MONDAY LINES NIGERIA’S ALI BABA AND THE 40 THIEVES Lasisi Olagunju The story of two kids of different orientations on power, its opulence and corruptive tendencies caught the attention of the Bishop of Zonkwa Diocese of the Anglican Communion, the Right Reverend Jacob Kwashi at the 27th posthumous birthday anniversary of Chief Obafemi Awolowo at Ikenne, Ogun State, on Thursday. The first boy is a three-year-old who saw, firsthand, the glitz, glamour, and the sheer street display of raw power that regularly travels with governors’ convoys in Nigeria. He saw one pass by his father’s house and was wowed so much he decided to kneel before his Maker that evening: “Lord, empower me to become a politician...” His mother, surprised at her boy’s prayer request, asked him why and his explanation was what he saw earlier that day. Somewhere else, at some other time, was another three-year old boy who had been conditioned at home to see every problem everywhere as a direct consequence of corruption. He was asked to lead the family in prayers at dinner one evening and he prayed: “Lord, God, help destroy and remove every corruption in this food...’’ His alarmed parents were not told before they opened their eyes and took time to lecture him on how and why corruption could not be in the meal before him. Those two kids were products of their environment. That was why I laughed when I saw opinions sharply divided over the United States’ report talking about worsening corruption in Nigeria under the Jonathan presidency. It became even more interesting when persons who do not cut any hue of moral difference from the accused shout at the top of the voices. More particularly interesting is the fact that the division is not on whether or not Nigerians eat corruption and wash it down their throats with water of sleaze. It is rather on whether Goodluck Jonathan sleeps with or slaps corruption. The division has been on whether the president’s body language is that of I -don’t- care or one of corrective trepidation and concern for the future. No matter how hurt we are by American reports, the U.S. will continue to write damning reports about institutions and persons who refuse to live above sentimental aloofness when they are expected to confront corrupting and corruptive demons. A nation that worships money cannot build castles of peace and morality. Such values do not cohabit. When former U.S. president Bill Clinton pardoned convicted billionaire Marc Rich hours before he left the White House in 2001, the entire country was appalled at the depth of the depravity that informed that decision. Flich fled from the law in the U.S. to Switzerland in 1983 after he was indicted by a U.S. federal grand jury on more than 50 counts of “fraud, racketeering, trading with Iran during the U.S. Embassy hostage crisis and evading more than $48 million in income taxes — crimes that could have earned him more than 300 years in prison.” But on January 20, 2001, even with the full knowledge that the billionaire remained on the Federal Bureau of Investigations’ Most Wanted List, Clinton still granted him pardon. The ex-president’s Democratic Party in 2000 was alleged to have received $201,000 from the man’s ex-wife. Clinton had the constitutional powers to pardon anyone and he did just that. But in using that power, he clearly assaulted the resilient moral fibre of the American nation and the uproar that followed the act underscored that fact. But the ex-president expected the outrage which was why he waited and did it on his very last day in office. Our own President Goodluck Jonathan did pardon a Diepreye Alamieyeseigha who had similarly been convicted of financial crimes. Jonathan did his own at the very start of his first term and the odium has since then continued to follow his every gesture. The difference between the two presidents in those two cases is the scale upon which they put public opinion and the seats they occupy. I don’t know if President Jonathan and his handlers have ever noticed that the Alams fiasco is always brought forward in every corruption report that comes from the West. It looks like it will follow this presidency forever... The U.S. report was not partisan. It gave no party any clean bill. Rather, it was a blind shot into the market of the Nigerian political class. It was like a mass failure report and I wonder how any opposition party would use that against anyone. Here, like the 40 thieves’ well-lit cavern, all are rogues, including all Ali Babas who steal from the robbers...Nation builders are never account builders, Oby Ezekwezili told chieftains of the All Progressives Congress (APC) at their event last Thursday. But that assemblage she addressed was a clear mass of account builders. In that huge crowd were individuals who are proud owners of towers of sleaze and graft. As the woman spoke and those guys feigned applause for her daring rebuke and verdict that they represented no change, I chuckled. I laughed because Oby rammed the nail in with her wicked verdict suggesting that in the abattoir of power in Nigeria, what matters is the flesh of the cows not the colour of partisan bowls.
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 14:50:14 +0000
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