Okonjo-Iweala said 400,000 barrels was being stolen daily. Other credible authorities have put the figure at more than 800,000 barrels on a good day for the thieves. And it is clear that if Jonathan does not wake up from his long slumber, the amount of oil stolen daily will surpass the amount left to run the country. I don’t even know whether Jonathan understands the job description of the office of president of a nation. I cannot imagine how someone can be president and yet keeps asking other people to do the job of president for him. That is how, not long ago, Jonathan called on General Muhammadu Buhari to help him fix the Boko Haram crisis. And now he is asking foreign leaders to help him solve the problem of oil theft, bunkering and pipeline vandalism. Maybe the president will soon call on APC leaders to help him solve the problem of massive corruption in his government, which by the way is the real reason his government is running out of cash. Pipeline vandalism and oil theft are surely bleeding the economy but it is the corruption within the Jonathan government (which includes the oil theft anyway) that has virtually grounded the economy. How would you not run out of cash when N1.6 trillion has been stolen in the name of fuel subsidy in one single year, and, now that election talk is in the air again, the whole stealing process is about to start all over again simply because nothing happened to the thieves of the last election season? And somebody is surprised that Nigeria is running out of cash? Why should the nation not run out of cash when over N100 billion of pension funds has been stolen and the federal government appears to be protecting some of the thieves? How won’t Nigeria run out of cash when it has been estimated that an average of $1 billion is stolen daily from the nation’s coffers without consequences? Until Jonathan begins to define corruption as a serious transgression against the nation and its people, he is going to drive Nigeria over the precipice. At the moment, he does not think corruption is a crime at all, and his lips and body language have given him away on the matter. Whenever anyone attempts to talk to him about the stinking corruption around him, he gets visibly upset. Not too long ago, in response to those complaining about the corruption in his government, he declared that those who accused his government of corruption were more corrupt. That’s wonderful! What that means in plain language is that he accepts the fact that his government is corrupt; but even more troubling is what he didn’t say: if he knows those who are “more corrupt” than his government, what has he done? On another occasion, he declared that he does not “give a damn” on a vital issue regarding the fight against corruption. And, as his own seminal contribution to the art and science of governance, he recruited a militant who had been implicated in the theft of oil and handed the maritime security of the nation to him without any hint of irony or compunction. He then shared pipeline security contracts to other militants. And this man is surprised that the nation is being stolen dry? Sometimes, governance and leadership is a simple matter of common sense. Maybe it is better for the nation to finally collapse under the weight of this free-for-all stealing that is currently going on. Maybe, just maybe, that is the trigger we need before we finally experience our own “Arab Spring”.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 14:50:16 +0000
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