BUHARI IS CORRUPT, SURROUNDED BY CORRUPT POLITICIANS, THEREFORE CANNOT FIGHT CORRUPT. It has come to my consciousness that the grounds on which Buhari candidacy is being promoted, solely hinged on a false gospel of I will fight corrupt But, CAN CORRUPTION FIGHT CORRUPTION? If your answer to this question is YES, then there is no reason for you to read further. In fact, I would suggest you switch off your phone. It is pointless for you to read further because this whole piece, is based on the fact that corruption cannot fight corruption, However, if your answer is NO, I believe that corruption cannot fight corruption, I encourage you to read on. Having agreed with me that corruption cannot fight corruption, then the grounds on which General Buhari is being promoted as the alternative choice to Jonathan, are not only shaky, but pitifully naive. History matters, records are not kept simply to assist the weakness of memory, but to operate as guides to the future. In fairness, some of us have known this all along that under Buhari’s watch as Petroleum Minister in the late 1970s, $2.8 billion (worth billions of naira today) was missing from the NNPC account. The matter was subjected to Senate investigation under the chairmanship of late senator Olusola Saraki in 1983. But before the report could be dealt with, Buhari conveniently overthrew the Shagari government in a military coup d’état. Vera Ofudu, an NTA newscaster, later revealed that Saraki told her in an interview that the missing money was traced to Buhari and Obasanjos joint account at Midland Bank in London. For this disclosure, Vera was summarily sacked by the NTA. However, she appealed against her dismissal in court and won. She even received a handsome financial compensation for wrongful dismissal from NTA. Instead of clearing his name as a man of integrity, Buhari refused to appear before the Oputa Panel set up to look into the matter (among under things) by the Obasanjo administration. Buhari claims to be an anti-corruption crusader, nevertheless, he agreed to serve under Sani Abacha, one of the most corrupt Heads-of-State ever in the history of Nigeria. He conspired with Abacha a fellow Northerner, to illegally transfered our money into Abachas private Swiss account. It is abundantly clear that this fabled anti-corruption crusader failed to curb the rampant corruption that prevailed in the PTF under his chairmanship. Nigerians need to be reminded that Group Captain Usman Jibrin, a board member of PTF, resigned from the organization in protest over Buhari’s irregularity in the appointment of consultants. In 2000, the Obasanjo administration set up an Interim Management Committee to look into the affairs of the PTF, under the chairmanship of Haroun Adamu. The Committee discovered that billions of naira was stolen under Buhari’s chairmanship. Now the same Buhari who would not or could not curb corruption in the PTF wants us to believe he will fight corruption as president of Nigeria. However, he has chosen the APC as the political platform on which to undertake this. But the APC is an unscrupulous political party that is chock-full with corrupt politicians. It is the party of Murtala Nyako who was impeached as governor of Adamawa State for converting state money to personal use, it is the party the former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar who in 2006 accepted bribe from United States Congressman, Mr. William Jefferson to secure a business for him in Nigeria. It is the party of Tinubu who has succeeded in converting Lagos state to his personal estate, it is the party where Buhari himself and others went cap-in-hand to Ota to beg Obasanjo to be their “navigator.” Surely Buhari knows that he cannot fight corruption by being the presidential candidate of the APC. Whatever anti-corruption crusading Buhari had in him in the past must have ended when he decided to join the APC. Should he become president, does he intend to probe his corrupt party-members? Has he made them understand he would be coming after them once elected? If he has, does he really expect them to help him get elected so he can retrieve their stolen loot and send them off to jail? A 72 year-old man with Buhari’s experience, who was overthrown in a preemptive coup by members of his own government, knows that in Nigeria, nobody gets elected as president on the platform that he is going to be an anti-corruption crusader when he gets into office. That is a sure signal for all the politicians in all the parties to gang up against him and make sure he never makes it. If you really want to be anti-corruption, you have to keep your mouth shut about your plans until you get elected and then catch your corrupt colleagues by surprise. You must also have resolved not to seek re-election for a second- term. It is not only the populace, but the politicians in particular, who insist on “stomach infrastructure.” But if you are talking anti- corruption while still seeking the nomination of your party, it must be because it is well known to your corrupt colleagues that your anti-corruption stance is merely for public consumption. It is not surprising, therefore, that despite all the noise about anti-corruption coming from Buhari and his cohorts; he has failed to fight against corruption in the APC. We did not hear him raise a voice against the incongruity of a so-called progressive party demanding a cynical nomination fee of 27.5 million naira for its presidential primaries. One would have expected a truly anti- corruption crusader to make the point that the nomination fee is unacceptable. Instead, Buhari readily acquiesced to the requirement in order to safeguard his all-important presidential ambitions. Since Buhari cannot, or does not, fight against this corrupting nomination fee in the APC, and insist on its reduction to something far more reasonable, how can he expect us to believe that as president in a political system with the separation of powers; against a legislature likely to be controlled by the PDP; he would be able to fight corruption? Somebody is fooling somebody here. Or else, somebody is living in a cloud cuckoo land. Charity, they say, begins at home. If Buhari is truly anti-corruption, he should begin his crusade in the APC. Is it progressive for a political party in Nigeria to ask its candidates to come up with 27.5 million just for the nomination papers for an election where only one person will emerge as the winner? Is it not corrupt politicians that are likely to have this type of easy-come easy-go money? Is this not an open invitation for the winner, if he actually manages to secure election to the presidency, to recoup this extortionate fee from public funds? What shall I more say, for time and space would fail me to tell more about Buharis many corrupt practices. have we so quickly forgotten that Buhari @ 72 lied in an affidavit which he swear to, before the federal high court that his original certificates were with the military secretary board, a claim which met with a firm rebuttal from the military. Nigerians be wise.
Posted on: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 22:48:48 +0000
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