This phase of the much-touted anti-graft campaign is still on but recently has been in a lull, but believingly more revelations are yet to be let loose as Nigerians sit, fingers-crossed waiting to see whose bus stop the campaign bus will stop next. But some have helped nip it all in a bud though that a few over 55 Nigerians earned 1.34 trillion naira in seven years. This is the sum total of all unlawfully acquired public fund just a few more than 55 persons out of One hundred and eighty million people. This is apart from their salaries, their personal investment yields and all. That is calamitous! One needs to be a superhuman to attain such infamous feat. This can only be demonic! It takes you having some special demonic capacities for you to mess with public money of that capacity with the gravity of impunity.
They have leveraged on their privilege to serve as an avenue to fleece the country and milk the treasury. They have taken time to play out their darkest fantasies and now the music has changed and so must their dance steps. They have flirted sufficiently with pervasion and now they must have a session of romance with nemesis. I hope this is true nemesis. I hope we will recover much if not all. I hope this will be seen through. I hope they will not play us by playing the pitiable victims while drumming up the emotions of their sympathizers. I hope the grip of the law is sufficiently firm to the expectation of the expectants. The world is watching to see if we can be serious this one time; and if we are willing to do this one thing. They want to see if this is covered in the scope of PMB’s change agenda.
Thanks must go to PMB for his resolve to walk this path. It is a path where only a few leaders would love to take, a risky and desolate one at that. It is a path where even angels dread. A path that is to be taken by only those who have clean hands and a pure heart; who have not lifted up their souls unto vanity nor sworn deceitfully; whose convictions are armed with courage, will and dignity. However, one more crucial part of the equation that will ensure a successful campaign is an inner resilience amidst the criticisms, court injunctions, immunity, counter law suites, denials, wasteful claims of innocence and sponsored protest against the on-going accountability campaigns. Nigerians still wait to see that the PMB anti-corruption team does not allowed itself to be overwhelmed by these theatrics.
Justice is justice. PMB should not bend over backwards for the undeserved. The undeserved that never mind spending the money belonging to everybody; who would not think twice about some people dying cheaply because of their long throat; so that when others back out for fright or favour; he would bravely remain the only trekker on this lonely path. The intelligence of our morality has been flagrantly played down to say the least. The idea of what is right and wrong has suffered so much weird colorations and that is why this exercise must be done with an exhaustive, all or none mindset. Or else the meagre residue of what is left of our moral and social asset will be squandered if justice is not rightly served to the looters.
I grew up to understand and accept the morality of being punished for one’s offences. So as children, we always prepare for punitive dance whenever we broke the edge. When we did something wrong intentionally or not, it is at worst, strange or at best luck-at-work not to be punished. I hope this has not changed. On several occasions have people been made a public spectacle so that others can learn from the scape goats. Many have refrained from flouting rules because they came to understand that keeping sanity is no joke and no excess is condoned in any bit.
In some countries, we hear about top government officials who get busted while merely dozing off at international community functions and get hacked for that. Some others get sacked for coming late to functions. Let alone, finance ministers that face the unretouched wrath of the law for financial misappropriation and untoward leadership practices. Even in sports, a football commentator was sacked for sleeping off while discussing on a live TV sport programed on a UEFA champions league between Real Madrid versus PSG.
Let’s be frank here, these people need to be punished. They must be punished. It is only the soul that is too simple to appreciate the value, the shock value and the irreparability of the loss that Nigeria is incurring that will connect with letting these evil mongers go without severe punishment beyond mere slaps on the wrist. I hope we will get their names and faces published in the media.
Meting out punishment to the full explanation of the law is just the most minimum repercussion that can happen to anyone whose negligence encouraged the massive genocide of the Northerners in tens of thousands; whose ill-incarnateness caused the internal displacement of millions of Northerners; whose greed, the reneging soldiers are being sentenced, and disengaged for; whose savagery caused Nigeria and Nigerians to live twenty years into the past despite much resources; whose depravity was the scourge that whipped the masses; whose malpractices gave us a quite worse name than we already bore on the international parlance; whose vileness left our naira mired in mystery and put at the very backwater of economies; whose hypocrisy puzzled the hopefuls and robbed the masses of the much trust reposed in democracy and governance. All these and more would have, should have and must have been prevented if things were done rightly.
We need to punish them as a gift to posterity. My bible says: A good father leaves inheritance for his grandchildren. Kindly note grandchildren. Not just children but grandchildren. Oil reserves will be kept and be spent. Infrastructures are good but will wear out in many years to come. But fictitious legacies and justice, if well administered will be frescoed in the sand of time. The sagas ensuing between the economic and political villains and heroes must be well acted in line with the scripts of moral tenets. Sinners should be punished to ensure consistencies with morality and normality. These stories are recorded. They are stories that will make histories tomorrow; actions that will find their way into our grandchildren’s government and history text books forever.
I could not understand the excitement in my heart when I met some characters I had read about in my history and Government textbook back then in my secondary school days. I saw Olusola Saraki live in Ilorin at one of the state functions back in 2005; I saw Anthony Enahoro once in a live TV interview. It brings some good feeling to see people you have read about in your textbooks. This made me appreciate the power of story and history. Indeed, deeds we Read!
Do you know what we will get for not punishing these looters? Thanksgiving services, convened by supposedly respected ministers of God in some of our hallowed denominations. We get them being restored as the custodian of our morals and dispensers of justice. We get them seated in the altar and front rows in our churches and mosques. We get their birthdays, death celebrations and children’s wedding televised on TV stations and see as they lavish the stolen public monies. We get them going back to invest and manage their loots to get more money. We get them being re -installed as leaders in other capacities other than where they had served before. We get them wreathed with our highly-priced OONs, CONs et al. We get them wearing our badge and representing us on the international scenes. We get their diplomatic passports renewed. We get their personalities naming our streets, alleys and major roads en el Centro in our big cities. We see their names identifying government buildings and infrastructures; stadia, hospitals and what nots. We get musicians writing and composing songs around their lives and worse more, we get them getting back at the people who try to make the law catch up with them…
If someone would get hacked for sleeping on duty, sacked for punctuality flaws or sentenced for misappropriation of public funds then they should get more for insubordination, unrepentancy, impunity, inept leadership, felony, treason, conspiracy, misappropriation which when enmeshed is called corruption.
The most intriguing, sensitive and perhaps the most Herculean part of the whole show is how PMB intends to fish out some of the looters who have been enlisted with him as change agents with their corruption stained apparel. I mean those who have entangled with his administration. He must dig up evidences speedily to nail them before the bad bloods infiltrate his cabinet. This must be done early because he has more to lose that any other. This must be done early before we cry foul, and before that umbrella boys feel victimized. PMB must ensure that all questions and queries begging for attention must be sorted. All change agents in his ship that are found wanting should be subpoenaed. All persons within his cabinet that were stewards in the last administration must be debriefed.
Whether the umbrella boys or the dirt sweepers got a case to settle or not, the whole story goes down like a funnel as every case, under scrutiny zeroes down to only one man. All conduits lead to only one direction. It all leads to the man who was supposed to stand relentlessly upon his watch and never wink a sleep until things were done correctly. One man who was supposed to ensure a place for everything and that everything is in its place. He had so much expected of him. But He never lived up to his billings. He could not do the signature moves of people that have the kind of power he had for seven years. He couldn’t even boo a goose. He was a man of no independent mind. He couldn’t step on toes or bite fingers. Everything comes and goes just like that. No questions, no queries and no comments. I have premonitions that the campaign bus will stop last at his junction and Nigerians will be interested in the drama that may go down with the Hero and the chief villain.
We will see how he hopes to compensate Nigeria for all our losses and the manner we were let down; or what token nemesis will demand from him. Let us see if one thousand apologies can do for the slaughtered trust and the irreparable losses. Nigerians will like to know how far he wants to go to show his remorse for negligence; particularly now that he has been stripped off the legends and myths surrounding immunity. Now that the veil is falling, let us see how many people would be glad to play the devils’ advocate.
Away from an agreement with PMB’s plea bargaining choice of administering punitive rites, many Nigerians do not want to believe he is very serious with this. I see some standing akimbo with the fingers crossed hoping that would just be a coy to bait them into relinquishing all unlawfully scooped public common wealth. If that is the way it will end, then the script is not well written and the plot is bad. The whole story would make a good TV series that one could title it: ‘It pays to do evil’. Season one, because such impunity will continue until some stewards have the power, the will and the courage to fight it down.
Before we start seeing their wicked faces in our weakling currencies; before they become residents as presidents in the Villa with National awards to the National cowards; we need to do things right. We need to learn from the simple football world where no player is a sacred cow even if he has got five whooping Ballon d’Or awards and still counting like Lionel Messi. Or else the meagre residue of what is left of our moral and social asset will be squandered. That is not a good heritage for posterity.
Emmanuel Ojuekanmi
08022225707
