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EFCC, Obasanjo’s Untouchables And The Anatomy of Corruption (II) By) Prince Charles Dickson Jos, Plateau Nigeria
This is the concluding part of the expose from last year,
a year that ended with the questioning of one of the perceived
untouchable Buba Marwa… I ought to have finished this piece last year
but one could not because the present illegality called government,
which we have continued into the New Year. Sadly there are times as
writers, investigators, critics and researchers, we reach a point that
words fail us. Especially regarding events around us as a nation
especially when sometimes people get the feeling that most of us that
criticiz e the government either play to the gallery of write for the
fun of it. I make bold to say that I love Nigeria more than the
President, I have more stakes in Nigeria than he does, so when I see him
and his cronies’ mess up this nation I spit the fire that my pen helps
me to.
I have just come back from confirming a detail suspicion
of one of the present government’s untouchables, as I drove back to my
office. I passed the house, sorry mansion that the Bauchi Governor gave
as a ‘gift’ to General Olusegun Obasanjo in Jos, an eye popping edifice
from son to father. And it’s all good and nothing wrong about it. It’s
not a financial or economic crime, its not graft, bribe or favour.
In this concluding part I would try and focus on the
anatomy of corruption as seen in this reign of deceit called democracy
by Obasanjo and his PDP cronies. Let me start by saying we have an
adverse governance structure which in itself promotes corruption. If
someone asked Mr. President what kind of governance structure he was
operating under, he would go about blabbing, just like he could not
answer the simple question of third term put to him on national
television. The truth is that our system of governance is anchored on
corruption and since the inception of this maladmistration rather than
kill it, it is killing us.
Corruption has and will continue to thrive because we
have power concentrated in the hand of few people who are not
practically accountable to the people. Last year Mr. Y informed me of an
experience in April 19, 2003, he had gone to cast his vote, on getting
to the polling station, he was told he had already voted. And clearly
the voters’ register indicated that to be true and correct. My friend
Mr. Y was no twin, had not died somewhere some years back and
reincarnated shortly before that election. With such an experience and
an experience obviously not limited to him alone, what more do we demand
other than the corruption of today.
Our corrupt untouchables keep thriving because of a
dysfunctional democracy, a democracy that tries to change constitution
like a play paper to accommodate illegality without the blink of an
eyelid. How can a “BIG THI…” like Mantu be chairing a constitution
review committee, an untouchable crook is used by an untouchable
President to touch a nation’s law book for corrupt reasons.
Despite the entire baby crawling efforts at posturing.
This government lacks the commonest transparency, all the eggheads have
done, and credit to them, is to increase the technical complexity of
their so-called reforms to conceal or pave way for the further
distortion of the economy. The re-colonialism of Nigeria by
Nigerians…emphasis on the “Transcorp Arrangment”.
Our anatomy of corruption has been further enshrined into
the system because of an illiterate, apathetic and ignorant populace,
without adequate public discernment of political choices, as all we see,
are the same thieving faces. Say for example, I love all the noise that
the MDD, now MRDD or whatever, but I strongly believe there is better a
char acter in terms of political worth than a Gambo Jimeta, who going By
Abacha standard was regarded a crook. The same man who as Inspector
General of Police supervised the Police “Kill and Go” era. When all we
see are such faces, the pounded yam eating Audu Ogbeh, the confused Jim
Nwobodo that descended so low to have supervised the disappearance of
the big generator at the National Stadium to his house. We are in
trouble, the nation is under the bondage of a self-interested closed
clique of untouchables, and some of us have vowed we will not rest our
ink in sparing them.
Our nation’s anatomy of corruption is a bleak picture of
deficits in every facet of everyday life. The present masquerade has
supervised corruption in health, education, Police, transport, aviation,
roads, housing, that is why a sitting Chief Justice despite the
implication was bold enough to say out that the present leadership is
lawless.
Back to the EFCC, a visit to the website is appalling,
you go to their office same thing, there is not much on ground apart
from the continued arrest and detention of those thieves on Baba Iyabo’s
bad book of stealing because there is a good book too. The commission
has no concrete data on an empirical approach to determining the adverse
effects of corruption on the nation, no study that reveals the causes,
the factors that breeds corruption.
The EFCC for all the good it has stifled to achieve
cannot define the term ‘misuse’ in a definition of corruption, so on one
hand the EFCC is witching material, on the other hand it turns a blind
eye to the untouchables. With the massive corruption going on, how do we
determine the degree of corruption, what are the potential bias that
arise with the subjective assessment of corruption. Like I said in a
public forum the late first lady was corrupt and some folks did not take
it kindly, they chided me saying, “you do not speak evil of the dead”,
my answer, “how many of you could speak good of her while alive”.
Until the temporary deflation of his political ego
balloon, which he did not find funny, Buba Marwa and Peter Odili had
between them 27 chieftancy titles for the year 2005 alone. While Marwa
was chairman Defence Industries Corporation, the major achievement for
which he must have been turbaned somewhere was certainly awarding a
contract for one of the most expensive office refurbishment. The kind of
loyalty which Governor Fayose of Ekiti advocated recently most be the
type that has kept Governor Peter Odili an untouchable, loyalty sure
does pay.
For EFCC, Nigerians do not see them as different from the Abacha failed bank tribunal, we cannot wait for the year 2007, its one more to go, we all will live by Allah’s grace and mercy to witness the revelation. Because until when we see the very untouchables, until we see the President, be him whatever or whoever, called for questioning, clarification, or statement. We are just doing a merry go round dance. Because the single question for EFCC is and should be, how does a public official advertise his corrupt services, what are the methods for concealing a corrupt payment, how do corrupt partners integrate vertically? If these and many issues are addressed, there would be no untouchables, then we all can smile from ear to lips as having made progress in killing corruption. Otherwise all we are doing be it EF CC, ICPC, or the C for Corruption would be like requesting for ice water in the Sahara. Almighty Allah would only keep laughing at our folly.
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