By Louis Odion, FNGE
"...I
found out that some officers were spending money. I asked, 'Where did
they get the money from?' They said it was from the Military
Intelligence fund... Later, I learnt that General Aliyu Gusau who was in
charge of intelligence took import licence from the Ministry of
Commerce, which was in charge of supplies, and gave it to Alhaji Mai
Deribe. It was worth N100,000, a lot of money then. When I discovered
this, I confronted them and took the case (to) the army council... I
said if I didn't punish Aliyu Gusau, it will create a problem for us...
So I said General Aliyu Gusau had to go. He was the chief of
intelligence. That was why Babangida got some officers to remove me."
With
the foregoing account, President Muhammadu Buhari has sensationally
reopened a deep wound the nation has nursed for the past 31 years. In
disrobing the Daura-born general in the palace coup of August 27, 1985,
his failings listed by erstwhile comrades included arrogance,
inflexibility and emptiness.
In the December 2015 edition of The
Interview magazine, General Ibrahim Babangida had dismissed the notion
that there was an ulterior motive other than the catalogue of
transgressions read by Brigadier Nimyel Dogonyaro in the dawn broadcast
announcing Buhari's ouster.
Asked if the coup was prompted by the
fear of imminent censure by the Buhari administration, Babangida stated:
"Do not forget that I was one of Buhari's closest aides. I was the
Chief of Army Staff. So I had an important position, an important role
to play within that administration. I don't think it had to do with a
memo."
But in the conversation published in the current edition of
wave-making The Interview, not only did the president dismiss IBB's
theory as false, he laid bare the acute moral bankruptcy of those who
brought his reign as military head of state to an abrupt end. According
to him, the desperation of a few tainted generals to evade justice,
rather than national interest, inspired the regime change then. And in
what could perhaps be described the most pointed challenge in recent
history, he dared Babangida and Gusau to controvert him: "Let him
(General Babangida) repeat his own story. Aliyu Gusau is still alive."
Buhari's
revelation only adds to the existing and by far more salacious myth of
Gloria Okon often whispered in informal public chat. Back then, the
media had reported the arrest of one Ms. Gloria Okon while allegedly
trying to smuggle hard drugs out of the country at a time the
no-nonsense Buhari regime had imposed capital punishment on such. In
fact, same law had already been invoked retroactively to publicly
execute some Nigerians for attempting to smuggle heroine.
So,
naturally, there were fears that Okon would be next on the death-row.
Then, a twist. The rest of the suspenseful drama is already meticulously
captured in a documentation by the nation's leading legal historian and
consistent human rights crusader, Richard Akinnola. It turned out that
the suspect was reportedly only a courier for a powerful figure in the
sitting military administration.
Soon afterward, the nation was told
the suspect had suddenly dropped dead in custody! But in reality, the
real Gloria Okon was said to have been smuggled out in a high-stake
conspiracy while the corpse of someone's else was presented as hers. The
then commander-in-chief smelt a rat and set up a panel to unravel the
mystery. It happened that before the panel could submit its report,
power had changed hands at Dodan Barracks! End of inquiry. A year or two
later, the real Okon was reportedly sighted at a high-society soirée in
London, attended by the glamorous spouse of a key figure in the
government of the day!
Another account, though unsubstantiated,
states that it was the general who arranged the escape from custody of
the real Gloria Okon who later found himself ironically being implicated
in a subsequent coup plot and was eventually executed alongside other
convicted co-conspirators. A further twist was brought to the narrative
with the claim that it was in an attempt by a Lagos-based news magazine
to piece all these dark happenings together into a thriller cover-story
that eventuated in its chief editor being bombed to death one Sunday
morning in Lagos. This October marks the thirtieth anniversary of the
assassination of star journalist Dele Giwa.
While circumstantial
evidence may weigh heavily in public opinion, it is less admissible in
the court of law. So, for now, in the absence of cogent proof, the
Gloria Okon story will, at best, still be entertained as merely
speculative, if not entirely fictitious.
But with Buhari's weighty
salvo in The Interview, IBB, undeniably a key player in the nation's
political history in the past four decades, has undoubtedly now been put
on the spot, from where there seems no easy escape. Silence is
sometimes romanticized as golden. But not in the present circumstance.
How the self-styled military president explains the weighty charge may
now effectively define his place in history as either an unacknowledged
saint or the ultimate patriarch of grand larceny.
Well, there is no
doubt about Buhari's motive for revealing a dark secret. Time is said to
be the greatest healer. But it is obvious Buhari will carry the
bitterness of 1985 to his grave. Attempts by some do-gooders to
reconcile them over the years have only achieved cosmetic results. Deep
down in Buhari's heart is the hurt from the pain of losing power and the
trauma of his subsequent ordeal in custody. For instance, when Buhari
lost his mother, IBB refused to allow him one last opportunity, even if
on compassionate grounds, to see her remains before burial. Just as
another account says that the "irreconcilable differences" that led to
the collapse of his first marriage to Safinatu arose from how she chose
to comport herself around his traducers while he was languishing in
solitary detention in Benin.
Tellingly, Sambo Dasuki currently at the
centre of $15b arms fund scam was part of the team that physically
seized Buhari from his residence on August 27, 1985 and would end up as
one of the influential "IBB boys" who wielded enormous power between
1985 and 1993.
But any allusion to Buhari's ancient malice will
hardly provide any back-door for IBB to escape scrutiny here. For at
issue is the question of public morality. Could it be possible that the
nation was deceived and taken for a ride then with the quest to protect
the illicit transaction of a few greedy generals falsely presented so
seductively as a patriotic intervention to defend national interest?
From
Buhari's sketch of Gusau, the caricature that emerges is that of a
buccaneer, a profiteer ready to barter public trust away for material
gain. It gets more disturbing considering that he is easily regarded
today as the most influential player in the nation's intelligence
community in the last three decades during which he was recycled as
national security adviser by successive administrations.
It is open
secret that the Zamfara-born general directed single-handed the drafting
of Olusegun Obasanjo by the military establishment to becoming the
president-elect in 1999 on PDP's platform. Going by this damning
testimonial of his one-time boss, how are we now to believe the stated
value deficit did not also corrode all Gusau's later engagements in
public office? Worse still, here is a man who could have ended up as
elected civilian president in 2007 and 2011 having put up a strong bid
in the PDP primaries.
Taken together, in case IBB prefers to shy away
from Buhari's categorical claim that graft was at the bottom of his
overthrow in 1985, the Minna-born general risks having his reputation
further cemented in infamy as one who formally inaugurated sleaze as the
cornerstone of governance in the nation's history. If corruption has
now morphed into a humongous industry today, some historians have always
identified the man fondly called Maradona as the one who provided the
seed capital decades ago.
Such reading is based on empirical proofs.
His rise in 1985 is seen as signposting not just the shift in the
character of national politics, but values as well. As months rolled by,
every thing the nation had held high was cheapened. No measure was
considered too extreme nor institution too sacred in the ensuing orgy of
contamination. Even in music, vulgarity became the new lyrics as
fast-tempo beat gradually displaced meditative sound of old that placed
more emphasis on philosophical messages.
In social space, the culture of "settlement" supplanted the tradition of due process. Ostentation replaced modesty.
In
the academia, violent cultism soon overshadowed the chivalrous
exuberance of what used to be known as student confraternity as might
became valorized over right. Outside, philistinism flourished as some
palace intellectuals formed a cult around the crafty general who seemed
to prefer the ill-fitting apparel of a philosopher-king. Just as the
state clamped down on "undue radicals" in the varsity classrooms intent
on "teaching what they are not paid to teach."
At a personal level,
IBB was quick at prefacing any commitment in the public with the chant
of "Insha Allah", but his deed later often reflected a willful betrayal
of that solemn invocation. He was never in short supply of great
fanciful ideas. But lacking personal disciple, whatever he planted with
the right hand was soon subverted with the left as cronies were issued
blank cheques to plunder such undertakings.
By the account of now
late Pius Okigbo, foremost economist, a staggering $12.8b of the 1990/91
oil windfall could not be accounted for under IBB.
Where the
cultural damage inflicted on the nation is perhaps most deep and
enduring is politics. In a fevered bid to clone a new generation of
actors in his own grotesque image with little or no ethical grounding,
the national landscape was soon besieged by monstrous creatures. An
affliction that has in turn haunted the nation till date as it became
fashionable to play politics without principle, with parties seen merely
as a make-shift vehicle to capture without fidelity to any ideology.
As
the genetic re-engineering continued in Babangida's derelict lab, the
test-tube babies that mutated were laughably christened "new-breed
politicians" to be engaged in what at the time became the
longest-running transition programme in modern history, guzzling
estimated colossal N40b (when naira was still strong) by the time it
finally unravelled in the June 12 crisis of 1993.
Actors in
Babangida's political roulette were banned, unbanned and re-banned in a
manner that defied logic nor accord respect to human dignity.
But, as
events later revealed, behind all the chicanery of eight years was
Babangida's incestuous desire to parlay the entire transition programme
to his own coronation as civilian president. By the time he was forced
to surrender power in August 1993, Babangida left the nation in the cusp
of chaos.
In summary, IBB's eight reign set the nation on a ruinous
course from which she is yet to recover. A cardinal sin for which he is
yet to atone, let alone show any remorse.
*Kenwood Dogara: The shame of a nation*
Following
report that a member of parliament (MP) had defrauded British taxpayers
of a "modest" £20,000 some years ago, hell was literally let loose in
the United Kingdom. It was not until David Chaytor had been sentenced to
18 months in prison in 2011 after a speedy trial that the media and
watchdog groups finally relented.
Chaytor, who represented Bury
North, was convicted at Southwark Crown Court where he pleaded guilty to
three charges on false accounting of over £20,000 (less than N9m
today). He could have earned a maximum 7 years had he not taken the wise
option of owning up and pleading guilty.
He had pilfered the money
by claiming rent for his own flat in London and rent for a house in Bury
owned by his mother. He falsely produced a tenancy agreement which said
he was paying £1,175 as monthly rent.
Now, the Nigerian media has
been awash in the past few days with reports of an alleged monumental
scam involving the leadership of the House of Reps and hundreds of
billions of taxpayers' money and business seems to be continuing as
usual at the lower legislative chamber with the rest of the country
watching with amusement, rather than outrage.
Last week, a falling
out between principal officers of the House led to the "resignation" of
Abdulmumin Jibrin as the chairman of the Appropriation Committee. An
embittered Jibrin chose not to exit without opening the Pandora Box. He
pointedly accused the Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, of offering a rogue
leadership alongside three other principal officers namely Deputy
Speaker Yusuf Lasun, Whip Alhassan Doguwa and Minority Leo Ogor.
Specifically,
he accused the Speaker of greedily cornering to himself and three
principal officers a whopping N40b out of the N100b earmarked for
Constituency projects in the 2016 budget.
The original 2016
appropriation bill brought by the presidency had allocated N60b for
constituency projects. Jibrin claims to have documentary evidence where
the Speaker directed a topping up of N40b and re-ordering the allocation
formula in the same manner a typical butcher would, by the swish of the
knife, divide the meat on the slaughter slab.
He did not stop there.
He also accused the Speaker of a slew of other financial malfeasance
and corporate extortions too lurid to be restated here.
Expectedly,
the accused have counter-punched, accusing Jibrin of not only being the
culprit of the last padding scandal that delayed the passage of the 2016
budget months back but also complicit in past illegal injection of
extraneous provisions into the appropriation bills submitted by the
executive arm of government.
At this writing, the orgy of accusations
and counter-accusations had degenerated to a point where Jibrin alleged
threat to his life while the Speaker on the other hand demanded that
the "libelous" statement against him be retracted.
Overall, serious
issues have inadvertently been raised by the throwing of mud at the
House in the past week. The litany of claims and counter-claims put a
big question mark on the moral integrity of the House leadership as
presently constituted under Dogara. It speaks directly to the culture of
greed, shamelessness, cant and profanity now mistaken for legislature
in Nigeria.
Rather than issue ultimatum for Jibrin to withdraw his
statement, the least one therefore expects of Dogara and others accused
is to step aside, even if temporarily, to allow an independent
investigation of the matter. The allegations are far too weighty for the
Speaker to continue to sit pretty and pretend all is well. What is
involved is people's money running into hundreds of billion.
Perhaps,
the latest incident will afford us the opportunity to interrogate the
essence and sustainability of the so-called "constituency projects".
Often than not, it is a euphemism for the head where the pecuniary
interests of members are satiated. Those who conceived the idea in a
democracy may have meant well. But the operation in our own environment
is quite problematic.
The lawmakers would rather they be allowed to
personally draw down the vote to "execute" a project of their own
choosing or be allowed to nominate the contractors. So, the question is:
how wholesome is such arrangement? Ideally, the business of legislature
is to make laws, not executing contracts. At best, legislators can
perform oversight during the execution of such. To think otherwise is to
create room for corrupt practices.
When such "projects" are executed
at all, the standard practice among the legislators is to privatize
same. Usually, a giant bill-board bearing the life-size image of the
respective lawmaker will be hoisted there giving the false impression
that it is a personal donation from the representative to the
constituency.
Time has come to sanitize the idea.
Sources
at the anti-graft agency later told SaharaReporters that officials of
the government had placed a freeze order on information about the raids
it had carried out on the company’s offices in Abuja and Lagos.
