MY PEOPLE REFUSED TO PUBLISH THIS BECAUSE OF ELRUFAI
THE DANGERS OF DOUBLE STANDARDS.
The revocation of thirty-eight plots of land allocated
to some top government officials, including former
governors and ministers, officials of the Peoples
Democratic Party and people close to the corridors of
power by president Umaru Yar’adua this week has once
again brought to the fore the embarrassing double
standard that characterized the last administration’s
dealing with its citizens.
It would be recalled that for eight years, president
Obasanjo rode rough shod on the weakest of the
citizens of this country through his policies, which
appeared to be targeted against those who deserved the
best protection of the government.
Between 2003 and 2007, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, the
diminutive man who held sway as the minister in charge
of the Federal capital territory sent several hundreds
of residents of the federal capital to their early
grave when he embarked on his nonsensical demolition
of houses in the federal capital territory. He did not
only have the backing of the then president but they
appeared to have enjoyed the fact that several hapless
Nigerians were wickedly denied of their places of
abode. El-Rufai was the axe in the hands of Obasanjo
that dealt such a fatal blow to most Nigerians.
Those who had the gut to challenge El-Rufai’s brazen
use of power were told that their houses were being
demolished because they had violated the so-called
Abuja master plan.
Specifically, El-Rufai told whoever cared to listen
that houses built on green areas would be
automatically demolished, not minding whether the
owners genuinely got allocations for such lands. Even
those who went to court to seek redress could not get
justice because mallam ElRufai and his god father had
no respect for the verdict of the country’s law
courts.
With the expiration of the tenure of the last
administration, Nigerians have been treated to a
plethora of abuses perpetrated in the name of the
so-called service of the people.
Nothing demonstrates the paradox of this policy than
the revelation that while the last administration was
busy destroying the houses of innocent Nigerians for
allegedly defying the Abuja master plan, it was
surreptitiously awarding choice plots of land to so
called prominent Nigerians who did not even apply for
such lands. And to add further salt to the collective
injury of the Nigerian people, those land were
supposed to be on Green Areas reserved for recreation
and relaxation.
Those who benefited from this largesse included
president Umaru Yar’adua who was given the land when
he was the governor of Katsina state. The former
governors of Kaduna, Plateau, Ekiti and Zamfara states
as well as prominent members of the PDP also benefited
in this unreasonable largesse from the federal
government
The question then is, why will a government that came
to office with an avowed commitment to make a clean
break from the arbitrariness of the past commit a more
brazen crime on the Nigerian people? Could this be an
indication that the so-called reform that the
government constantly mouthed could also have been an
avenue to rape Nigerians of their heritage?
The lesson learnt from the unfolding tragedy of the
last administration’s double standard is that, as the
country gets further from the administration of
General Olusegun Obasanjo, the gravity of deceit and
chicanery that characterized the tenure of the last
administration becomes more poignant.
There is no gain saying that for what ever it was
worth, President Yaradua’s decision to revoke the
allocation of those choice plots was not a decision
for the fainthearted. However, for him to convince
Nigerians that the decision was borne out of altruism,
he must go a step further by revisiting some of the
hugely suspicious policies of the former
administration. Some of these include the haphazard
sale of government houses, the privatization of the
country’s heritage and the country’s involvement in
Sao Tome and Principe. It is only when these issues
are revisited and Nigerians sufficiently satisfied
that the president’s decision would be better
appreciated.
By Peter Claver Oparah.
Ikeja, Lagos.
E-mail: peterclaver2000@yahoo.com