One of the major reasons it took then President Muhammadu Buhari more than six months to find candidates suitable for ministerial appointments is that he didn’t know too many people alive who have integrity. In his little anthill of integrity, Buhari was not even aware that the few residents he once knew in that formicary had passed on. More than twice, he’d make an appointment only to discover that the candidate had died long ago. Nevertheless, in a country of over 200 million, it is not impossible to find 40 or so humans who had no Moander gene running in their veins.
In the end, Buhari found those he believed the best men and women that shared his passion if he had any. Those who, he believed could be trusted to use their teeth to divide the meat of governance without surrendering to the œsophageal pull.
Buhari was so happy with his new found trustees that when the second term was skewed in his favour, he did not go looking. He kept them almost in their former positions. As they say, there is no need to change a winning team.
It was said back then that he had a few helps from famous party stalwarts to help him gather his disciples. Apparently, if Jesus found a traitor among 12, Buhari is counting his own Judases while he is with us. Trouble is, for a man of integrity, the list seems to be expanding by the day. Just a year after Buhari left office, it would appear that his usual mantra of not being ‘aware’ of major happenings under his watch is curiously, albeit disappointingly true.
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The first man to fail the integrity test in President Tinubu’s eyes was a wannabe presidential contestant, Mr Godwin Emefiele. It was a shock to Nigerians that although he was the only unimpeachable governor in Buhari’s ‘cabinet’, Emefiele was counted among those that wanted Buhari’s job. Since Buhari returned to Daura, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor has been weighed in the balance and found wanting and has been dancing kpalongo before various courts. That was after exchanging his residential address from a posh Abuja suburb to the not-so-ornate amenity ward of Kuje prison.
Lately, Emefiele signed an agreement to drop a few of the load that appeared to be weighing him down. He agreed to divest his name from assets that did not seem to match his jumbo salary and perks even as our chancellor of the Exchequer.
Apparently, Emefiele found enough time to reflect about the love of God after reviewing the litany of charges leveled against him with his lawyers. He became a prayer warrior in prison and acquired one of the heaviest copies of the Holy Bible as his best companion. He even appeared a few times in a djelabiya that could make anyone mistake him for a priest.
A few weeks ago, he discovered that prayers alone would not help him and applied to the courts for the release of his passports to allow him go to London for medical check-up, just like his mentor Muhammadu Buhari, used to do.
While Buhari was appointing his kinsfolks into sensitive government positions, some of his aides were recruiting their family members too. Emefiele was said to have trusted his in-laws with a piece of government pie while signing the contract for the recolouring of our national currency. He reportedly paid billions to the artist that did the shoddy job. Since Buhari does not spend money, and since we pay people to do the shopping for our presidents, Buhari was not aware of these things.
Hadi Sirika, a member of the Buhari’s kitchen cabinet, knows how nostalgic we were since Nigeria Airways became an air waste. One day, he announced that Nigeria would have an airline worthy of its famous presidential jets.
As we were clapping, Sirika went to the Arabian Gulf to commission a designer to give us a logo worthy of Allah’s blessings. While we were pondering that, he had flown to London that was transforming into our capital in the diaspora to launch an e-airline, the first of its kind anywhere in the world. Somehow, the racists at the Guinness headquarters missed the joke.
But Sirika was far from done with messing with our psyche. Literally on the eve of Buhari’s departure, Sirika treated our skies with aircraft embossed with our logo. He had wet-leased them to complete the joke on the nation. As expected, we missed the joke until some of us were waiting to buy tickets only to be told that the jets had returned to their original hangar.
This national joke incensed President Bola Ahmed Tinubu who asked Olanipekun Olukoyede, to check if something else apart from the aircraft disappeared with Sirika. Mr Olukoyede has since discovered that this expensive joke had the imprimatur of Sirika’s daughter and in-law. Unfortunately, again, this shenanigan must have happened during Buhari’s long absences in London that the former president was not aware of.
When Buhari announced a minister for humanitarian affairs, disaster management and social development, nobody thought it’d end up in disaster. The EFCC alleged that over N37 billion was mismanaged under Sadiya Farouq’s tenure. That ministry’s new motto is – disaster continues as her successor was forced to step aside just months in office.
As if all these are not enough, Saleh Mamman, Buhari’s power minister, almost collapsed in the dock where he was answering questions on the disappearance of N33 billion under his watch. He was in court listening to the 12-count charge leveled against him by the EFCC. Had Justice James Omotosho not been observant, we could have lost a patriot together with the keys to where the missing N33 billion is kept. To avoid any further problems, the judge ordered Mamman to be sent to Kuje prisons.
It is rather sad that the celebrated anti-corruption turaren wuta that Buhari used to sanitise the nation in 1984 had lost its potency. This could be because the person with the proper mix of the ingredients had passed on without Buhari knowing. They must have sold him a lemon magic cleanser that did not hinder the corrupt from standing beside him. This has left the African Union’s anti-corruption poster boy smelling like someone that just escaped from the cesspit of sleaze.
From all we are hearing from America that knows everything, and from whom we photocopied our constitution; it is possible that, just like Donald Trump, President Buhari has immunity against the vicarious attempts by various members of his cabinet to destroy the only legacy that could have outlasted him. Buhari’s detractors want to strip him of the only reasons he gave for intervening twice in governance. The first intervention is beyond probing, but this last one leaves a very dark mould on the snow-white garment of integrity proclaimed by the former anti-corruption czar.
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