Muhammadu Buhari and Femi Adeshina – What are you doing to Nigeria’s future (II)

Last week, we considered President Buhari’s clear promise – through his campaign managers – to openly declare his assets and the equally open denial that has followed. This week we conclude by looking at the implications of that denial, especially on Nigeria’s future as our children are watching and learning that it is okay to make promises and deny them just to get into power, for power’s sake. Please read on…

Worrisome though is the question as to why our president choose to be more transparent in 2015, then less transparent in 2019? Why please? The essence of asset declaration is to track increment and correlate it with what you had before and what you earned LEGITIMATELY in the period of assessment. It is not a static document. If Mr Buhari indeed declared his assets openly in 2015 (he didn’t as far as I am concerned… he only put out some fuzzy documents saying he has some mud houses and 150 cows), then he should know that without declaring in 2019, he hasn’t done anything. His constituency is the Nigerian people. If you go to ministries today, you will see many people frantically filling their asset declaration forms. Some will be sweating profusely as if they were writing something harder than JAMB, sitting on the edge of their seats with the A/C full on, as they try to ensure they don’t land themselves in serious trouble by revealing what they dare not reveal. They are thinking very inventively as to where to hide the billions they have whacked over the years. Good luck to them. Their Oga is the Code of Conduct Bureau, who can use asset declaration to mess them up if they fall in the wrong political bracket or are just unlucky. We saw what they did to the No. 3 man in Nigeria; the head of our judiciary, in 2019. President Buhari must know that WE THE PEOPLE are his ‘Oga’, and on this asset declaration matter, he has failed, forever.

May Almighty Allah rest the soul of my friend whom I never met (except once inside Hilton Hotel lift while he was still governor), the simple, easygoing, patriotic, kind, truthful, altruistic, down-to-earth, quiet, law-abiding, real man of integrity, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. The day this country is lucky to find another president that could hold a lamp to his feet, we may just make some progress. I recall President Jonathan confessed twice on national TV that Umaru forced him to declare his assets the first and only time ever. Once Umaru left, he ‘locked up’. Now see his life. Is Buhari not hounding his wife up and down, sealing hotels, confiscating ill-gotten properties? It is only more tragic that our own Buhari – the cynosure of anti-corruption has decided to tow the Jonathan path. Jonathan swore ‘over heaven and hell’ to never declare his assets. The same argument of the Jonathan supporters (that the law does not require open declaration), is the same tripe that Buharists offer today. Anyway, we can see that Jonathan and Buhari are developing a great friendship in recent times.

Mr Femi Adesina was with us on this other side, lampooning Jonathan back in the day, from his perch at [email protected]. Ha! These men have stripped the youth of Nigeria of hope. So, just like Naira Marley said in one of his mad, drug-filled songs, ‘Ole ni everybody – everyone na thief!’ Perhaps, as it has now happened, Nigerian children and youths are better off being Marlians than looking up to any of these outwardly-distinguished ‘gentlemen’ who have suddenly forgotten that ethics and equity are superior to law, and so is morality. These men are now peddling lawyering at the expense of justice, written laws as superior to leadership by example!

Nigeria needs justice and equity. Nigeria needs morality at this time. These men have raised the hopes of Nigerians and dashed it, creating forlornness in the heart and soul of Nigerian youths and even younger Nigerians who now pick up information about their country and her leadership and ingrain such in their minds at very early ages, stripping them of innocence, describing governance for the youths as a pure game of deception and maximization of personal advantage, in other words neo-Machiavellism. I don’t see how these men can walk back the damage they have done, to their own memories or to the future of this country. Again, we shall see.