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Revolt Of Nigerian Businessmen - Otedola Taku By Farouk Martins Aresa
Enough is enough. The House of Thieves may have gone too far this time and angered some businessmen. Real businessmen do not cry in Nigeria, they get even. More of them will come out if Otedola succeeds. Many have been grumbling for a while that most of their cashistics go into bribing politicians. The most annoying part of it is that they play dirty, arrogant, spiteful and ungrateful. Baboon dey work monkey dey chop.
Those familiar with this writer, read that the business men and women are ready for a revolt because they are being shortchanged. Even foreign businessmen are getting tired of it after the United States House called in Nuhu Ribadu to testify. One congressman expressed the frustration of American businessmen that have to bribe to get contract knowing it is illegal by US laws. Damn if you do, damn if you don’t plus you lose contract.
Foreign business men and women cannot be probed in Nigeria and jailed without their governments asking for their release. Nigeria business men and women can be probe but they hardly pay even when found guilty as the Attorney General will come to their defense. He has said many times that he would rather negotiate with financial terrorists than prosecute them. Therefore, the public has given up hope to bring them to justice.
In spite of the drama we witnessed during Ribadu/Balogun Show, it has not chilled his successors into playing it down because of outcry from vagabonds in power leaning on the President to make sure such drama is not repeated. Indeed Ehindero another Police chief has challenged the EFFC in court that they cannot prosecute him without obtaining authority from the Attorney General.
The more the Attorney General explains his position on the so called rule of law, the more he infuriates most Nigerians. There is no country in the world that gives free cover to financial terrorists as much as Nigerian Government does. Any form of terrorism by cyber, financial or hard crime can destabilize any country. No country waits until it becomes incapacitated before dealing with terror head-on.
We thought the Atiku/Obasanjo Show would bring some cleaning-up of the system as their dirty linens were displayed in public. Apart from the fact that nothing came out of it, worse diversion of public money (as oil subsidy) is going from government to banks and given as loans to politicians that would not pay back. Even when Central Banks published their names, we thought we were getting somewhere. For wia?
So there are many Nigerians dismissing the latest scandal between Otedola and Farouk Lawan that after all is said and done, the probe of probes will end like the previous ones. Many people look at both business men and politicians as crooks in bed together until someone gets jilted. In other words, people have grown numbed to any public display of bribes and greed in high places while some look forward to politics to get their own loot.
Well, not so fast. There are some of us still hoping, may be against hope that if business men revolt and start entrapping politicians since they are totally addicted to bribe, may be, if enough of them are caught red-handed on surveillance tape, they will recoil. But others caution us not to hold our breath hoping for that miracle to happen. In that case, they do not expect the ongoing police reform to succeed.
It is too early to call police road bribes a success but so far so good it is holding. We still hear policemen mounting illegal roadblock at nights, threatening and beating drivers and on one occasion to death. One may not want to call that a success but compared to what it was, progress has been made. The police chief needs to build on it since we are using it to gage other corrupt practices the police have to prevent and enforce the law.
Nigerians are rightly fond of looking at those that look for equity, must come with clean hands. We have to be realistic, most of the people in power and many in business are not pure. Sometimes you have to use a monkey to catch a monkey. It takes a horse to break a horse. If we have business men like Otedola and Dagote willing to help with the cleanup of the Augean stables, we need to encourage more of them to come out.
There are mixed feelings about Otedola and rightly so. It must not blind us or deprive us of the opportunity to check corruption in high places. Indeed, it is a justifiable use prosecutorial power to use a willing mafia to expose other mafia. The punishment, if any can be administered after we have a relatively clean house. Total cleanup may not be feasible, but we must start from somewhere.
It is the height of hypocrisy when well-known crooks in the House of Thieves called for Otedola to testify in secrecy. These are the same people he bribed and probably still have their tapes in his custody; asking for his testimony in camera. This is the time to protect Otedola’s life so that he can tell us more, not the time to vilify him into the dens of lions that cannot wait to devour him.
Nigerians can seize this opportunity so that more businessmen can come out and spill the beans. But they will not do so if Otedola is rubbished. Some of us could not even imagine that the same crooks would threaten Otedola unless he testifies as they wished. At some point we just have to ask: who is fooling whom?
We need a discipline police force to enforce law and order in the Country. If the Police Force is weak, they can be easily compromised by every Sule and Tunde. Our politicians know that, like every member of the public. Since the politicians have unrestrained access to legal and illegal loots, contracts, committee to implement another probe, they can look the businessmen in the face and demand bribes from their capital. |