Former Special Adviser to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, Reuben Abati, once described Aso Rock as an evil place.
In his piece entitled: ‘Rituals, blood and death: The spiritual side of Aso Villa’, Abati argued that Nigeria’s seat of power needs urgent redemption, even as he advised the Nigerian government to abandon the Villa and turn it into a spiritual museum.
Hear him: “When Presidents make mistakes, they are probably victims of a force higher than what we can imagine. Every student of Aso Villa politics would readily admit that when people get in there, they actually become something else. They act like they are under a spell. When you issue a well-crafted statement, the public accepts it wrongly.
“When the President makes a speech and he truly means well, the speech is interpreted wrongly by the public. When a policy is introduced, somehow, something just goes wrong. In our days, a lot of people used to complain that the APC people were fighting us spiritually and that there was a witchcraft dimension to the governance process in Nigeria.
“But the APC folks now in power are dealing with the same demons. Since Buhari government assumed office, it has been one mistake after another. Those mistakes don’t look normal, the same way they didn’t look normal under President Jonathan….”
Events of last week have given credence to Abati’s submission.
On a day Catholics organised a nationwide protest to register their displeasure over the gruesome killings of two priests and 17 worshipers at St. Ignatius Catholic Parish in Benue State, on a day they were interred, President Muhammadu Buhari just like Emperor Nero, fiddled while Rome burned by fixating on his re-election bid.
It is quite disheartening that while he was represented by his vice, Yemi Osinbajo, at the burial of the slain Catholics, Buhari at the Presidential Villa on the same day played host to a delegation of Buhari Support Organisation (BSO).
Rather than use the day to reflect on the wanton killings of Nigerians, he chose to play politics by using the occasion to make unsubstantiated claims against his friend-turned-fierce critic, former President Olusegun Obasanjo for allegedly wasting $16billion on power projects.
His exoneration of former Head of State, late General Sani Abacha of corruption despite receiving $332 million Abacha loot from Switzerland last month, betrays the holier-than-thou posture of a leader that promised to tackle the hydra-headed monster of corruption in the country in the build-up to the last general elections.
Such insensitivity also rared its head when the President transmitted an Executive bill – the National Water Resources Bill – to the Senate.
The proposal, which failed to pass Third Reading at the Senate last week, sought to concentrate the control of all waterways and their banks in Nigeria in the hands of the Federal Government.
A conspiracy theory is already going around in some quarters that the bill is aimed at handing over ancestral lands belonging to farmers and giving permanent grazing rights to herdsmen, who will commence expansionist agenda into the hinterland.
According to the theory, when passed into law, it will ‘abrogate’ the Land Use Act, which vest all lands in state governors. And an attempt to introduce grazing colonies through the backdoor.
Clauses Four and Five of the bill seems to give credence to the allegation as it provides thus: “As the public trustee of the nation’s water resources, the Federal Government, acting through the minister and the institutions created in this Bill or pursuant to this Bill, shall ensure that the water resources of the nation are protected, used, developed, conserved, managed and controlled in a sustainable and equitable manner, for the benefit of all persons and in accordance with its constitutional mandate.
“States may make provisions for the management , use and control of water sources occurring solely within the boundaries of the state but shall be guided by the policy and principles of the Federal Government in relation to Integrated Water Resources Management, and this Bill”.
This implies that states like Benue, Ekiti and Taraba where anti-open grazing laws are in place may become null and void, once the National Water Resources Bill is enacted.
This negates the principle of federalism and the agitation for restructuring which seeks the devolution of powers at the centre to the federating units. Ironically, it is coming at a time Nigerians are waiting on the National Assembly to revisit the devolution of power items in its constitution amendment exercise.
The Ad-hoc Committee constituted by Senate President Bukola Saraki, to fine-tune the controversial aspects of the bill is expected to submit its report this week, even as showdown looms between Northern and Southern senators.
OWEDE AGBAJILEKE, Abuja
