The spate of arrests by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is becoming alarming. The colour is that of political persecution. This, at least, is the view of many Nigerians who are not comfortable with the body language and modus operandi of the current administration.
The Muhammadu Buhari administration says its cardinal drive is to stamp out corruption in society. It is a laudable project for which many Nigerians voted for the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2015. Three years down the line, that project appears compromised and the vision blurred.
Flaws started appearing on the letters and implementation of this all-important policy of cleaning the Augean stable when the ruling party began to play the Pontius Pilate. They, like Pilate began to set free Barabbas, a hardened criminal and a confirmed enemy of society and then chose to sentence to a vicarious death a totally innocent man called Jesus.
Like Pilate who ignored the express warning of his wife not to have anything to do with that suicidal judgment and rape of justice, many Nigerians have, through writings and other means warned the current administration of the inherent dangers in acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent.
In our own very eyes, some people who were known to be “hardened criminals”, at least, as confirmed by government, have suddenly become saints for the mere fact that they left their opposition parties for the ruling party.
Some of them whose cases in the court had attracted public interest have had such cases dropped and their charged sheets forever torn into shreds just because they picked up microphones to lead the ‘azonto’ dancers for the return of the king, who incidentally was the leader of the prosecution team that was trying them in court.
Last week, two prominent politicians were remanded in prison custody over allegation of fraud. They appeared before the court and were sent to temporary jail. Incidentally, both of them are of the opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). One of them is said to be nursing a presidential ambition and with a huge followership in the North.
Dino Melaye is just recuperating after his brutal encounter with uniform men. It took a divine intervention for the judge handling his case in Kogi State to grant him bail even though he was always being taken to court almost half dead. Melaye is not of the opposition but the powers that be consider him more dangerous being an insider than in the opposition.
Olisa Metuh, a former national publicity secretary of the PDP has been falling and falling in the court over a precarious health, but his trial goes on in absentia.
While one is not making case for anyone who in the estimation of government has a clear case of fraud or corrupt enrichment of self, there is need to urge government to apply caution and consider the timing. Pundits say that the timing is the reason for the insinuation in many quarters that trial of some of the political figures a few months to the general election was politically-motivated and at best a way of intimidating the opposition to scamper into hiding. But one thing in politics is that it is not over until it is over.
The President’s faux pas
President Muhammadu Buhari is always boxing himself to a corner or rather subjecting himself to ridicule. He has aides who could save him from the needless embarrassments, but he does not make use of them at critical moments.
His utterances have been his major problem. He toed that damning path again last Tuesday when he played host to a delegation of Buhari Support Organisation (BSO) at the Presidential Villa. BSO is a group that is campaigning for the President’s return to power in 2019.
First, Buhari was quoted as lavishing praises on the late maximum ruler, Sani Abacha.
“No matter what opinion you have about Abacha, I agreed to work with him and the PTF (petroleum trust fund) roads we did from here to Port Harcourt, to Onitsha, to Benin. Abacha built roads and hospitals”, he said.
Second, he wondered why people in authority chose to send their children outside the country to acquire education while they fail to develop the country.
“I wonder what kind of Nigerians they want their children to come and work with. I think there is a lot of lack of imagination, because if you are fighting for the country then you shouldn’t be misappropriating or misapplying the funds the way people do,” he said.
This statement sounds hypocritical for a president whose children, according to credible report at Nigerians’ disposal, lists the schools attended by his children abroad.
It is also hypocritical from the point of view of how many times the President has visited London hospitals for treatment and the huge resources Nigeria has lost and continues to lose to those endless treatments and checkups.
While he seeks treatment abroad, many Nigerians are dying here for lack of good medical facilities. Even the medical centre inside the Villa that was supposed to service the President and other high-ranking people there was an issue sometime ago when the First Lady, Aisha, noted that the clinic was just like a white-washed sepulcher.
Buhari is not the right person to make the observation he made last Tuesday. It smack of insensitivity; hypocrisy and lack of understanding of his duty as president of Nigeria. It also shows his disconnect from the reality of ground and the perception of his government by the Nigerian masses.
In a report on December 29, 2016, Premium Times gave an account of President Buhari’s children and where they went to school.
1) Fatima: Born March 7, 1975. Education: Airforce Primary School, Victoria Island, Lagos; Government College, Kaduna; Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria; postgraduate degree, Business Academy, Stratford, United Kingdom.
2) Nana-Hadiza: Born June 23, 1981. Education: Essence International School; Cobham Hall, Kent, United Kingdom; University of Buckingham; Postgraduate, National Teachers Institute, Kaduna; Masters in International Affairs and Strategic Studies, Polytechnic Kaduna.
3) Safinatu: Born October 13, 1983. Education: Essence International School; Cobham Hall, Kent, United Kingdom; University of Plymouth, United Kingdom; presently at Arden University, United Kingdom
4) Halima: Born October 8, 1990. Education: International School, Kaduna; British School of Lome; Bellerby’s College, Brighton, United Kingdom; University of Leicester, United Kingdom, Nigeria Law School, Lagos.
5) Yusuf: Born April 23. Education: Kaduna International School; British School of Lome; Bellerby’s College, Brighton, United Kingdom; University of Surrey, United Kingdom.
6) Zahra: Born December 18, 1994. Education: Kaduna International School; British School of Lome; Bellerby’s College, Brighton, United Kingdom; University of Surrey, United Kingdom.
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‘Holy’ anger
Never in the history of Catholic faith in Nigeria had the faithful displayed such a “holy” rage as they did last Sunday across the country. They marched through cities, towns and villages in the country over one issue- worsening insecurity and the seemingly lack of seriousness on the part of government in dealing with marauders of death.
The Catholic faithful took advantage of the Biblical injunction that says “Be angry and sin not” to protest the unprovoked killing by Fulani herdsmen some weeks ago of two of their priests (Rev Fathers Felix Tyolaha and Joseph Gor) and 17 other parishioners who had gathered for a morning mass in their church in Benue State.
The peaceful protest was meant to get the Federal Government to arise from its slumber and stop the orgy of killings by the herdsmen.
The mass burial of last Tuesday was the second this year. The first was on January 11when 73 men, women and children were buried at a mass burial ceremony organised by the state government after several attacks by cattle herders.
Despite the assurances by the government, it will serve the Benue people well if they do not swallow such assurances hook, line and sinker, and as a result go to sleep with their two eyes closed. They must be vigilant; no one is sure if there will be no other mass burial, after awhile; but God forbid!
A common foe
President Muhammadu Buhari has suddenly become a common foe among many Nigerians who believe that he has not acquitted himself well in the last three years in office. Individuals and groups that ordinarily would never see things from the same perspective are now aligning forces and speaking in tandem that Buhari needs to be shown the way out of office in 2019 using the ballot box. Last week, we saw such an alignment when a former president, Olusegun Obasanjo paid a visit to Rueben Fasoranti, Afenifere leader, to solicit the pan-Yoruba Cultural group’s support to stop the second term ambition of Buhari.
Before now Obasanjo and Afenifere leaders were not the best of friends. All through the eight year-period of Obasanjo in the Aso Rock, Afenifere leaders did not see him as one to be trusted. There was no rapport whatever.
Obasanjo, during the Tuesday meeting, recalled how he was severally rejected by the late Abraham Adesanya, who was the then leader of the Afenifere.
“I remember visiting Pa Abraham Adesanya thrice in Lagos before the election and I was asked to join Afenifere and Alliance for Democracy (AD), then, but I told them that AD was a cul-de-sac. Pa Abraham told me if I joined them, things will change but I refused to join them. I went back the second time but they refused to work for my emergence.
“I went there again the third time, but Afenifere maintained their stand, they refused to vote for me, but I secured my votes outside Yorubaland, though they supported me in 2003 for my re-election,” Obasanjo told the Afenifere leader.
Today, it appears that there is unity of purpose. Only time will tell if the alliance will bear fruit.
Zebulon Agomuo
