your party card! It is certainly many years away from Alex Ekwueme to Ali; from Zik, Awo, Aminu, Balewa and Bello to Obasanjo! By today’s standards, Segun Awolowo would have been Governor of Ogun State with Tokunboh as deputy. Chuma Azikiwe would have been Governor of Anambra State with Ngozi as Commissioner! Olabode George sounds like the type of man who regards the corrupting influence of power as a right! To such people, there is nothing to it if they mixed a large dose of parochialism, nepotism, avarice, greed, debauchery, impunity and crass irresponsibility with statecraft. So George cannot see anything wrong with a leader, which is what a party chairman is supposed to be, lining up members of his family for every available appointment. All it takes to justify that is to invoke political activism! The wealth of this country does not belong to the PDP alone, anyway. Those in power hold it in trust for the entire people of this country. It simply highlights the moral danger Nigeria faces as a nation when people as highly placed as George advertise this ethical depravity in public! Come 2007, the distribution of offices in the PDP may throw up George as the PDP chairman. It is frightening to think that all that he would do in such a position is to use public office as a reward 'for political performance in the field' which often may include rewarding political thuggery! Nowhere in his sophistry did George mention capability. And Nigeria is today a miserable example of a nation mortgaged to political expediency. What saddens many people is not so much that the PDP chairman tried to appropriate as much of the commonwealth as he could. That is no new thing. And George is right on that. We have been witnesses to a deliberate restructuring of the economy of this country to the pockets of a particular group, even at the expense of the South-South people who bear the brunt of the production of that wealth. What is very condescendingly cheap about what the chairman was alleged to have done is the apparent concealment and the surreptitious manner of doing it. Had he boldly proposed his entire family in a way it would be known exactly who they were, we would have simply laughed it off, if the President approved their appointment. What George seems to be defending smacks of forgery! And this drama is yet one more step down the ladder of decency for this country. Soon, there may be nothing considered as indecent, immoral or unconscionable in this country! The line between good and bad is fast disappearing. And it is clear that the pervasive nature of moral decadence lies in the fact that people who commit malfeasance at a lower level or earlier in life, are allowed to go scot-free only to resurface at a higher or national level where they inflict greater moral corrosion on the nation’s psyche! Lastly, it is very important to reiterate to Commodore George and many who think that politics is the road to Sodom, that leadership is ninety-nine percent character and one percent idiosyncrasy. The most elementary requirement for leadership is that the leader should ALWAYS be above board (excuse the pun). A leader should be able to say certain things are beneath him. A leader should lead by example. But Commodore Olabode George’s voice is that of a man who idolizes ethical decline on the altar of raw politics!