PRESIDENT YAR’ ADUA HAS TO BE CORRUPT: Because it is the logical outcome of being a member of PDP.
After having his ego deflated by the National Assembly’s rejection of his third term bid, the much vilified ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo finally settled on current president Umaru Yar’Adua as the PDP’s choice of a presidential candidate in the April 2007 presidential elections. In an attempt to make Yar’ Adua look different from the other 35 corrupt governors (yes they were all thieves) and achieving his goal of installing Yar’ Adua as the president of the country by “ by any means necessary” Obasanjo sent members of his propaganda machine into town to sell the latter as a candidate. These attack dogs included individuals who are prepared to sell their mothers into slavery in exchange for power and influence. The Nigerian media, including Tony Iredia and his publicly funded but private interest controlled Nigerian Television Authority, joined in this exercise, abandoning their basic responsibility or searching for truth. They all went into town blazing from eight cylinders and 32 valves.
They told hapless Nigerians that candidate Yar’ Adua was the country’s last hope because of his honesty. In furtherance of their honesty argument, they claimed that he left N4 billion in Katsina states’ coffers. They also pointed to the “unprecedented” progress Katsina state had made in the areas of education and agricultural development under his administration. These highly remunerated but morally bankrupt propagandists must have believed that they had again “sucker punched” Nigerians. But they were wrong. Quite a few people were able to see beyond the smokescreen and political jobmanship. Members of this group had reservations and questions about the plausibility of the virtues being attributed to candidate Yar’ Adua, considering his membership of PDP. I belonged and continue to belong to this grounp of skeptics. I remember writing two public letters ( http://nigeriaworld.com/articles/2007/mar/164.html and http://nigeriaworld.com/articles/2005/nov/193.html) to candidate and president Yar’ Adua in which I challenged him to provide the Nigerian public with enough information to enable it make a determination on his claim to honesty. As expected, there was no response.
Permit me to give the reader a few reasons why I was and continue to be very suspicious of candidate Yar’ Adua’s claim to honesty. First, the main evidence tendered in support of his honesty and accountability was and continues to dubious. His supporters claim that he left N4 billion in Katsina’s coffers did not prove honesty. Remember that but for unmitigated greed, ex-governor and convict Alamieyeseigha would still have been able to steal over N50 billion if only he left N4 billion in state coffers. In that case the presence of N4 billion in Bayelsa’s coffers would not have been proof of Alamieyeseigha innocence or honesty. This logic applies to president Yar’ Adua as well.
The second reason is ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo. Obasanjo is known to be cunning, manipulative and deft in his political maneuvers. Post Obasanjo presidency revelations have revealed a disturbing pattern of theft of public resources at the same that that he was fighting proxy wars with his political enemies with the EFCC as the weapon of choice. How then would Olusegun Obasanjo handpick a very “honest” candidate with “a zero tolerance for corruption” to replace him? Is this not like asking a journalist to keep the secret on a juicy story? Could Obasanjo have been stupid enough to pick a candidate who will fight corruption when he knew at that time that was one of the most corrupt public servants in the whole of Africa? My answer to this question is a resounding no. Obasanjo maybe be a mean spirited, garrulous, uncouth and abusive person, but he is smart, albeit negatively. He picked the candidate he had a dossier of wrongdoings on, knowing that revealing little bits of the secrets contained in the from time to time would go a long way in keeping the “Honest One” in check.
My third reason for challenging President Yar’ Adua’s honesty is the status of the Peoples Democratic Party as a criminal organization. Notwithstanding the written or proclaimed reasons behind the establishment of any organization, a determination as to whether an organization is criminal or not must include an examination of its modus operandi. The PDP has demonstrated in more than a million ways that it cannot achieve its goals while at the same time obeying the laws of Nigeria. Some of these illegal goals include the extermination of political opponents, massive rigging of elections, depletion of state resources through dubious contracts, “flea market” style sale of the country’s priced resources, elevation of personal interests over national ones and the replacement of national values with the party’s warped sense of morality, justice, growth and honesty. This list is endless. PDP as a party is by and large a collection of former, current and aspiring criminals. We are seeing evidence of this criminality in the number of ex-governors who served on the platform of PDP and are now facing fraud charges running into billions. It is an organization that is hostile to the emergence of genuine politicians who are truly interested in rendering service to the people because it is the organization that deemed elements like Alamieyeseigha, Dariye, Fayose and Alao-Akala, Kalu, Ibori and Igbinedion to be good enough to serve as be governors; Ahmadu Ali and Bode George to be party leaders; and ex-Milad Buba Marwa to be good enough to be an ambassador of this great country despite having admitted to stealing millions under General Abacha and refunding over $5million of the stolen money to the coffers of the federal government. These individuals are the stars of PDP. You ask yourself if this organization has room for the emergence of honest politicians.
My fourth reason is the manner in which the president has accumulated his assets. It is agreed that the president has a graduate degree in chemistry and was a university lecturer for a couple of years. Chemistry teachers in particular and teachers in general are some of the lowest paid workers in the country. It is also agreed that when he came into office in 1999, he claimed assets of N66 million. Further agreed is that by the time the president took over as the president of Nigeria, he declared assets approaching 900 million naira, a 1500% asset growth in 8 years. In a normal environment this will be a mind boggling growth rate. But Nigeria is not a normal environment. It is a country lacking in basic roads, water, electricity, security and production related activities. Yet, it is a country in which banks that are awash with billions they cannot lend due to the absence of collateral are making billions in profit, thanks to the abracadabra of the Voodoo Economics they practice. God bless the unsophisticated shareholders of these banks the day these “baby Enrons” in the making become fully grown and start to implode. This is the environment in which the president’s assets grew more than 1500% in eight years and his advisers think he does not owe the citizens an explanation.
There are many more reasons behind this opinion but I would like to think that the majority of Nigerians already know that the President is corrupt. A man who is honest cannot permanently be in the company of shady elements. He cannot pretend not to understand the negative inference that followers draw from seeing their president in the company of convicts or people who are facing trial for looting state treasuries. The president cannot be honest while appointing criminals as ambassadors of this country. The president cannot be honest and preaching the rule of law while he is interfering in the country’s judicial process through making of subtle threats and the award of “egunje” national awards to judges and justices who may have to sit in judgment of his case in a matter of months, if not weeks.
Contrary to what our politicians believe, the brightest brains the country has produced are not to be found in the National Assembly or the corridors of power. As presently constituted, Nigerian politics can only attract criminals and people who are bent on getting rich at any cost. Nigerians are not stupid. The politicians are the ones who have lost track of history and its teachings. They are the ones who have failed to appreciate what history teaches about the end that awaits politicians who betray public trust and loot public treasuries to the detriment of those they are supposed to serve. These individuals may live in the best French chateaus, consumed the best champagnes money could buy, driven in the best cars and had a bevy of women, but it is also a fact that in the end history has been unkind to many of these individuals.
In addition to adducing evidence to demonstrate why president Yar’ Adua must be corrupt. I have also tried to establish the link between membership of the party called PDP and the political and economic criminality that is suffocating this great country; why the party has been attracting dubious elements the way an open wound attracts flies. Finally, I hope I have laid the foundation for understanding why a genuine “servant leader” and true advocate of the rule of law, transparency and honesty cannot be follower of Obasanjo (remember “Obasanjo is my leader”) and or a member of the PDP because both of them are like rotten trees that only bring forth bad fruits. It is hoped that the paid propagandists of this government who are often picked by stories like this would respond with facts rebutting my position. But if history offers any guide, I expect a bunch of insulting and harassing emails that completely ignore the substantive issues, but I have gotten used to them by now. What will really make my day is an opportunity to publicly sit down with the government officials mentioned here in order to challenge the hypocracy of their arguments.
Majekodunmi Adega
Toronto, Canada
madega@naijanet.com