Give me a church and I will give you a contract,Obj 3rd term and his Resignation By Kassim Afegbua

Fresh happenings in Nigeria these
days keep one wondering about our
determination to help our country
get past all the sordid stories of
yester years. At the dawn of each
blessed day, one is confounded by
the ingenuity of those who are in
authority at explaining away gory
details about their conduct in public
office.
The donation of a Church, whether
renovated, expanded or completely
rebuilt, questions very strongly the
integrity of the President and his
stance on anti-corruption crusade.
I am one of those who feels very
strongly that this President is
lacking capacity to generate new
ideas to move the country forward
and happenings in the country
everyday point to that loss of faith
and confidence in a system that is
heavily corrupt and sliding down the
slope.
The explanation given by the
Presidential Spokesman about the
propriety of the donation, citing
very crude example as the Abuja
Millenium Park, further exposes the
unpreparedness on the part of
government to take this country
beyond the rubrics of mere
sermonizing, to a more forward
looking one with visible signs of
doing things the new way.
Where has the transformational
mantra gone to in the eyes of this
unpalatable scenario that further
brings us ridicule in a country where
one of our own is desperately
canvassing for World Bank
Presidency?
There are a few probing questions
that stare us in the face on account
of the explanation rendered by the
Presidency and its Spokesman. The
donation of a Millennium Park to
members of the public in the
Federal Capital Territory is different
from the donation of a Church in the
President’s sleepy home town of
Otuoke.
If they had donated the Church
before President Jonathan assumed
office or if they waited until he
leaves office, the issue would have a
different coloration. In promoting its
corporate social responsibility, as
the presidency is wont us to
understand, I wish the company
could rebuild our ailing refineries to
further underscore its commitment
to helping the country.
What is the use of a corporate social
responsibility that clearly exposes
the inherent corruptive tendencies
of a company that has been
meaningfully engaged by
government to do so many
contracts on behalf of the federal
government?
Why has it become so difficult for
the company to help reduce the
incidences of environmental
degradation in the Niger-Delta that
has seemingly defied all possible
interventions in the past and
present? Yes, corporate social
responsibility indeed, what has been
the company’s attitude towards the
several impassable roads in the
country, how many have they been
able to fix for us in appreciation of
the several contracts and
empowerment that the country had
given them?
I think the Presidency should just
have owned up and seek
forgiveness from Nigerians be it plea
bargain, or plea guilty, so that we
can rightly place the issue as one of
the several misgivings in a system
that is run by learners on the job.
The fact that the Construction
Company carried out such donation
in the President’s home town at a
time when the man in whose honour
it was being donated talks about
transformation agenda, removes
from its corporate responsibility
status. Why did the Company not
deem it fit and proper to erect one
in my little village of Okpella. There
is a mosque that needs completion
in my village, and I guess the
Construction Company will be
gratuitous enough to help complete
the project.
The idea of trying to parry a crime
when committed by citing another
example does not make good logic.
The fact that nobody raised an
alarm when the millennium park
was built, even if wrongly, does not
make the act committed in the
Otuoke case right by all estimations.
In anti-corruption, people tend to
underscore the intention behind an
act and not necessary the act itself.
Why now does it become necessary
or auspicious for the company to
build a Church for the community of
Otuoke whose dedication and
presentation was proudly attended
by the President himself.
At the event, perhaps the President
never contemplated that it will
generate this furore, he reportedly
told the ecstatic audience how he
had wanted the placed fixed for a
long time and thanks to some of his
friends who decided to finally bail
him out by this donation.
I have pains trying to rationalise the
action and reaction of the
Presidency in its response to this
impeachable offence which betrays
the sanctity of that high office and
the very essence of our anti-
corruption crusade.
Once a President, who should set
standard when there is none, is
seen to be culpable by acts of
omission and commission, the moral
pedestal upon which the presidency
is anchored becomes compromised.
In such situations, the president has
an option to either resign in order to
regain that moral authority or at
best impeached as a corrective
measure to succeeding presidents.
This is how developed nations got
themselves on the super highway of
development, and not this idea of
name-calling and veiled threat
cloned with tribalism and ethnicism
to address an issue as serious as
the one under reference. Can this
Construction giant attempt such a
thing in Italy where they are
originally domiciled? Why do they
think that once we are given
palliatives, that ends the story?
What impudence from a company
that is feeding fat from our
patronages? Who says our problem
is building more places of worship or
renovating same, where are the
monies collected every week from
tithes and donations and offerings?
The more places of worship we
build, the more morally bankrupt we
become. These days, the question
being asked is simply why the
society is becoming increasingly
morally backward when there seems
to be upsurge in churches and
mosques. With attitude such as this,
that is using a Church as a bribe to
a community where the president
comes from, underscores the fact
that we have fallen short in the eyes
of the Lord.
To describe a serious issue such as
this as a storm in a tea cup gives
me an impression that the moral
fibre of this administration led by
President Goodluck Jonathan has
simply gone haywire. How on earth
will a presidential spokesman
describe an issue with very grave
implications as a storm in a tea cup?
We are in serious trouble. What
morality does he think the system
would possess to look into the eyes
of alleged corrupt officials for the
rightful corrective measures to be
taken when the man who should be
the tale bearer is as culpable as
those that are being exposed daily
for one wrongful act or the other?
Corruption in the house of the Lord
is a more crushing offence than
others that are committed beyond
the precincts of the Church. Once
the foundation of a Church is
premised on a questionable stance,
the propriety and sanctity of that
Church becomes suspect and that
alone could invoke the wrath of the
Almighty God. From available
statistics coming from Otuoke, I am
well informed that building a Church
or renovating or expanding an
existing Church is the least of the
problems of the members of the
Otuoke community in Bayelsa State.
The abject poverty that is
characteristic of the average person
in Otuoke and Nigeria goes beyond
what a Church building can address.
If the Construction firm is that
magnanimous as they are wont to
have us believe, why not take up
the new university project that was
earlier allocated for the Otuoke
community and complete its
construction in record time as a
show of corporate social
responsibility?
Somebody should save us this very
crude way of seeing things on the
one hand while asking for
development and growth on the
other hand. This issue as very
“petty” and “a storm in a tea cup”
as it could be, is capable of making
Okonjo-Iweala lose her nomination
and election as World Bank
President. The attitude alone and
the act of condoning corruption is
enough to tell the
world who we are.
OBASANJO,s RESIGNATION AND
OTHER MATTERS .
Why will anybody be surprised that
Chief Olusegun Obasanjo chose to
resign his position as Chairman of
the Board of Trustees of the
“feedeefee”? The man has simply
overstayed his welcome and feels
more and more unimportant in the
eyes of those he has politically cut
to size.
Why will a man who has been so
blessed with honour and pride by
God, was president thrice, and
reluctantly exited from the corridors
of power, still feels that he has to be
Chairman of the BOT of a Party he
was never part of forming? The real
owners of the PDP are gradually
coming back to the arena and Chief
Obasanjo cannot withstand their
sight any more, hence he feels the
urge to resign.
And he did resign for good. At least
that will give the PDP the
opportunity to reinvent itself if it is
really serious about reforms. The
reason given by OBJ as he is fondly
called, is not tenable as far as I am
concerned. It was better that he
resigned than wait to be disgraced
out of the Party.
He has stayed too long in the saddle
and now he realised that his plans
are no longer working for him, he
feels frustrated. In the new exco of
the PDP, there are quite a few
persons who can be their own in the
face of executive pressure, and such
men would not enjoy OBJ,s
domineering posturing. Good luck to
OBJ in his future endeavours.
He will be remembered as the man
who out of greed and propensity for
power, bequeathed to the nation a
successor who was frail and ill,
coupled with a VeePee that was also
reluctant to provide leadership.
Today, we all are beneficiaries of the
phlegmatic leadership that is staring
us in the face.
We are reaping the whirlwind that
was sown by Chief Obasanjo
through questionable means in
order to remain relevant in the
scheme of things. We are now in a
country where donation of a Church
to a President and his community is
seen as a normative order. Bye from
the BOT. At least, he too has learnt
some good lessons from the
steps taken by my oga patapata to
quit active and partisan politics.
Good student you might say.
With respect to OBJ,s position on
third term, please tell him that he
reportedly mentioned his third term
project to the following; IBB,
Abdulsalami Abubakar, Alhaji Atiku
Abubakar and General Aliyu Gusau
at a meeting where they told him
that he OBJ had made new friends
and that he should rely on those
new friends to make him.
He reportedly left the meeting room
in anger and these four persons
worked in tandem with other
Nigerians to scuttle the project.
There was third term but it was
scuttled to the chagrin of OBJ. He
was simply beaten to his game