For historically conscious Nigerians, Biafra connotes war, mass starvation and death. However, many Nigerians are afflicted with Alzheimer, a disease that robs its victims of their memories to learn from the past and present

War On Corruption, Biafra And The Untrue Claim Of Igbo Marginalisation

By Salimonu Kadiri (Guest Writer on Thy Glory O’ Nigeria and The Nigeria Village Square)

Mr Salimonu Kadiri

For Nigerians, every day is first of April in which they are either fooling someone or someone is fooling them. For Nigerians, December is a month of hypocrites and as usual Nigerians join the rest of the world in wishing one another happy Christmas and prosperous New Year even when in reality every celebrated Christmas and New Year is less happy and less prosperous in ascending order.

Nigerian hypocrites carry their religions on foreheads but their behaviours are inversely proportional to Godliness. They shout the name of God every now and then but act satanically.

In Nigeria, roads are simply non-existing, hospitals have become morgues, schools have crumbled, electricity is epileptic, pipe borne water is away on permanent leave, the streets are filled with filth, dead animals and sometimes human corpses because politicians and civil servants, apart from collecting their salaries and fringe benefits, have stolen monies appropriated for providing essential commodities for Nigerians.

The sixteen years rule of PDP led to so much head ache for Nigerians that they decided to take APC as a remedy at the March 28, 2015, Federal elections in Nigeria. That was the first time a government was voted out of power in Nigeria and the world exclaimed in surprise.

The All Progressive Congress (APC) and its Presidential candidate, ex-General Muhammadu Buhari, had gone into the elections with the campaign to deal with kleptomania which is on the verge to suffocate Nigeria.

As it turned out, the Presidential election was not only won by the APC, but they had majority in the National Assembly encompassing the Senate and the House of Representatives. This implies that majority of Nigerian electorates have empowered the Executive and the legislators to expunge kleptomaniacs from Nigeria.

After election victory the APC decided that the speaker of the House of Reps and his deputy should be Femi Gbajabiamila and Mohammed Monguno respectively while the President of the Senate and his Deputy should be Ahmed Lawan and George Akume respectively.

The Senate contains 109 members but it was reduced to 108 before June 9, 2015, when the 8^th Assembly was to be inaugurated as a result of the death of one APC Senator after the election. Thus, APC have 59 members while PDP and allies have 49 members. Democratically and politically, the APC party had decided who among its elected Senators would be the President and Deputy President of the Senate respectively.

The decision of APC did not please Senator Bukola Saraki, therefore he openly connived with PDP, the political antagonist of APC, to become the Senate President against the wish of his party. On June 9, 2015, a compromised Clerk of the Assembly arranged the election of Senate President in the presence of 57 out of 108 Senators.

The 57 Senators consisted of 49 PDP and 8 APC. By the time the Deputy Senate President was about to be elected, the number of APC present had increased to 25, and the PDP Senator, Ike Ekweremandu, was elected with 54 votes against Ali Ndume, APC, who scored 20 votes.

Thus, a Senate President and his Deputy were elected through a process similar to those described under Article 419 of the Nigerian Criminal Code – Obtainment by false pretence! In democracy and party politics, it is an abomination. In explaining their behaviours, Senator Bukola Saraki and his ilk have said that after elections the legislators are free to conduct the affairs of the National Assembly without the interferance of the political parties on whose platform they contested elections and won.

Yet, and in accordance with the constitution, no one can contest election in Nigeria without belonging to and sponsored by a political party. By taking some members of the APC, to which he belongs, and merging them with PDP to form a new majority in the Senate, Saraki subverted the will of the electorates that voted PDP out of power and he has created a real impediment against change and war on kleptomania, the campaign slogan on which the APC went into election. Outwardly Bukola Saraki is an APC but internally he is a PDP.

On September 11, 2015, the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) filed a 13 count charge of financial crime, money laundering, false declaration of assets, owning and operating foreign bank accounts while being a public officer, against Senator Bukola Saraki at the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT), Abuja. Saraki was to be arraigned before Justice Danladi Umar of CCT Abuja on Friday, 18 September 2015.

Instead of defending himself at the CCT Senator Saraki hired dozens of advocates to file ex-parte motion at an Abuja High Court, presided over by Justice Ahmed Mohammed, on Thursday, 17 September 2015 seeking injunctions to prevent the CCT from trying him.

Justice Mohammed then summoned the Ministry of Justice to appear before him on Monday, 21 September to show cause why the trial should be allowed to proceed. The judge also summoned the Chairman of the tribunal, Justice Danladi Umar and that of the CCB, Mr. Sam Saba as well as Mr Hassan who signed the charge against Saraki to appear before him on 21 September 2015 to show cause why Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki should be prosecuted.

However, the CCT commenced the trial of Saraki on the 18^th of September 2015 and his lawyer asked the Tribunal for a stay of proceeding on the ground of Justice Mohammed’s summon. Justice Umar replied that the High Court had parallel juridiction with the Tribunal and as such, had no powers to halt a trial in the Tribunal.

Therefore, he issued order of warrant of arrest by the police against Saraki, so that he could be present at the next hearing to take a plea of guilty or not guilty in the court. Although Saraki had pleaded not guilty to the charges he has gone to the Supreme Court to challenge the jurisdiction of the CCT to try him and pending the decision of the Supreme Court, the CCT has laid the case to rest.

Bukola Saraki’s attempt to seek judicial embargo against the investigating authority is rather a norm than exception in Nigeria. The former Governor of Rivers State, Peter Odili, was the first to obtain a perpetual injunction against investigation, interrogation and prosecution over treasury looting of the State he governed from 1999 to 2007.

Others who were sluggish in obtaining perpetual injunction got their cases put into permanent coma by the trial judges. In recent time, Stella Adaeze Oduah, on August 26, 2015, obtained an interim injunction, from Justice Mohammed Yunusa presiding over a Federal High Court in Lagos, barring the EFCC and its agents from inviting or arresting her for questioning over the purchase of $1.6 million armoured cars when she was Minister of Aviation under Jonathan.

In the same spirit, on Thursday, 17 September 2015, an Abuja High Court presided over by Justice Valentine Ashi, in a ruling barred the EFCC, Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Department of State Security Services (DSS), the Nigerian Police Force (NPF), the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) and National Security Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), from arresting, detaining and investigating Mr. Kingsley Kuku over his activities as former Coordinator of Presidential Amnesty Programme for Niger Delta under President Goodluck Jonathan. Billions of naira were said to have disappeared over Niger Deltan ghost students purported to have been on scholarships under amnesty programme.

In the 16 years of PDP governing Nigeria (May 29, 1999 to 29 May 2015), the three arms of government – the Executive (Presidency), the Legistilative (National Assembly) and the Adjudicative (Judiciary) – were deeply corrupt. Chinua Achebe once said that Nigeria is not a country but he would have been stating the truth if he had said that Nigerians are not human beings because if one-hundredth of government’s kleptomania in Nigeria were to occur in any country of the world there would be public uproar and outrage.

Since Nigerians have been narcotized with fake religion and false ethnic love, national rogues always attribute their rogueries to the will (blessing) of God and whenever their stealings were exposed they claim that their ethnic group were under attack.

As obnoxious and odious leaders cut across all ethnic groups, the APC government under President Mohammed Buhari has decided to kill corruption before it kills Nigeria. The PDP has accused the APC regime of witch-hunting members and supporters of the immediate past government adding that any true war against corruption should start from 1985.

In a storm where multiple of trees fall on one another would it not be wise to start clearing log of woods from the top? If Jonathan’s PDP regime is at the top of the heap of accumulated corruption in Nigeria, common sense demands that enquiries should start on his regime.

Just as the debate on what happened to the wealth of Nigeria entrusted in the care of Jonathan in the past five years was on-going, a diversionary agitation for the secession of Biafra beclouded the political terrain of Nigeria.

For historically conscious Nigerians, Biafra connotes war, mass starvation and death. However, many Nigerians are afflicted with Alzheimer, a disease that robs its victims of their memories to learn from the past and present. Moreover those who are 45 years of age now may not have heard the true history of the civil war that ended on 15^th January 1970.

Ogunlakaiye@hotmail.com