What have we not now seen? Have ever been this bad? It was when General Abacha died, that the western-assisted local press first inundated us with stories of how billions of dollars were stolen by the man. He was dead anyway – they saw him off by all means – and so he could not defend himself. But after Abacha, we heard General Abdulsalam used the few months he spent at the saddle to ‘clean out’ the till as well. No one is exactly sure, but they said he made more money than Abacha in a jiffy. A bit of credit should go to Abacha though. He ran Nigeria on $9-$11 per barrel of crude oil, and one must say, that compared to today, his period will be considered part of ‘the good old days’. Only his political opponents had issues with him – and many of them were traitors to Nigeria anyway. But they dragged the rest of us poor innocents into the pit with them.
President Obasanjo’s time, prosperous as it was, saw a new high in corruption. Baba is the luckiest Nigerian living. Well if he had his way, he will change the name of Nigeria to Obasanjonia. After all, he has governed Nigeria for a record three times. And he always comes around in a time of boom. Baba is a maverick, and uses his native intelligence to rub off positively on economic decisions. But his politics was hard and dirty. Assassinations were rife – even at top levels of governance. And his approach led to a militarization of Nigeria more than the time of the soldiers before him. The Niger Delta problem exacerbated and for the first time, we saw a rebel/terrorist problem start in Nigeria. Baba maintained a very cordial relationship with the countries who run the world, even though that hardly translates to peace because those countries have no peace to give.
In spite of monumental corruption, Baba managed to save some money – totaling around $60billion. But someone said General IBB institutionalized corruption in Nigeria, turning it into a culture, but Baba Obasanjo turned it into a religion! It is apt to note that the fulcrum of the latest corruption revelations – the PPPRA – was set up by Baba, and often used as a corrupt slush fund to indirectly perpetrate corruption through the back door. No matter how hard you try, you could never catch Baba with his hands soiled. He was a wily old fox… always chuckling at the world. All we knew was that his farm, ran aground while he was in jail, is now generating at least N30million every day. He shall live happily ever after, with his fingers controlling perhaps a trillion naira today. Up Baba!
The Yar’adua period was an interregnum. Baba Obasanjo obviously handpicked Umaru for one thing and one thing alone – his almost bizarre honesty. Baba, who was used to shouting OOOLE! (thief!), on his staff and colleagues in the corridors of Aso Rock, did not want to leave government to any plunderer. He knew who the fast boys were. So he went for Umaru, who also happened to serve the purpose of recompensing the Yar’adua family, whose scion, Shehu, was Baba’s close friend. In time, Yar’adua would prove smarter than anyone thought, and he had great ideas of silently moving the economy towards China and Russia. China made a mouth-watering proposal in Nigeria’s oil industry. Yar’adua sent the Petroleum Industry Bill to the National Assembly (where that very important document is missing or bastardised today), and President Medvedev of Russia was in town – together with Gazprom executives and the lot. The Russians had their eyes on our energy sector. The Americans panicked. Apparently Umaru hadn’t forgotten his Marxist past. So they pulled the plug on him. The pretext was that he was ill. But his fast wilting within one year was too coincidental that only a true hater will miss that anomaly. The Americans needed someone more malleable there. They needed someone who will never get smart ideas. Someone who could run the Nigerian enterprise the way they wanted – as a deteriorating cesspit of corruption. They needed some good luck.
And they got it. As has been revealed on the floor of the House, the last one year has witnessed more corruption and thievery than two decades ago combined! Nigeria spent almost half of its annual budget in 2011 “subsidizing” fuel consumption. How can a country have a budget of say N4.5 trillion and spend close to N2 trillion on subsidizing fuel consumption ALONE! Do Nigerians now drink fuel like water? Do we have petrol for breakfast, lunch and dinner? The fraud is mind-boggling, unprecedented, heartless, aimless, sickening. All the government agencies who have been giving evidence have contradicted themselves. While the fraud was being pushed down the throat of Nigerians, they said a mere N1.3 trillion was spent. But today, that figure is almost touching N2 trillion.
All sorts of drama is being played out in the Farouk Lawan committee and there are attempts to bribe them to kill cases that are blindingly obvious. Money is flowing as the theatre of the bizarre and ridiculous continues. People who have been paid hundreds of billions in naira have gone there to say they did not know WHY they were paid. MOST of them were OVERPAID. When asked, they promised to reconcile and refund government. Does Nigeria have so much money to throw at phantom fuel importers, some of whom have no offices, while its education and health systems die? How anyone could have tried to justify what has now become the biggest fraud and corruption in the history of fraud and corruption? I even met a few guys I know who came to town to defend tens of billions paid into their account! Well I envy not their money, but I almost shed tears that in the last one year, a few smart alecs went for the jugular of the finances of my beloved and luckless country, and y mercilessly milked the country for all it was worth!! They go to churches and mosques to ‘praise God’ for ‘favouring’ them, but they watch the country decay around their regal feet!
A few of the beneficiaries were young ladies who spoke American english. The entire subsidy payments thing is the worst of charades, a blatantly sick joke! I am even angrier that those rogues who collected all that money from Nigeria, were not even embarrassed that we have no presentable airport in Nigeria, as they wheel in their ‘foreign partners’ to come and jointly and merrily, bleed Nigeria to death!
I don’t think President Jonathan will be able to touch that fuel price until he leaves. Except he adjusts downwards. Contrary to the jive I heard from Mr Labaran Maku, to the effect that government will still ‘deregulate’ and so prices may still go up, with what Nigerians have seen and heard so far, President Jonathan, and his western superpower friends should be ready to kill millions of Nigerians to carry through such a policy. Imagine that Nigerians had not uttered a word and taken such an attempted fraud by government in their strides??! Tufiakwa! The Igbo man would say. God forbid!
Join Daily Trust WhatsApp Community For Quick Access To News and Happenings Around You.
