Rich Thief, Poor Thieves and A Burglary By Emmanuel Ugwu

In recent past, the Igbos had a way of denouncing a steward or guard who committed the treachery of stealing the very thing he was hired to manage or secure. They called him the proverbial dog that ate the bone hung around its neck.

That barbed censure fits the policemen that burgled the Gwarinpa home of President Goodluck Jonathan. They stole the very goods they were charged to protect. They vandalized the property left in their care, emptying it of all transferable valuables.

Police authorities have dismissed four of the six culpable officers following the guilty verdict of an orderly room trial. Sgt Musa Musa, Sgt John Nanpak, Sgt Ogah Audu, and Sgt Gabriel Ugah lost their job for coveting ‘’furniture sets, beds, electronics, toilet and electrical fittings, doors, and frames’’.

In true Nigerian fashion, the two most senior officers involved in the crime, Inspectors Lengs Satlakau and Usman Wuduki , were not shunted out of their job with same dispatch. The Police say the proceedings of their orderly room trial had been forwarded up the ladder ”for further action”.

Nevertheless, I am shocked that the case of burglary and stealing made it to the public domain. I would never have imagined Jonathan would run to the police to complain that he was robbed. As the head of the government of Nigeria, he seemed to be constitutionally indifferent to stealing.

Jonathan was defiantly apathetic when his kleptomaniac cronies were looting the House of Lugard, under his watch. A sense of outrage appeared to be alien to his nature. It’s ironic that he felt offended when his private house was sacked.

Going by his statement, the looted house was a ‘’modest four-bedroom duplex.’’ It contained small creature comforts. Not the ‘’36 Plasma television sets and about 25 refrigerators’’ as speculated.

It’s hard to figure out why he chose to make the trivial evisceration of his house a national headline? Why did he raise hell…like a pauper rendered weightless, in a crowded bus terminal, by a pickpocket?

Ordinarily, President Jonathan should be one of the last Nigerians to cry about being robbed. He ran a crazy kleptocracy. He presided over a stealing orgy whose intensity and reach anti-graft accountants have been unable to ascertain even after two years of labor. He licensed his aides to loot with impunity as though the overarching objective of his administration was to bankrupt Nigeria.

Ex-President Goodluck JonathanWhen Jonathan’s attitude to corruption was interrogated, he answered that he could not stop the plague. He whipped out a dispiriting Barn Theory to rationalize and legitimize the hollowing out of the national treasury by his sidekicks. He postulated that if you put a barn full of yams in the custody of a goat, the goat would violate duty and obey instinct.

Under Jonathan’s watch, $20 billion of Nigerian oil revenue went missing. The Central Bank Governor, Lamido Sanusi, raised the issue with the president. Jonathan fired Sanusi …for daring to blow the whistle.

Under Jonathan’s watch, his Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Allison-Madueke, stole $6 billion. She bought multimillion dollar properties all over Nigeria and the world. She collected enough jewelry to mold the Golden Calf all over again.

In recognition of her high stealing quotient, Jonathan appointed her the head of the finance committee of his second term bid declaration event.

The lady would later go on to attempt to buy the election. She organized a widespread bribery operation that compromised electoral officials and obligated them to inflate the ballot figures of candidate Jonathan and rig him to victory.

Jonathan made the office of the National Security Adviser an annex of the Peoples Democratic Party. He permitted the funds earmarked for resourcing the fight against Boko Haram to be funneled to his political campaign. This caused the well-armed terrorists to take over a significant part of Nigerian territory and hundreds of Nigerian soldiers to die in the unequal war.

By the end of the election, Jonathan and his gang had raped the economy into a crisis.

After he departed office, his wife, Patience Jonathan, was found to have salted away $15 million in her bank accounts. She claimed that the money was savings dedicated to her medical treatment. The fortune couldn’t be reasonably explained by her inheritance or work history…or a jackpot she has never won.

Further moves by state agencies to understand Mrs. Jonathan’s other curious assets saw her complain of being witch-hunted. She recently petitioned the House of Representatives, alleging ‘’persistent, consistent, unwarranted personal and physical attacks” on her by the Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and other agencies of the federal government. She thought that the security agencies should have left her in peace because she rejoiced in the nickname, ‘’Mama Peace.’’

Her henpecked husband obviously copied her alarmist whining. Goodluck saw the break-in and looting of his house as an opportunity to whip up public sympathy. His ‘leak’ of the burglary to the press was about narcissist victimhood and pity party.

Truth be told, the Jonathan who looted the Nigeria he was elected to govern had no moral right to protest that his private home was spoiled by the policemen assigned to guard it. The policemen merely micro-mirrored the plunder Jonathan perpetrated against Nigeria. He should have been grateful to be served a gracious dose of karma. Those ‘’modest’’ trivia stolen from his home is nothing compared to the staggering portion of the Nigerian patrimony he and his band of looters expropriated.

The policemen who sacked Jonathan’s house are petty thieves. If he felt outraged that they were so unscrupulous as to strip bare a house they were assigned to safeguard, that’s gross self-righteousness. He has no reason to indict people for the same wrongdoing he did on a monumental scale: he looted the treasury the Nigerian people mandated him to administer.

The policemen who abused their trust have been punished with a job loss: it follows that Jonathan, who committed the heinous crime of weaponizing the Nigerian presidency for treasury banditry, should receive a judicial recompense commensurate with his high treason.

Jonathan lived his early life without shoes. He is now a man of wealth. He has many houses. He can replace the stuff stolen from his Gwarinpa address with ease.

Many Nigerians live in reduced circumstances. Jonathan robbed them. He pushed them further below the poverty line.

The poor policemen robbed one rich man. The rich Jonathan robbed one hundred million poor Nigerians. He is the greater thief.

He was relieved of an infinitesimal fragment of his excess possessions. Yet, he was so pained by the loss that he forgot ‘pardon’. The kind he bestowed on the rich thief, his role model, Alamieyeseigha!

Nigerian justice system is rigged against the poor. That’s why the dismissal of the low-ranked rogue policemen was ”immediate” and that of the senior policemen is imminent.

And the punishment of Jonathan will forever be impossible.

immaugwu@gmail.com

@EmmaUgwuTheMan

Jonathan And The Uniformed Burglars By SOC Okenwa

Former President of Nigeria, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GEJ), remains a big man with multiple problems and scandals. Ever since his historic defeat at the presidential election of 2015 he has been in the news for (mostly) bad reasons. For one, his stewardship in power for close to six giddy years was nothing to write home about. For another, when one considers ‘Dasukigate’ and ‘Diezanigate’ we come to the conclusion that GEJ did more damage to the system than one could have ever imagined. The incarcerated Sambo Dasuki, his ex-National Security Adviser (NSA) had distributed millions of Dollars criminally (funds meant to procure arms and ammunitions for the army waging war against Boko Haram) to cronies and political leeches — whoever was engaged or involved in the ill-fated GEJ re-election bid was handsomely rewarded by the generous son of the late deposed ex-Sultan of Sokoto. Alas after throwing millions of Dollars and billions of Naira into the presidential project it was lost soundly as the APC opposition coalition triumphed in grand style producing the ailing President Muhammadu Buhari.

The fugitive Jezebel, Diezani Allison-Madueke, the former Petroleum Resources super-Minister, had the ears of the failed President having conquered his libido! She became untouchable and stole billions of Dollars with GEJ incapable of calling her to order. Diezani was monumentally corrupt both morally and sexually and GEJ was found to be under her amorous ‘spell’! Regrettably, the scarce resources of the state that should have served other developmental purposes were diverted and squandered ‘servicing’ executive sexual indulgences. What a connubial presidency!

Today, Jonathan is one ex-President whose inability to account for his stewardship is as comparable as asking the late Idi Amin of Uganda how he managed to turn the east African ‘Musevenied’ country into a jungle where anything went. Or the late Mobutu Sese-Seko of how he became richer than the entire former Zaire and now DRC Or better still, the late bloody dictator, Gnassingbe Eyadema, of how Lome became a developing town during his decades in power, a glorified city where the importation and selling of ‘Tokunbo’ vehicles became the only viable economic venture that yielded revenue to the state!

Goodluck Jonathan is a Nigerian presidential tragedy. His cluelessness is as broadly defined as his aloofness, his mediocrity! But the Aremu of Ota, the erstwhile President Olusegun Obasanjo, bears certain responsibility for pushing GEJ indirectly to Aso Villa. The Ota veteran farmer must have had his reasons for doing what he did but the Nigerian national interest was not served by such imposition devoid of class. In any nation where merit or competence is sacrificed on the altar of godfatherism then such society is bound to experience developmental retardation akin to ours.

Recent reports online had it that the Abuja home of the former President Jonathan was burgled with everything stolen! But the burglary was reported to be a ‘special’ operation involving insiders, the mobile policemen stationed there and charged with providing security for the imposing property. The uniformed thieves simply went inside the house and helped themselves raking in millions of Naira in the process. The theft began since last year according to the report culminating in the ‘cleaning’ of whatever valuable a property that was found within. These included scores of plasma televisions, expensive suits with name of GEJ imprinted on them, traditional Ijaw clothes, exorbitant women wrappers, executive furniture, fridges, air-conditioners etc.

Those behind the theft were arrested after an alarm went out and GEJ himself came calling and discovering the systematic dispossession of what could probably be said to have been gift items donated to him by political contractors during his tragic reign as President. He reportedly informed the Inspector-General of Police Ibrahim Idris and the top cop immediately ordered his boys to fish out the culprits. The three or four security men attached to the house were promptly arrested and detained. The ‘kparawos’ are still cooling their heels in a police detention facility awaiting a date with a judge. Breaking news had it that they have been dismissed from the force after a trial that found them guilty.

But the question raised by this bizarre incident and the swift action of the police in apprehending the uniformed burglars is this: If the Abuja property were to have been owned by an ordinary Nigerian without police connections would Idris have swung into action in record time and speed? The major problem with policing in Nigeria is that a whole lot of crooks abound within and abuse the system by abusing their uniforms and/or commissions. They treat ordinary Nigerians with disdain and produce poor performance professionally. Many are content with abusing motorists and taking bribes in broad daylight.

For others still, their meagre salaries are inadequate leading inexorably to the abuse of the corrupt system with impunity. Some frustrated ones among them aid and abet crimes by hiring out their uniforms or even guns to criminals! Others never saw anything wrong engaging in armed robbery, oil bunkering or even terrorism. Abubakar Shekau is audacious and boastfully arrogant because he must have had some informants in the system supplying him with classified information and even ammunitions! That is probably why today Shekau and his gang of marauders continue to torment villages and towns up north meeting little or no resistance.

They violently rob, rape, kill, burn down houses and abduct anyone at will! The much-vaunted claim by the federal government that Boko Haram had been defeated “technically” has somewhat become mendaciously obsolete. As long as Shekau (the green snake living dangerously) is not caged with his head bruised or better still chopped off the battle against the terrorist organization he leads would be a military (mis)adventure without end.

Following the celebrated capture of the notorious kidnapping kingpin, Evans, in Lagos a few months ago it was revealed that his military collaborator, one Victor Chukwunonso, had been apprehended and was helping the police with their investigations. The bad egg in the system made huge fortunes providing cover, information and even personally assisting Evans in his nefarious activity. And when the late Lawrence Anini alias the Law, the dare-devil Oliver Twist-like armed robber, was nabbed and charged to court many years ago in Benin City he had shocked not a few by naming one George Iyamu, a senior police officer, as his point-man, nay hitman, in the police. The late convicted Iyamu gave out vital pieces of information, arms and ammunitions to Anini and his gang as they went about town terrorising banks and citizens!

IGP Idris has a huge task ahead of him given the rot in the system. That the police central command he heads is in dire need of a radical reform is an understatement. There are a lot of criminals inside the force daily denting the image of the police, an image that was at best dented already over time. Idris cannot, in good conscience, claim ignorant of this odious fact. Therefore, he urgently needs to get cracking by undertaking a holistic overhaul, nay restructuring, of the police in tune with the best standard global practices. Otherwise, the situation would remain ever hopeless!

The uniformed burglars that broke into GEJ’s compound in Abuja (that they ordinarily should be protecting) were just exhibiting the typical Nigerian malady of cupidity and indiscipline. They must have felt that by gaining access into the edifice perhaps they would stumble on ‘abandoned’ safe box filled to the brim with foreign currencies. They knew that the EFCC had not too long ago stormed a residential apartment in Ikoyi Lagos and serendipitously discovered staggering millions of Dollars! They must have read in the newspapers or read online about the millions and billions in some bank accounts the EFCC and Dame Patience Jonathan are still fighting over! They must have heard about how politicians now hide their loots in pit latrines, ceilings, water tanks and elsewhere in their grandmother’s homes! They knew, for sure, about the two ‘gates’ that chiefly defined GEJism in terms of heist.

Corruption has effortlessly affected every sector in Nigeria. Stealing whatever is found belonging to the public has since become a hobby for workers and government functionaries at state and federal levels of government. The Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, was right when he recently declared that when it came to stealing the resources of state the divisive issues of the region, religion or tribe did not always matter. He had said this while delivering a lecture. According to him:”There is complete unity in this business of stealing”. Can anyone afford to disagree with him?

SOC Okenwa
soco_abj_2006_rci@hotmail.fr

What is wrong with our president? By Umar Sa’ad Hassan

The rumour mill has been agog with stories that President Buhari could be returning to the country any time soon. This is coming shortly after photos of him with some visiting governors were greeted with wild excitement by his supporters. On the other hand, there couldn’t be a more rueful time for the patriotic Nigerian who places the nation first. That Nigerian is more concerned with the unanswered question: What exactly is President Buhari suffering from? Over the last week, that Nigerian has had to contend with imbecilic comments about how Buhari is overcoming death and how those who have dared to ask questions will die in his place.

We already know his medical costs are expensive enough to be tagged a “matter of national security” by Lai Mohammed, the minister of information. The same Lai Mohammed who demanded daily updates on the late President Yar’Adua’s health from the ministry of information when he was receiving treatment abroad. The country reportedly pays as much as £4,000 daily for the presidential plane parked in London while £1,000 per day is been bandied around as the official sum and even at that rate, we have spent over N43 million on just having a plane ready for him alone.

While the nature of the President’s ailment is serious enough to be kept secret, it bothers the true Nigerian with the best interests of his nation at heart whether he is coming back to stay indoors, sit out FEC meetings and take pictures with files in his office in an attempt to hoodwink us before heading back to his doctors or if he is coming back to face the rigorous job we voted him to do.

His performance while on seat has been lacklustre at best and it baffles me why anyone would overlook the extra burden we have had to contend with. The man simply isn’t fit to be in office.

I still can’t seem to get my head around how a man would plunge his people into hunger,run the country to the brink of disintegration, have them cover his medical expenses and yet return home to a thunderous ovation.

Our number one priority when and If he does get back is to have him disclose to us what he is suffering from. If he conveniently justified his incessant trips abroad in the early days of his administration with claims that he was courting foreign aid and investments, then it is important to know not only if he is going to be around, but also strong enough to do things as “important” as that.

If the federal government thinks medical costs are “matters of national security”, then it would be sheer madness to classify the nature of Buhari’s ailment as such. We need to know in emphatic terms, not only if he is capable of carrying out his duties but also exactly what we are spending our money on. No one expects him to resign any more like he once said he would if he fell very ill because of the luxury of having to treat himself with taxpayers money.

A medical report surfaced online before the 2015 presidential election indicating President Buhari was battling prostrate cancer and some of his photos, especially ones taken since his last return have shown vivid signs of a man undergoing chemotherapy. But all these have stayed in the realm of speculation, we need to be told unequivocally exactly what our ailing president is suffering from.

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President is Holding The Country To Ransom By Samson Toromade

President Buhari has been out of work for 115 days out of the 191 days in 2017 alone.

If I was away from work for 64 days, I’d most probably be unemployed.

The duly elected president of the country, Muhammadu Buhari , has been away from the country since May 7, after departing to London for his second medical leave of the year.

Nobody knows what is wrong with the president. Nobody knows where the president really is. Or if he’ll ever be fit enough to resume his duties.

A conspiracy of silence has been woven around the president’s state of health that it’s hard to ignore rumours that it is a dire one.

Recently, Ekiti state governor, Ayodele Fayose , never one to shy away from unguarded remarks, declared that the president has been on a life support machine since June 6.

This spurious claim is just another in a long line of unsubstantiated narratives surrounding the president’s actual state of health.

At some point, the rumour mill was spinning tales about how the president was already dead.

It’s hard to knock out these claims because, with its deafening silence, the president’s team has created a blank canvas for anyone to paint any story.

Ever since the president of the country has holed up in London, he’s had a single direct interaction with the ‘Nigerian’ people: an audio recording that addressed the

Eid-el Fitr celebration by the country’s Muslim population.

This was a problem for a whole lot of reasons.

Only days prior to the emergence of that tape, Sahara Reporters had claimed that the president had suffered from a speech impairment.

If we pretend for a second that this is a nation that doesn’t function abnormally, this is clearly a claim that, if true, could constitutionally render Buhari incompetent to ever resume his duties as president.

So when an audio recording of the president emerged only days later, it was clearly desperately exploiting the occasion to indirectly redirect the discourse, which it did, albeit, poorly.

The dubiousness of the tape aside, Buhari addressed the country on the theme of unity while he spoke exclusively in Hausa, a language that automatically alienates half of the country’s population that isn’t the president’s kin.

This was another powder keg that set tongues wagging at the president’s insensitivity to the Nigerian population, and it is surprising that the tape went through more than one person on the president’s team without a single one saying, “Hey guys, maybe we should take a minute to talk about this.”

The woeful execution of that tape is just another in the president’s long history of throwing distractions into the wind since he was sworn in.

It was recently claimed that the presidential aircraft parked in London to serve the ‘ailing’ president was raking up an outrageous bill for the country’s pocket and constituted wasteful spending on the president’s part.

Just the next day, the president’s spokesman, Garba Shehu , released a statement saying it only cost a fraction of the figure being bandied about and asked that rumour mongers stop being mischievous with the truth.

This writer understands how (some) presidential protocols work and agrees that no matter what it costs, the commander in chief of any country commands that sort privilege for very obvious reasons. That’s not the problem here.

What’s worrisome here is that Buhari’s team decided to reply to this, at best, social media distraction above many other significant issues. This is the same as the audio being a response to claims of the president suffering from speech impairment.

The president’s team can’t seem to be able to allow accusations against the president’s integrity or his health status lie.

However, they have questionably dodged the most important issue of all; what is up with the president’s health.

Buhari’s team has doused every fire that’s come near him since May 7, it stands out that the only one they have neglected to answer is the one that informs the Nigerian people about what exactly is wrong with the president.

Will they be triggered enough to respond to allegations of the president’s perceived wastefulness? Yes.

Will they craftily, and poorly, respond to allegations of the president losing his ability to speak properly? Yes.

But will they be bothered enough to provide a proper insight into what is the actual problem with the president? LOL.

It appears the reason behind this refusal is they believe since Buhari temporarily transferred power to Acting President Yemi Osinbajo , his campaign promise of transparency is suddenly on pause.

When Buhari was elected President of the country, it wasn’t because he was the best person this country could produce to drive it away from Goodluck Jonathan ‘s chaotic administration; Buhari was elected because he was the most realistic candidate to exploit the country’s ethnically-tainted climate and defeat the incumbent at the time.

This is why, when the opposition came around with claims about Buhari’s poor health, nobody listened.

Not because we didn’t believe it or already know it ourselves, but because we were hopeful and ready to gamble on him anyway because the electorate needed to send a clear message at the time.

That our gamble hasn’t paid off is not necessarily something to regret, but it’s hurtful that Buhari’s team is deliberately sidestepping history here and making the same mistakes over and again.

This ill absent president situation undoubtedly draws parallel to late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua ‘s very similar situation that ended in tragedy only seven years ago.

And what makes this particular one even more duplicitous and hypocritical is that President Buhari was one of the most vocal critics at the time, demanding that Yar’adua make his health issues public or vacate the presidency. Life comes at you fast.

The president is 72, no one realistically expected him to be the paragon of complete health; but honesty on his condition would be a nice gesture, if not a presidential protocol.

Even though the handling of this situation, especially with the transfer of power, has been better than Yar’adua’s situation was, it is still not a good spot for the country to be trapped in.

The president has been out of work for 115 days out of the 191 days in 2017. That’s an attendance record no school student will show their parents at home without expecting to be spanked.

The truth is, despite the impressive work that Osinbajo has done in his stint as Acting President, the looming shadow of Buhari is a dark cloud hanging over the progress of the country.

And while the Senate busies itself with idle talks and petty squabbling with the presidency over what power it wields, the average Nigerian wants to log out of this unbearably docile matrix.

The next time, if ever, the president is thinking about recording a voice note, he might want to update us on what the state of his health is.

And this time, maybe do it in a language we all understand.