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Wole Olaoye
Buhari, step on the gas!
I am told that the big boys of the kidnapping industry who went underground in places like Port-Harcourt and Warri when Buhari won the presidential election have regrouped and relaunched their brand with renewed gusto. They had feared that the new sheriff in town would hunt them down like the wild animals that they are, and make them face justice. But when they read the sign of the times and reckoned that the new broom was probably too busy in other areas to bother about them, they relaunched their campaign. Now they are more brazen; more ferocious, convinced that the Buhari myth is done and dusted.
Considering how much goodwill Nigerians had invested in the person of President Buhari, it would be a sad day indeed if they suddenly woke up to discover that they were still on business-as-usual street.
One acknowledges that well-heeled criminals who have stolen money in Nigeria don’t die easy. They hire the best lawyers, get police protection, commission ghost writers and sabotage any attempt to right the wrongs of yesteryear. That is why they are criminals. Let them remain criminals, but let government stand up to assert itself as government.
Those whose bad behaviour contributed towards weakening the expired regime of President Jonathan have been bleating that President Buhari is entrenching dictatorship. They have got so used to having nobody in charge that now that there seems to be somebody firmly in charge for a change, they are ready to do anything to return the country to status quo ante. But so far, the people are with Buhari and they will stick with him as long as he continues fighting corruption and doing the utmost good for the greater number of people.
He cannot afford to take his foot off the pedal. His old ‘War Against Indiscipline’ that marked out his erstwhile military regime as a patriotic intervention ought to be rebranded and relaunched without further delay. Bad behaviour ought to be expeditiously punished in accordance with the rule of law. Everything that stands between the government and the attainment of a disciplined society ought to be ruthlessly confronted and neutralised.
In my own experience, one of the most benevolent governments we have ever had in the Southwestern part of Nigeria was the Awolowo-led government of the First Republic: Free education; rural integration; affordable healthcare; skill acquisition; standardisation of informal trades , etc. Benevolent? Yes, but you messed with that government only at your peril. Operatives of that government would hunt you into a rat hole for as little as one shilling tax. So, it was a contract between the government and the people: do your bit and we do ours, otherwise we will tamper with your unearned peace.
Buhari has the stoic disposition required to stay the course of patriotic commitment to routing out evil and ride the storm of programmed blackmail unleashed by the criminal gang that had held Nigeria down for so long. With the return of fuel queues to major cities in the country, the president must have been embarrassed enough to realise that he must not take his foot off the accelerator one bit. Oil thieves must be diligently prosecuted and punished while the opaque regime of petro-subsidy should be buried without further delay. The more the government delays in rolling out the necessary reforms that would transform the various sectors, the more the plunderers regroup.
Now that the federal cabinet is fully constituted, Buhari should give his ministers the marching orders to ensure that the anti-corruption agenda permeates all spheres. Not just change, but change at speed!
If I had the opportunity of personally counselling the president today, I would simply tell him, step on the gas sir!
Greed in uniform
Last week during my trip to Kenya, the argument in the public space was why Anne Waiguru, cabinet secretary for devolution and planning, under whose watch $7,750,000 was lost to dubious contracts, had not been fired by President Uhuru Kenyatta as he did with five other ministers accused of graft earlier this year. An opposition politician alleged the president was protecting the minister because they were having an affair. Kenyatta said there was nothing like that. Eventually, the hapless woman resigned on her ‘doctor’s advice’. Although Kenya is ranked 145 out of 174 countries in the 2014 corruption perception index, developments such as the above indicate that all hope is not lost.
Throughout my stay in Kenya, nobody in or out of uniform asked me for a bribe. That doesn’t mean that there are no bribe-taking policemen in that country but it shows that there is still some level of coyness in the bribery department. On my return to Nigeria, I managed to keep an important social appointment in Supare-Akoko, Ondo State. The return journey to Abuja was the stuff of fables. We were stopped at seven police checkpoints, all of which were veritable toll gates. Commercial drivers were intimidated to part with bribes openly. ‘Daddies’ like us were unctuously flattered to “drop something” for our ‘boys’. Depending on where the policeman hailed from, you would be greeted as either ‘Alhaji’, ‘Odogwu’, ‘Igwe’, ‘Chairman’, ‘Master’. The ‘boys’ at all the seven police checkpoints between Akoko and Abuja begged us for bribes. None of the military checkpoints did.
We were detained for five hours at Ogori Magongo because of the governorship elections. We camped there and made the best of the national embarrassment. Imagine depriving some citizens of their right to freedom of movement just so some other ones could exercise their freedom to choose their governor! It is the usual knee-jerk approach to security in Nigeria. Lock down the state! Cheap tactics that betray cerebral indolence.
All my attempts to reach Inspector-General of Police Solomon Arase failed. A mutual acquaintance later told me that I was calling the wrong number. Arase has my prayerful best wishes in his avowed determination to rid the force of corruption. He can use your prayers too.