Adeolu Ademoyo: In the name of our heroes dead and
living, I say that Messers Oronsaye and Otti are a public disgrace to
Nigeria and Nigerian children
As I returned from a weekend Nigerian
event here in the US, I got a call. The caller called my attention to
(i) our February essay “Ribadu And The Metaphor Of a Moral Call” and
(ii) the submission of the Ribadu Panel report. The caller is a
patriotic Nigerian. From day One, the caller and I took different
positions on whether Ribadu should accept the task from President
Jonathan. I said Ribadu should, the caller then disagreed. Like all
Nigerians, we waited with bated breadth for the outcome of the work of
the Ribadu panel. In that essay, from a moral point, I defended why
Ribadu ought to serve Nigerians by accepting President Jonathan’s call.
With the submission of the report and
Messers Oronsaye and Otti’s outbursts, the caller wanted me to see why
unfortunately he was right that Ribadu ought not to have served the
country in that capacity. If given Messers Oronsaye and Otti’s outburst
and if my caller was right that Ribadu ought not to have accepted the
task, was I then wrong to have argued that Ribadu ought to accept to
serve the country? I do not think so. However, then and now, this is
the way the moral question is put and will always be put.
I had written at the time: “But this
moral question has an indivisible duality to it. Mr. Ribadu’s
historical task is that of a moral agent which serves as: (i) a common
resource, which is a universal estate of all Nigerians; and (ii) and the
cleansing mechanism of an industry, which is a cesspool of corruption.
A moral agent is a public agent
answerable only to the public even if the “enabling factor” for its
emergence is a morally corrupt government such as Mr. Goodluck
Jonathan’s government. We have good examples in the history of our
country to illustrate these “moral calls” on some of our uniquely placed
compatriots with strong moral talents and virtues. Dr. Tai Solarin’s
work as the head of Nigeria’s public complaints commission is just one
example.
Invariably, moral talents such as Mr.
Ribadu are always caught in the dilemma of either keeping their talents
to themselves, privatize such talents, or putting them at the service of
the people. The problem with our country is that moral talents live
paradoxical lives because they are constantly faced with the moral
challenge to serve or not to serve; and tragically, Nigeria has never
had the good fortune of the correct enabling factor of governance to
harvest all the moral talents that abound, and make them work for the
public good.” (PREMIUM TIMES, February 12, 2012).
I place this defence before readers, and
I invite them to fault on basis of reason my defence that Ribadu should
serve. I believe that my defense was right then and now. But I concede
that I failed to anticipate Messers Stephen Oronsaye and Bon Otti
immorality and their service of Mammon.
Let us pretend that similar attempts at
investigating oil subsidy which led to the “Farouk Lawan /Otedola”
stalemate does not exist. Please I am not drawing a complete analogy
here because Farouk Lawan is not a moral analogy of Ribadu even when
Otedola (in Farouk Lawan case) is a moral analogy of Stephen Oronsaye
and Bon Otti (in Ribadu case). So let us cover our eyes and pretend
that the two cases are different.
Since the need to be faithful to facts
is crucial in this season, I will present what the panel members say in
their own words. Mr. Stephen Oronsaye and Mr. Ben Oti argued against
the submission of the Ribadu report as it is on procedural ground
because according to them the “process” at arriving at the report is
“faulty”. Mr. Oronsaye said: “No matter how elegant a house may be, if
it is built on faulty foundation it will collapse…” Suppose Mr.
Oronsaye had told Nigerians all the truth and facts in his assertions,
his objection is therefore not about the content of the report but about
the process of arriving at the content-a content Oronsaye had described
as “harsh”.
A member of the panel countered Mr.
Oronsaye and said while members sent their views on the report to be
submitted and a timeline was set, Messers Oronsaye and Otti did not
send their views.
Mr. Ribadu, the panel chairman observed
that though the panel worked for about 90 days, Mr. Oronsaye was
consistently absent for and from he panel’s work. Mr. Oronsaye attended
ONLY ONE MEETING. Though impossible, but suppose the only ONE DAY
meeting Mr. Oronsaye attended lasted for fifteen hours, it means Mr.
Oronsaye who is the deputy chair of the panel WORKED FOR ONLY FIFTEEN
HOURS out of 90 WORKDAYS OF THE PANEL.
Mr. Ribadu asserted further that the
panel was set up as “an outside of industry panel” . My understanding of
this feature of the panel is that it is conceived as an “outside of
industry panel” to fulfill a basic test of moral objectivity in its
work. But Mr. Ribadu observed that during the time the panel started
working, Mr. Oronsaye became a member of he NNPC board, and Mr. Bon Otti
became the Chief Director of Finance of NNPC. NNPC is one of the units
the Ribadu panel is supposed to investigate.
In view of these stated facts the
following is the moral question. Even if Messers Oronsanye and Otti are
right about process, should they have continued to be members of the
Ribadu panel after they became officials of NNPC –one of the units under
investigation? Shouldn’t they have refused the NNPC jobs or resign
honourably from the Ribadu panel? In an ethical situation, the claim of
an agent is irredeemably flawed if there is a conflict of interest.
And there is one in the case of Messers Oronsaye and Otti.
A moral conflict of interest is a higher
moral question than Oronsaye’s “process”. Or paradoxically, it is not
impossible that Mr. Oronsaye was actually referring to himself and Mr.
Otti’s NNPC jobs when he talked about a “flawed process” and a “fault”
for he ought to know that he and Mr. Otti have compromised themselves on
the Ribadu panel by taking the NNPC jobs. In other words, Mr. Oronsaye
was being autobiographical in his so-called questioning of the panel.
Given their moral conflict of interest, Messers Oronsaye and Otti are
actually the flawed moral process and fault line Mr. Oronsaye referred
to. The problem is that they refused to resign because hey had an
immoral and dubious job to do as plants in the panel.
Beside the fact that Mr. Oronsaye worked
for less than a day on a task that lasted for about 90 days, there is
an avoidable conflict of interest in his and Mr. Bon Otti’s continuous
participation in the Ribadu panel. These two men refused to resolve
that moral conflict of interest. They waited as “members” of the panel
until the day of submission to raise a “procedural issue”. Messers
Oronsaye and Otti’s continuous membership of the panel and their morally
dishonest “outburst” is analogous to a rapist being asked to
investigate his own act of rape!
In the Diaspora, one’s family is one’s
first Nigerian community. My family and I listened to the tape and the
assertions of some members of the panel. After we finished listening to
this tape on PREMIUM TIMES, my eldest child looked at me straight in
the eyes in the American style straight talk and immediately took his
eyes away in deference to the African moral code of “ as a child you
do not look your elders in the face even when you are right”. But he
asked “Papa, you said we should love Nigeria, yes we will, but who is
Mr. Oronsaye?”
This is my son. I am his father. I am
African. I am Nigerian, yet I could not look my son straight in the
face for my face dropped embarrassingly at what we so-called fathers and
adults do to our children by being morally fraudulent right before our
children. I felt ashamed about the intense and sickening immorality in
what this men who are parents too, these fathers called Messers
Oronsaye and Otti had done to our children. Mr. Oronsaye worked for
less than a day on a task of 90 days and he talked about “a procedural
issue”!. Messers Oronsaye and Otti were appointed as members of a
“Ribadu outside the industry” independent panel to ensure moral
objectivity, Messers Oronsaye and Otti went to mammon to eat, they went
into the same industry to take jobs during the lifetime of the panel.
On the basis of these I make the
following assertions. I own this opinion, it is mine and I free the
PREMIUM TIMES from any prosecution. I am putting myself on the line for
Messers Oronsaye and Otti to take me to court for defamation. In the
name of our heroes dead and living who beckon us to say the truth to
help our dear country, I say that Messers Oronsaye and Otti are a public
disgrace to Nigeria and Nigerian children. They are the moral fault
line who were deliberately planted in the Ribadu panel to attempt to
‘rubbish” the panel’s work after the fact. They are the Otedola in the
Ribadu panel. They have lost the respect of at least one Nigerian child.
They are beneath contempt for they are pieces of worthless rags. They
do not deserve to serve in any capacity in any Nigerian institution.
I challenge Messers Oronsaye and Otti to
take me to court for public defamation. My son and I will be in Lagos
or Abuja or any Nigerian court at cost to myself – in other words at no
cost to anyone except myself. The only condition I will ask of the
court is that the court allows me to publicly point Messers Oronsaye and
Otti to my son. My son had asked who these men are. I want my son to
know face to face those who continue to destroy and desecrate our dear
country and the future of our youths. These disgraceful and morally
questionable characters are also free to bring their children to court.
PremiumTimes
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