EFCC

1960-2008: Nigeria has wasted 2 generations and 48 years

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By Adeola Aderounmu.

Not everyone will agree that 2008 was another wasted year but in actual fact, it was wasted. To those who have managed to climb up and away from the poverty zone, it is a year of accomplishment. To those who have succeeded through hardwork and a little bit of luck, it is a wonderful year.

However, more than 90m Nigerians are still below the poverty level. Many of them living desperately on less than 2 USD per day. To be sure, there are some people in Nigeria who do not have any money or material comfort. These people are neither covered by any form of social security nor consoled by the any type of social amenity. They lack the basic things of life: water, food and good accommodation. In general, their standard of living is below acceptable human conditions.

Several millions of Nigerians will start 2009 just the way they started 2008-poor and facing extreme hopelessness. They will start a new year without electricity in their homes. Nigeria is currently generating less than 3000 MW of electricity! Power supply in the last quarter of 2008 is one of the worst in the history of Nigeria. There are many days of absolute power cut and (sometimes) intermittent supply of about 30min in 2 days. Is Nigeria really a country?

Yet Nigerians are addressing Yar Adua as president. What has he successfully presided over since he was illegally bundled into power by Obasanjo and Iwu? Nigerians know that they are being held as captives but they don’t know how to release themselves from the bondage.

No one can deny that the Nigerian masses are being held as captives by a clique of tropical gangsters who have “bought” the country and turned it to their paradise and our hell. It is so unbelievable that these monsters have held swayed for most part of the 48 years of Nigerian independence. It is also remarkable how they re-group and recruit new accomplices in order to ensure that evil and terror are perpetually unleashed on the common man.

For instance Yar Adua’s fake government is oiled by corruption just like the others before it. How long shall we repeat this? Everytime I hear Yar Adua condemning corruption, I get stomach pains. How can you condemn something that you are enmeshed in, something you are doing almost nothing about in the interest of the public even though you have the transient or stolen power to do so?

Can Yar Adua tell Nigerians why Ibori is not facing prosecution? Why did Lucky Igbinedion pay just 3 million naira after looting for 8 years? Why are all the indicted governors and Ministers from 1999 to 2007 free people? Yar Adua should please save us the hypocrisy of his pseudo-leadership. It is not possible to fool all the people all the time.

It is now known to all and sundry that Ibori is the one controlling the EFCC nowadays. This would explain why Farida is his foot mat. Ibori has perfected the act of escaping prosecution. This guy stole Delta State to dryness and he is enjoying a post-governorship immunity simply because he donated more money than anyone else in sponsoring Yar Adua to the global centre of corruption aka Aso Rock.

Among the people who have contributed to the waste and hopelessness in Nigeria, one should never fail to mention Obasanjo. In Nigeria today, NEPA is generating less than 3000MW and the misdeeds of Obasanjo and his co-looters is a principal factor in this debacle. For 8 years, this man deceived all Nigerians and made us believed in vain. Nigerian are invariably in for another ride of deceit-waiting in vain for a declaration of a state of emergency in the power sector.

Maurice Iwu has joined the long list of the men holding Nigerians as captives. All the elections held even after the sham of April 2007 are still condemnable. The worst political comment in the world in 2008 was made by Iwu when he said that the US should learn from Nigeria when it comes to conducting election. The comments of senile Mugabe (“Zimbabwe is mine” and “no cholera in Zimbabwe”) are child’s play compared to Iwu’s venomous utterances. Nigeria is surely condemned when men without defined visions or missions are in control.

Anyone who has been following the proceedings of the Nigerian Senate under the leadership of the mega-looter called David Mark would really feel sorry for Nigeria. There is almost no room for intelligent discussions and Mark is usually way off the mark when he makes his comments. Nigerians have sacrificed intelligence for stupidity and looting games in the Nigerian Senate and House of Assembly.

David Mark has no business in the Senate anyway. After participating in the looting of Nigeria, it is quite easy to understand the negative contributions he brings with him to the senate. The war on corruption, if we had one, should have engulfed his likes.

The reigning gangsters and looters in Nigeria are surely having a jolly ride with a man like Michael Aondoakaa in control of the legal system. He is not only shielding and defending the looters in Nigeria and abroad, his idea of rule of law is very instrumental in the spreading of poverty and deaths in Nigeria.

What these bad leaders don’t understand is that every little misdeed adds up to the misery of Nigerians. Why protect people who stole monies that they cannot spend in 10x their life span? Obviously he is gaining a lot in the process! One day na one day sha!

There is no way Babangida will not be on this parade. More than 12 billion dollars of Nigeria’s money alleged to be in his possession is enough to keep Nigeria in the doldrums for another decade or more. If 12 billion dollars is pumped into Nigeria’s scientific and medical research and development (R&D), almost all Nigerian scholars abroad will be heading home to contribute to the progress of the country.

We don’t need a prophecy to know that Nigerians will continue to suffer because of a few men in possession of the country’s wealth. If there is war on corruption in Nigeria, many of the people parading government houses in Nigeria today should be answering for corruption and crime against humanity.

There is no real anticorruption body in Nigeria and this is why politicians and government officials continue to steal. Obasanjo destroyed the EFCC by using it to crack down on all anti-third term groups and individuals. The rules have changed under Umaru-soft pedal for all and sundry. Slow and steady kill the case was the modification by Farida Waziri-a pure puppet.

If Nigeria has a proper anticorruption agency, it would be independent, open and sincere. The EFCC of today is a shield for the likes of Ibori and all the corrupt governors and politicians that served under Obasanjo. Those who served and lined their pockets before 1999 are not even moved. The only worried groups in Nigeria today are the yahoo-yahoo boys, cybercafé owners and of course the common man. EFCC has even dedicated a drama series to yahoo-yahoo boys on AIT. What a joke of an institution!

Forty-eight years of waste was solidify by the lukewarmness of the Nigerian judiciary. This organ of government has disappointed Nigerians over the years and more recently has produced highly questionable and contestable judgements. The court has made it possible for individuals who did not contest in elections to be winners. Serving convicts and ex-convicts contested and won elections in Nigeria. Imagine how many criminals are occupying political positions in Nigeria. The disposition of the Courts in Nigeria is one of the reasons that the police stations have been turned to firing squads. The Nigerian Police is a sick child on its own: a very sick child! When it mattered most, Nigerian law system usually becomes heavily compromised.

All of these evil acts that have confined Nigeria among the poorest nations in the world is actually the summation of the effects of a group fondly called “the cabal“. The cabal is the reason why sane and intelligent minds get to government houses and become stereotyped looting machines.

Even Nigerians who lived abroad before joining government have not been spared the initiation into the looting game. The cabal preaches a gospel of eat and go and don’t bug yourself with the status quo. This is why many nice people have become “new creatures” once they eat the forbidden fruits. It is because of the cabal that our elections have no values and are unworkable. The cabal is responsible for the annulment of the only free and fair election that took place in 1993.

The sins of the cabal are many but its prime approach is to promote fear and ignorance with the view of controlling the machinery of government forever. The newest approach being utilised by the cabal is the secrecy oath in the illegal presidency which is now being adopted across government institutions nationwide. What is secret about the illegality of the regime in Nigeria? What is the secret about the fact that they are all there to protect their personal interests and steal as much as they can just like the deceivers before them.

The problems in Nigeria are not going to be solved or ameliorated if we don’t take care of the stumbling blocks. Nigerians have been quiet for too long and everybody is after his or her own interests. It shouldn’t be like that. Some people have called for a revolution but Nigeria is a very complicated country and this complication is one of the weak points that the cabal and the corrupt leaders are using to oppress Nigerians more and more. Some people want the biblical call: To thy tent O’ Israel! The Niger Delta crisis, the threats of religious riots, tribal conflicts and secession bids are obvious indicators.

Rather than “every-man-to-himself” Nigerians should start thinking collectively of how rescue the over 90m people living hopelessly across the nation. We should come together and discuss whatever it will entail to capture this country back from the vultures who have been stealing and looting since 1960. If the outcome will send us back to our tents, so be it. Posterity should be the keyword.

After chasing Ghanaians out of Nigeria, they went home and built a formidable country that Nigerians are running to like rats. Ghana is now ranked as one of the most prosperous countries in Africa. The actions and leadership of one man changed Ghana forever. The lesson is that one man can make a difference. Enlightened Nigerians have the honour to take up this challenge and start building formidable forces and groups that will challenge the “status quo”.

We must do whatever it will take to break from this yoke. It’s too heavy a burden and one way or the other we all feel the effects. Let’s do what it takes to free our children and grandchildren from this burden.

Happy New Year!

The Anatomy of Corruption

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Original title: Nigeria, Surrounded
Author: Sonala Olumhense
Source: Nigeria Village Square Sat 22 Nov 2008.

What would you do to someone you truly hated, if you had the authority to do exactly as you pleased? Caution: murder is excluded as an answer to this question, as “someone” could be more than one person, perhaps whole peoples. I will give my own answer in a few minutes.

Before I do so, I remind you, my dear reader: it is about six years since Nigeria began to “fight” corruption. In a fight, one party usually wins, or to have the stronger hand. In this combat, it is our opponent who seems to be winning, but we have played enough of the right game for the world to mistake the aroma for the food. Some of them are beginning to give us the benefit of the doubt in important reports, but how realistic is that?

A war demands troops and commanders. Equipment and supplies. Strategies and manoeuvres. And then, naturally, we expect to find casualties and prisoners; that is how you win. What you do not expect to find are defectors and fifth columnists.

The first thing one notices in our so-called war is that there are hardly any casualties. One or two unfortunate people are all we can point to after six years in cases that, in the end, may have had little to do with graft and everything to do with politics. That is the tally. The supposedly “injured,” (undergoing trial, awaiting trial) are all over the place living better than the Queen of England, partying harder than Madonna and travelling better than the Sultan of Brunei.

What about the commanders? In random order, as I cast my eyes over the horizon, the army is advised by an ethically-empty and professionally uncaring Attorney-General and Minister for Justice. Increasingly alleged to be involved in all kinds of personal malfeasance and even dismissed by the political salesman Terry Waya as “the greediest man in Abuja,” it took Mr. Michael Aondoakaa only months to build himself a mansion fit for a king. He has converted his office into the best friend of corrupt former governors in trouble abroad.

In the past fortnight, the press has reported the arrest by the State Security Service, of his younger brother, Innocent Aondoakaa. From him, they obtained extensive evidence of several filthy deals bothering on extortion that the AG, in collusion with the Economic and Financial Crimes (EFCC) chairperson, Mrs. Farida Waziri, has been involved with.

In the anti-graft “war,” it is to be expected that Mr. Aondoakaa would work closely with the leaders of the anti-graft agencies. With Mrs. Waziri, who heads the EFCC, the AG seems to be doing well. With controversy swelling over allegedly missing or distorted EFCC files, Mr. Aondoakaa has said nothing. He is galvanized only on the side of an accused governor. Nothing speaks more eloquently about his place in history.

As another “commander” in a critical front in the “war,” I have cited Mrs. Waziri in this column as being tainted. Among others, she has openly, publicly and brazenly flouted the statutory reporting requirements of her agency. There is therefore no official or organized record of what the EFCC is doing.

Unofficially, Mrs. Waziri seems to be a competent swimmer. Her favourite pool to enjoy is the river of corruption and ineptitude that runs from the troubled former governors to her office and on to the Federal Ministry of Justice. Her relationship with the President and the AG makes it most unlikely she was really sent to fight corruption; her sad track record so far makes it most unlikely we will ever celebrate her as a champion graft-fighter.

Another command in the war is the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC). The ICPC, which is now headed by a former Supreme Court judge, Mr. Justice Emmanuel Ayoola, stirs once in a while to remind Nigerians it is still alive and maintaining a website. Apparently, that is how they justify their statutory claims. The ICPC, which is actually older than the EFCC, seems to have decided that both corruption and power are to be feared; it is not really going to confront either.

What about the police? While the Nigerian policeman has acquired a bad name over the years for his corruption and brutality, he now has a leader without limits. Inspector-General Mike Okiro is linked with several cases of corruption himself, including private schools and shopping malls in Abuja worth billions of Naira that he could not possibly have paid for from his police salary.

The IG also owns other businesses that conflict and compete with his job. His Bharmoss Ventures, for instance, claims expertise in “construction, real estate acquisition and development as well as engineering.” How does a policeman “sell, improve, manage, develop, exchange, lease, mortgage, enfranchise, dispose of, turn of account, or otherwise deal with, all or any part of the property and rights of the company,” and still protect and serve anyone who is neither selling to, nor buying from him?

Meanwhile, over at the federal legislature, David Mark presides over the Senate. Mr. Mark makes no ethical claims. He is a former minister who is stupendously wealthy, with vast financial tentacles and property that span Africa, Europe and Jersey. It is unknown how he came about any of them, including 6 million British pounds his former wife convinced a court to freeze several years ago.

Mr. Mark’s counterpart at the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, a “new generation” politician who came to prominence only recently as Speaker, is currently embroiled in allegations of sleaze following the purchase by the House of hundreds of cars. In the past month, his image has taken a hammering.

Meanwhile at the top of the judiciary, some Supreme Court justices are reported to have accepted inducements from the tag team of Aondoakaa and EFCC’s Waziri, who have a budget of about $30 million for the purpose, towards purchasing justice that is favorable to President Yar’Adua in the electoral petition before the court.

And up at the presidency itself, Patience Jonathan, the Vice-President’s wife, remains a screaming siren. For two years, nobody has touched her, a woman twice held for money-laundering, once for N104 million, and then for $13 million (US). There is no war against corruption in Nigeria for as long as Mrs. Jonathan is sitting comfortably on her backside shielded by her husband, Yar’Adua, and Aondoakaa.

And then President Yar’Adua, who took office 18 months ago and promised a new day. The trouble, for me, is that I thought the President could tell night from day. He promised the rule of law, but is arresting journalists he said he would sue. He promised Nigeria a better deal but refuses to be honest with them about his health. He says Nigeria will implement the Millennium Declaration Goals but prefers to stay in bed. He speaks of Vision 2020 the same way we count our gold medals before the Olympics.

It seems to take Yar’Adua days to wake up, weeks to realize he has not got out of bed, months to decide to fire his ministers, even more months to actually fire them, and then months to announce a list that is evidently more flawed than what he did one year ago. In a country so far down the drain from its potential, a country needing a dynamic, 24-hour-per-day performance, we are hostages in more ways than one.

So, dear Nigerian, what would you do to someone you truly hated, if you had the authority to do everything? The answer is that, to make him suffer forever, you would leave behind a poison that keeps on poisoning.

Before our eyes, someone who obviously hates Nigerians handpicked Mr. Yar’Adua, knowing his deep limitations of vision, ability, motivation, and even health. It is a stroke of evil genius, the poison that keeps on poisoning.

But understanding this ought to make Nigerians rise in strength, not deflate in agony. We are a nation surrounded, but we must rise—prepared to take our destiny in our own hands—and say the word.

That word is: “Enough!”

sonala.olumhense@gmail.com

Poor man wey steal Maggi cube..!

/ Adeola / 2 Comments

By Adeola Aderounmu.

 

It is becoming more obvious that the present illegal regime in Nigeria has nothing to offer the poor masses. That should not come as a surprise to anyone at all. Nigerians never voted for the man now parading the corridor of power aimlessly. When he is not parading himself in that fortress built with the blood and sweat of hardworking tax payers, he is on a flight to a secret place to rest or seeking some talismanic effects. This country don suffer..!

 

 

In this country, we will continue to speculate and anticipate. Yes o! when those who seized power using violent ballots and force have decided that secrecy and cultism is the way forward, then we have the right and freedom to use our imagination and cognitive powers. To quote an insider as your source will be tantamount to breaching security protocols and you may even be accused of sedition and then arrested on arrival. Many of us in this village square are definitely on our way to jail!

 

 

I appreciate Nigerian music a lot and Chinagoro (aka African China) has said it all in few phrases. Poor man wey steal maggi, them go show him face for crime fighter! Rich men (greedy politicians) wey steal money; we no dey see their face for crime fighters.

In Nigeria, you can go to jail for stealing a cube of maggi- a popular kitchen ingredient. That is if you are lucky that a policeman or an idle officer from the EFCC arrested you. If you are unlucky, the angry mob will dispense justice immediately-you are as good as dead. People will blame you if you go to jail or even if you die. Mumu, na maggi e steal sef…!

To avoid the short arm of the law in Nigeria, you gat to steal and steal BIG! You must be like Ibori or Obasanjo or Atiku or even Umoru himself to be above the law. You must steal a lot of money, in raw cash where possible. Load the monies (dollars, pounds, naira ati bee bee lo) inside your fridge, under your bed, inside suit case, inside brief case and inside your closet. Use any other technology available at your disposal to make sure that the money is not traceable to you. Use agents, offshore or recessive family members.

 

Start a business so that even if the money is traced to you, you can tell those fools at EFCC that it is money from your family business. You can even start an estate agency and tell them that you have sold one house and made profit and bought another one and then you now have an estate worth 20 billion dollars. Tell them and those internet junk journalists that you are an entrepreneur before you joined partisan politics. You must play politics like football; your aim is to always win. A draw must be your worst outcome.

 

Moving on-I have not written on the village square for a while now but I have continued to blog regularly. It’s more fun with the blog because you can describe some people as fools, idiots, thieves, looters, satanic, demonic, bad leaders and so on without anyone opposing your views or right to publish what you like! You can be hard on yourself as well and try to do things better. But someone will definitely not like your terms. Some people think it’s godly or angelic to steal, kill and make other people poor while you are merrying.

 

Blogging allows me to be who I am. I am not an apostle of perfection but I detest dishonesty and bad governance- the type that has continued to deprive more than 90m people of decent existence. The government of Nigeria has continued to maintain the ordinary citizens’ livelihood at the rat-race level predominated by competition for limited resources in a kill and go manner.

 

In no small measure, I practically hate all the hypocrites who parade government houses across Nigeria and I regret that I am still not able to do anything practical or physical to change the status quo. I regret that the trust and hope that we continue to build over the years have continued to crumble as well. In my mind, I have only families to return to, not country.

 

Farida and Nuhu do not make any difference in my perspectives of what crime fighting is all about. What I continue to visualize is a gang of thieves or looters changing the characteristics of the sheriff that they’ve appointed in their caucus meeting. Nigeria is not a normal country. The geographical area called Nigeria is managed by suspicious arrangements and oppression of common good. This is why there is still no real democracy in Nigeria.

 

Nuhu fought Obasanjo’s enemies with zeal whereas Obasanjo, his friends and families looted the treasury. What is worth doing at all is worth doing well. Was I the only one who learnt that in the moral instruction class in 1980? Half bread can only be better than none if the other half is saving another life.

 

You can’t fight financial corruption or embezzlement when the person initiating the fight against the corruption is corrupt. It is the same with other crimes. The situation is peculiar and made worse because the Nigerian Police is full of people of questionable characters (from the boss to the last man standing on the street) who extort money from the other people. A recent report shows that the Nigerian Police is the number one violator of human rights in Nigeria. The EFCC is part of the police and therefore remains incompetent to fight crime or corruption.

 

For example, the EFCC cannot investigate or prosecute Obasanjo, Babangida, Atiku and others. The EFCC is seriously programmed like an apoptotic cell. It has its limits and boundaries. This is why the EFCC is specialised in terrorising yahoo yahoo boys and fighting ringworm even though leprosy is deadlier. This is also the reason for the non-performance (apoptosis) of Farida when it comes to fighting the real war. Does anyone for instance expect her to investigate or prosecute the likes of Obasanjo or Babangida? No! That was not in the streotyping. If she dares, she will be sacked with immediate effect!

 

On a fair note, EFCC is not the problem with Nigeria. It is not even the police as a body. The problem is the system. It contains the wrong people (mostly rogues in plain term) in power. This is why they will instruct the police or SSS to arrest you at the airport and detain you in violation of your fundamental human rights! If they have their way, these rogues will kill you one time! The nest of killers (first used by Wole Soyinka) has always been a part of our existence but it materialises in different forms, shapes and sizes.

 

I have argued that being privileged or fortunate to escape poverty or penury in Nigeria has blinded many people to the real situations in Nigeria. A few flashes here and there have also been used to divert our attention from the real calamities: the prevalence of mass poverty in the population (which of course has been treated by several authors).

 

There are options for Nigeria and hopefully I will dwell on one or two of them in another article. We cannot continue like this. As an introduction into what I intend to discuss: there are options along the lines of changing the system totally or changing what the country is all about. The emphasis would be on the nature, composition and effects of a new system so that it becomes a complete deviation from that which sows hate, distrust and poverty. We may be deceiving ourselves especially with the emphasis on one nation. The time has come to look at the existence of this country more critically.

 

We cannot continue to ignore the options available to us. We must look at them and use our senses to come up with a viable road map that will serve the interest of everyone called a Nigerian. This country must stop serving the purpose of a few (who will charge the rest of us with sedition because the status quo was made for them and their likes).

 

The final irrevocable truth is if we don’t define how we want to live and what we want from living now (like some nations did in the last century), we cannot stop the future generation from doing that. One generation will break these curses and disappointments. It will happen!

 

 

Purchasing Power Parity or Corruption?

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By Adeola Aderounmu

Olu Falae took Yar Adua to the washerman describing him as unfit and unprepared to rule Nigeria. Of course we all know that. I told a friend recently that something remarkable will happen in Nigeria soon. The fact is that Yar Adua is buying time and playing smart. His game will be up soon. But what will happen after Yar Adua is what I cannot fathom. Nigeria is too complicated to predict accurately. It is sad because in the end it is the ordinary people like you and I that always suffer.

Anyway moving on, Olu Falae who was the Finance Minsiter when Babangida milked Nigeria to dryness by stealing more than 12 billion dollars of oil money is talking again. He is now 70 and wisdom may finally have caught up with him. Here is one of those men who presided over Nigeria in a very evil way. I have no respect for any man who participated in truncating my dreams and aspirations.

To this day I continue to see almost every politician in Nigeria as evil or devilish and every ex-military ruler as satanic. They cannot be normal people because of the effects of their conspiracy theories, looting and negligence of duty/ obligation. It is not normal to steal more than 12 billion dollars and it is not normal to be a finance Minister when such a evil is perpetrated. A normal Minister will resign to save his good name and to protect the future of the unborn. Nigerian politicians are senseless with their looting and selfish mentalities and Yar Adua is just one of them-take it or leave it! Truth will always be bitter!

So what is Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)? It is Falae’s formula to bring the value of the Naira to 1 dollar= 50 Naira.

Here is the excerpt from the Nigerian Guardian Newspaper of October 4 2008.

He described the prevailing exchange rate in the country and urged the government to consider Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) option.

According to him: “We talked about it at the time and I said in 1990 that the naira was grossly undervalued and I gave an example. I said ‘Look, let’s take the PPP, what we called Purchasing Power Parity. What it means in simple language is that a loaf of bread is a loaf of bread and a bottle of Coke is a bottle of Coke, whether it is in Lagos or New York. In economics, it is expected that a bottle of Coke would give the same satisfaction in Lagos as it would in New York. In essence, what you pay for a good is the satisfaction you get from it. So, the price is an equivalent of the satisfaction you get out of that good or service anywhere in the world.

“Now, a bottle of Coke today in Lagos is N50, while it costs probably one dollar in New York. If Coke were the only commodity used and traded, then one bottle of Coke is one bottle of Coke and N50 should be the same as one dollar. That should be the exchange rate. Because the purchasing power and the equality of purchasing power over the added value at the same point in time showed that N50 should be the same as one dollar. If you did it for a basket of goods, not just a loaf of bread, you will find out that there is no reason the dollar should be more than N40 or N50.”
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That is Falae’s approach. I am not an economist so I doubt if I have any comment on that. But remember that Babangida with his empty skull said that Nigeria’s economic problems couldn’t be solved after he and Falae applied all the methods at their disposals.

What the fool didn’t say was that he was institutionalising corruption and kickbacks. He didn’t tell Nigerians that he was saving the gulf oil wind-fall in a private account for himself and his family. He didn’t say that he was going to use this money to win friends and enemies in the dirty politics arena in Nigeria.

AND the useless government in Nigeria is still bragging about fighting corruption. How can you fight corruption when a person like Babangida is not arrested and tried for looting and for destroying democracy in Nigeria. Sometimes when I read about the EFCC, I just laugh. There first job is to take IBB in and investigate the money from the gulf war. As far as I am concern, until you touch people who think they are untochables, you cannot fight corruption anywhere in the world. Every other thing that you do is artificial and make-believe.

If you set a good example with well known thieves and looters, then you can be taken seriously and other politicians planning to loot will think twice. What we have today is paying purely lip service to fight corruption while massive looting and enrichment continues in the public service and political establishment. This is why more than 90m Nigerians remain very poor and insecure. CORRUPTION AND NEGLIGENCE OF PUBLIC SERVICE DUTIES.

Purchasing power indeed! Take corruption away and everything will fall in place….

Nigeria’s Fake Anticorruption War

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By Adeola Aderounmu.

Corruption is still the biggest problem with Nigeria. It’s like a curse because despite the pockets of prosecution that we witness every now and then, it seems that things will never change.

I think that the problem will not go away because the fight against corruption is very partial and carries no sincere purpose.

If a man can plead his way out of prosecution then the war itself is absolutely useless. We have seen corrupt politicians arrested today and released tomorrow and case closed!

What kind of anticorruption war is that?

Moreso, some people have never been questioned about their stolen wealth. It gives an impression that some thieves are smarter or more powerful than the others. For example, it is either Babangida is smarter or more powerful than Bode George.

Imagine this, Babangida is alleged to have stolen more than 12 billion dollars. If the allegation is wrong, we’ll never know because he has not given an account (at least not a public one) of how Nigeria’s finances was managed during the gulf war.

The result of this insincerity and fake war on corruption is that we still have more than 90 million Nigerians who don’t know what the next meal would look like. The result also included inability to sustain good and qualitative education. It extends to Nigerian highways listed among the worst in the world. More than 400 people will die on the road today!

The insincerity of governance in Nigeria means that power generation is getting close to zero. Soon, it will be back to the Stone and Dark Ages.

It is not too late to bring corrupt politicians to book. The prosecution should be total, resolute and absolute. Monies should be returned and used to build the country.

But who are am talking to? Who will bell the cat? An illegal president? The entire system is corrupt and it seems that some things will never change.