By lgbotako Nowinta
On his crowning on July 29th, 2015, Muhammadu Buhari promised the anxious nation that he would fight corruption to a standstill, but what we see today is a complete reversal of that gigantic promise. lf this sitting President is indeed sensitive or alive to his electoral promises of fighting corruption, why is it becoming increasingly difficult, that since 2015, Nigerians cannot have the benefits of knowing what has been recovered from treasury looters and political bandits? With the recent developments, it is becoming clearer by the day that lbrahim Magu, the former EFCC Chairman may have been viciously criminalized and trashed out of office and reckoning, because Abubakar Malami and his boys allegedly wanted to be absolutely in charge of what have been recovered and are still being recovered. Some law makers in the House of Representatives have raised eyebrows concerning Malami’s alleged involvement in $139 million Bank transfers regarding the much talked about Paris Club refunds. If Ibrahim Magu has any serious case to answer, why has he not been bundled into a court of competent jurisdiction, to be prosecuted? Ibrahim Magu must have been sacrificed on the altar of Abubakar Malami’s selfish interests! In succeeding to flush down Ibrahim Magu, and allegedly maneuvering the emergence of Abdulrasheed Bawa, at the EFCC’s helm, the smooth operators pulling the strings behind the scene of the recovered loots in Nigeria, have had their ways so far, but now we demand the authentic, official disclosures of the amount recovered, from what, whom and wherever.
Offensive, chilling and unpatriotic signals were sent to Nigerians recently, when Hon. Ugonna Ozurigbo, Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Justice, stood like a pillar of shame in the way of members of the Committee, who asked the Attorney-General Abubakar Malami, to account for the nation’s recovered loots.
Malami, the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation who went there to defend his Ministry’s 2022 Budget Estimates, had been asked to reveal the whereabouts and amount of Recovered Loots so far, by the Muhammadu Buhari government.
I am not going to tear down Ugonna Ozurigbo and his likes within the National Assembly in this piece, because he had, by his action told the Nigerian people that he is a traitor cum facilitator of those criminals who have unleashed (still) unleashing economic, political and social doom and darkness on the Nigerian masses.
Where could have been a more perfect venue and opportunity, than the meeting of 2022 Budget defense in the House of Representatives, for our representatives to have easily secured answers to nagging and vexatious questions or issues concerning the nation’s Ministry of Justice? What a sad development for our country?
Now, President Muhammadu Buhari, and Abubakar Malami (one of the vehement defenders of Fulani murderous herdsmen, must know that not letting Nigerians know whereabouts of the recovered loots and the total amount realized so far, is an obvious dent on the worsening image of this administration.
Truly, because Abubakar Malami’s Ministry of Justice has a supervisory authority over the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the government’s agency directly in charge of fighting corruption and deeply involved in recovering looted assets, proactive and transparent stance in the interest of the nation, is expected from this Ministry.
But, regrettably, as a result of Malami’s known idiosyncrasy, body language and unnecessary obstinacy on several issues affecting his statutory obligations, the man has become a posterchild of Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption crisis.
Therefore, our faith in hope and change as patriotic Nigerians has been battered by bitter experience we get constantly from the civilian administration. Wait a minute?
If we are having or getting a fairer deal from those we have collectively entrusted our sovereignty to rule on our behalf, Abubakar Malami ought to have included details of the whereabouts and actual figure of the recovered loots in his brief before the House of Representatives Committee.
How did we get to the issue of ‘recovering of looted assets’ in Nigeria? The First Republic politicians made a bonfire of the opportunities that came to the nation, which attracted the military boys to strike on January 15th, 1966.
The General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi military government wobbled on the issue of national unity, before it was knocked down in a bloody military counter-coup in July 1966.
The General Yakubu Gowon’s military experimentation began the colossal wastages of our precious resources till July 1975, when it was toppled by General Murtala Mohammed.
General Murtala Mohammed was shot and killed in broad day light on February 13th, 1976, which paved the way for General Olusegun Obasanjo, who eventually handed over power to the politicians, in what we know as the ‘Second Republic.
Alhaji Shehu Shagari’s civilian government stole mercilessly and messed up our resources before, General Muhammadu Buhari came with his brand of ruthless and uncompromising military dictatorship that was aborted by the likes of Generals Ibrahim Babangida, Domkat Bali and Sani Abacha from 1985 to 1994.
Perhaps, the greatest armed robbers of our national assets were the duo of Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha. While Babangida institutionalized grandiose corruption, Abacha substituted himself as ‘Nigerian corruption’. Today, Abacha loots are still being ‘recovered’ around the world.
General Abdulsalami Abubakar came in June 1998, and equally brought his own dimension of excessive corrupt practices, before he relinquished political power to Olusegun Obasanjo on July 29th, 1999.
Olusegun Obasanjo’s civilian government had a field day in refreshing his previous ‘red bank account’, back to ‘blue’, and ended up paying his northern friends adequately by forcing Umaru YarAdua on the rest of us on July 29th, 2003.
Goodluck Jonathan, the first ever Niger Deltan guy to smell Presidential Power, allowed the aroma of supreme political power to intoxicate him, to the extent that he allowed the likes of Diazani Allison-Madueke, to steal our resources perpetually. The Jonathan Administration took corruption to the next level of insanity.
Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and company felt Nigeria could get it right again and blindly allowed an unrepentant ethnic bigot, in Muhammadu Buhari, to grab the presidential baton, in an unholy political alliance.
Must we remind Malami and co-travelers in this ugly lane, that it is our right to be carried along, given the calamities that have befallen us in the name of decades of brazen wicked systemic looting of Nigeria’s treasury?
It is a pity that the current administration is desperately trying to kill one of the key fundamental issues (anti-corruption fight) that brought it to power; this is clearly obscuring or obstructing the big picture of serving the generality of Nigerians.
Common sense and patriotism are being displaced by private ambition and personal selfishness. The huge gains, passionately expected by Nigerians from the recovered loots are being turned into a painful and complete failure.
The question with which the Buhari administration must now wrestle is whether Nigerians are idiots, unworthy of the facts about the recovered loots. Certainly, we cannot succumb to the grand conspiracy of silence over the recovered loots by this administration. We cannot condone the cycle of fraud started by General Yakubu Gowon, which became alarming under Goodluck Jonathan.
We will not allow the whole process of recovered loots to be turned into a mockery. We therefore ask General Muhammadu Buhari: where are the recovered loots?
On his crowning on July 29th, 2015, Muhammadu Buhari promised the anxious nation that he would fight corruption to a standstill, but what we see today is a complete reversal of that gigantic promise.
lf this sitting President is indeed sensitive or alive to his electoral promises of fighting corruption, why is it becoming increasingly difficult, that since 2015, Nigerians cannot have the benefits of knowing what has been recovered from treasury looters and political bandits?
With the recent developments, it is becoming clearer by the day that lbrahim Magu, the former EFCC Chairman may have been viciously criminalized and trashed out of office and reckoning, because Abubakar Malami and his boys allegedly wanted to be absolutely in charge of what have been recovered and are still being recovered.
Some law makers in the House of Representatives have raised eyebrows concerning Malami’s alleged involvement in $139 million Bank transfers regarding the much talked about Paris Club refunds.
If Ibrahim Magu has any serious case to answer, why has he not been bundled into a court of competent jurisdiction, to be prosecuted? Ibrahim Magu must have been sacrificed on the altar of Abubakar Malami’s selfish interests!
In succeeding to flush down Ibrahim Magu, and allegedly maneuvering the emergence of Abdulrasheed Bawa, at the EFCC’s helm, the smooth operators pulling the strings behind the scene of the recovered loots in Nigeria, have had their ways so far, but now we demand the authentic, official disclosures of the amount recovered, from what, whom and wherever.
Matters of strategic interests and importance to us, such as the recovered loots, have been watered down aimlessly and recklessly. Prices of cooking gas and every available commodity in the market have skyrocketed astronomical.
The masses are bewildered and traumatized, because of the heartache of knowing that since 2015, their dreams of a better country, has been in vain; they are back to the worst excruciating country and conditions that necessitated the blanket rejection of Goodluck Jonathan.
Indeed, the living conditions of today are like adding gasoline to the burning fire of poverty and misery; the horror of living daily simply defies language.
It is incontestable that, if the ferocious and fanatical energy so far deployed by General Buhari on the ‘Cow agenda’ has been unleashed on funding social economic respite for Nigerians, the living conditions of our people would have been bettered off by now.
Never in Nigerian history has a sitting President become incurable accelerationist of policies of disorder, double dealings against the people he swore to defend constitutionally.
Foreign loans are being taken at random by General Muhammadu Buhari; even few days ago the National Assembly gave the government the nod to borrow other fresh foreign loans, with the nation being buried gradually in debts.
It is unfortunate that our country is being plunged and plugged into the lane of chaos and torment. Can’t the recovered loots take the place of the continuously heaping foreign loans?
In a seething situation such as we have today, that General Muhammadu Buhari looks every inch feeble and senile, as he is unable to monitor, control or check those he invited to run his presidential venture; where the chunk of his Ministers have been around since 2015, Nigerians are in serious trouble.
Who then would ask Abubakar Malami, to give us a comprehensive report about the whereabouts and the actual amount of the recovered loots? We are the ones to tell Muhammadu Buhari.
Nowinta wrote: Where We Are – A Call For Democratic Revolution in Nigeria.
