Accountability is not only a key component of good governance; it is also a prime cornerstone of responsible living. Faced by failure of the promised changed and rocked by incessant demand for security, safety and protection, savvy government would not divert attention from the center piece of governance by pretending to be killing a house mouse it ought to have killed six years ago, ignoring the hyenas that have taken hold of the house in its entirety.
Almost overnight, instead of responding to the more pressing issues of pervasive insecurity, mindless killings and fearful living that characterize existence in Nigeria of today, we have again woken up to the new waves of bra and pants shopping at Diezani ultra-modern market. That we have not been able to deal with Diezani’s crime of corruption today says a lot of the self-professing corruption fighting government.
One, it affirms that the country has an excessively weak foreign policy and poorly conceived bilateral agreement with the United Kingdom to the extent that it could not achieve extradition of Diezani Madueke in the last six years. Two, we do not have a competent Attorney General that could marshal water tight evidence of crime commission against Diezani.
Three, that articles of supposed proceeds of unchallenged crime allegation retrieved from the fugitive, Diezani are still been held and debated at this material time; that on its own is an indictment of our justice administration system.
Recently, a Nigerian celebrity, in her private space engaged in sexual irresponsibility that assaulted public decency. I stood with those who roundly condemned such acts, even of a private citizen, because I believe that society must not degenerate to level where it has no gut to raise eye brow against moral recklessness and vulgar sexual indiscretions, at least when it becomes issue of public pornographic indecency.
Children are on social media that could be damaged by such reckless acts. Today in our country, killings have been normalized because we refuse to hold those with responsibility to protect accountable. Accountability is issue for public and private spaces. We are responsible for the consequences of our conducts.
Diezani must be held accountable for her action while in position of trust. We must never deflate from severity of her crime and public misconduct. We must not give wings to bird of iniquity to audaciously fly riotously on our sky in a way that often make public and private spaces consequential victim of individual crime.
We must rally our society for return of sanity and pride but not at the expense of inflating the ego of those who are themselves the new version of Diezani. Beyond Diezani, Nigerians want to know after six years in office, why South Africa with population of fifty (50) million people generates 60,000 megawatts of electricity and leadership encumbered, debt burdened Nigeria with two hundred (200) million people generates 4,000 megawatts of electricity; abysmally sixty (60) times worse and poorer than South Africa’s.
Nigerians want to know why they must continue to bear the consequences of a mismanaged oil-based economy whose mis-managers defiantly continue to import what she produces.
Gbenro Olajuyigbe writes via [email protected]
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