Ambassadorial Appointments:

In what circumstance, considering our capacity for diplomatic effectiveness, was people like respectable (Dr.) Christopher Kolade appointed the High Commissioner of Nigeria to Britain? If you are interested, check his antecedents and tell us where he is connected with foreign service, international relations or diplomacy. This man could be more useful to the nation in the area of manufacture and trade, a vital aspect of our economy, considering the role and interest of Cadbury as a major business conglomerate in Nigeria. The appointment of retired Justice Bola Ajibola to Britain before Christopher Kolade's was sensible and acceptable to the diplomatic world. Retired Justice Ajibola was a practicing lawyer, a former president of the Nigerian Bar Association, a former Attorney-General of Nigeria in Babangida's dictatorship and last a Judge of the International Court of Justice in The Hague. As a political appointee, Mr Bola Ajibola fits perfectly well enough into diplomacy.

A few years back, Obasanjo's presidency argued and justified the issuance of 'national identity' cards for Nigerians. A huge amount of money which could have been used to create more jobs to reduce un-employment, build a greater capacity to produce more potable water for our people, maintain the federal highways in order to reduce unnecessary motor accidents and provide other social services to the people, became squandered without accountability. How many Nigerians carry identity cards provided by the Federal government today or at any other given time? If they do, where and for what purpose are they required to be used? Aside from exposing our gross incompetence, in terms of our absolute failure, to provide the much hyped and publicized production and distribution of the so-called identity cards, the entire policy and all its celebrated execution was a huge waste of time and money resulting in a compounded nullity. Today, the idea is dead and no one is asking any questions or raising any dust. The tax-payers money that went into the officials and contractors hands can no longer be accounted for. What a government? The federal government should think of embarking on issuing a social security number series to Nigerians for economic security purposes. No contract is required to effect this kind of program. All our federal government has to do is to rigorously promote data collection, its security and its back-up system. This kind of developmental technology is over-due in today's Nigeria but our leaders are too busy stealing the tax-payers money, wasting public resources, laundering millions and billions of naira overseas, and depriving our huge poor population their fair share of Nigeria's wealth.

Is it not worrisome to learn that some of our Navy men could afford to collude with robbers on high-seas to steal our nation's petroleum? Is it not depressing enough to also learn that some army officers and some Police personnel relate with the Niger Delta militants, and highway and bank robbers respectively to break ours laws and oppress the society they are trained and  professionally obliged to protect? This is the current situation in the nation that the present political leaders are building. Can they succeed? Kindly attempt to answer the question and suggest what is to be done. I do not hesitate to identify most governors and chairmen of Local governments throughout the length and breath of our country as money launderers, thieves and criminals who steal public money put in their trust without regret. Those who benefit from their governors' largess sing their praise and vehemently defend their masters' political interest and ego everywhere.  Allegedly, most of these evil doers who pose as political leaders have killer squads, who are adequately maintained and employed to take the lives of their political opponents or perceived political enemies who are seen as obstructions to their inordinate ambitions.

But for reasons of irresponsible exuberance and successful mass brain washing, why would poor people of mean economic conditions joyfully welcome criminal governors who have been tried and convicted in law courts or are being tried.  It is amazing to see governors Alamieyesiegha, Ibori, Odili, Ogbemudia, Fayose, Kalu and several others who are protected by the constitutional immunity clause being given hero's welcome in their various states. Have people been so much brain-washed to the point of acquiring Alz-heim-er's  disease? Is n't this an example of the people paying the wages of bad governance, corruption, indiscipline and ignorance? What else could it be? Are they happy for being made miserable by these governors?

Until lately, the Judiciary had not distinguished itself as the last institution for hope and justice for Nigerians. Some Judges could be trusted to deliver justice without fear or favour while others were unreliable like the weather. But since Justice Modibbo Belgore was appointed the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, the Judiciary has changed for a better and bolder delivery of justice to our nation. Otherwise, is it conceivable that the presidency of Obasanjo could lose as many cases to Abubakar Atiku, his Vice President, in their series if political skirmishes.?  Chief Justice Alfa Belgore, the recently retired Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, seemed to have opened the judicial doors wider for greater responsibility, reliability and composite justice without fear or favour.  Chief Justice Belgore who assumed the Chief Justice position less than a year before reaching the retiring age, would not accept an extension of his tenure on principle when freely offered. In spite of this laudable leadership example, there are still bad judges and magistrates on the Nigerian bench. They exist in Oyo, Anambra, Enugu and several  other states where politicians push them around like football or baby toys. They run political errands in dispensing their constitutional duties to the detriment of our nation's growth and development. They receive kickbacks and fail in their duty to honour and respect the tradition associated with the judicial arm of government as the final arbiter of justice.

A good number of members of the National Assembly, that is, the Senators and members of the House of Representatives are empty heads who have no idea about what they are there to do. The empty heads among them rely on the ability of the few who are well educated and competent to bear the responsibilities of legislation for a developing national society. One would discover that despite the existence of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, there is racketeering of certificates of educational qualification in the House of Representatives. They made up a list of meaningless and senseless allowances that one wonders who is looting the National treasury between them as investigators in their various committees and the people they are probing. What is the logic behind taking ten million naira (N10m) from a ministry (Ministry of Health); the operational extension of the Executive arm of government, which oversight the Senate committee must execute with diligence and with its highest sense of responsibility, to make sure it does its work according to the prescribed legislation that passed its responsibility into law. The money exchanged between Iyabo Obasanjo's committee and the Ministry of Health cannot be fairly extricated from a primary sense of corrupt tendencies. The court is left to take its position. We are willing to wait and see. In 2006, the ex-president was alleged to be distributing the PTDF money to the legislators for a hidden third term presidency. Chief  Obasanjo, who supposedly wanted to eradicate corruption knew the character of his PDP legislators. He knew they would  accept illicit money if offered, especially from him, the President; the crusader of corruption. He had his surrogates in the persons of Ibrahim Mantu and Jubril Aminu in the Senate working hard to influence other members to support a constitutional amendment that would allow the President a third term in office. When the whole surreptitious scheme suddenly collapsed in the Senate under the Chairmanship of Ken Nnamani, the entire population of Nigeria had a great psychological and mental relief. The evil night-mare had suddenly vanished.

There are indications that a good number of state Governors induce state legislators with money to pass certain bills into laws for reasons personal to them. Corrupt and strange political ideas which violate the norms of economic and political development of our country are promoted with unequal devotion and passion in Nigeria than in other developing nations. All the financial wealth available to Nigeria today are good enough to eradicate unemployment, promote social welfare, build and strengthen all basic infrastructures but are being squandered recklessly on questionable contracts without due process. President Umaru Yar'Adua and his men must be living in a fool's paradise to ever imagine that this country of ours, that is, Nigeria will be economically viable enough to become one of the top twenty (20) economies of the world by year 2020. Considering all available evidence and un-repentant attitude of the average Nigerian elite, in terms of corrupt practices and all evils associated with them in their political, economic and social orientation, Nigeria has the least chance to become one of the leading economies of the world. It is not going to happen unless all the charlatans, demagogues, liars, thieves and a whole class of dishonest leaders who currently rule Nigeria can be removed by having them charged, tried and put behind bars. We have leaders who cannot suffer or endure discomfort or hardship to provide meaningful leadership and record marked economic and political progress for us as a people. They lack adequate and modern knowledge and vision to build a better Nigeria. All that matters to them are, money in-quantum, stolen directly or indirectly, political power acquired legally or otherwise for ego satisfaction. No nation ever grows in a similar un-ordered mess like we have in Nigeria. If you do not mind, ask any Nigerian political leader from the local to the federal level a question such as ' per capita' income of Nigeria. He would have no answer for you because you are trying to measure his knowledge. Ask once again what is meant by political development. He is totally lost. You need to be careful not to make him lose his temper. Won't you be astounded to realize suddenly that your governor is not familiar with issues like economic development, political development, infrastructural development and the need to maintain them adequately and how to combat un-employment. Governor Fashola of Lagos state needs to be emulated by the rest of his colleagues. The man assumed office in 2007 and evidence abound that he is totally equipped for the political office he is now holding. The effect of his education is apparent and the utility of his acquired experience over time is un-disputable. I just pray that he does not join the old regular stock of shameless leaders we have always had to live with as time progresses.

The Federal Ministry of Health scandal should not be treated in isolation. The substantive minister Professor Adenike Grange is obviously naïve and permissive as the political head of the ministry. She should not have been there as a minister considering her training and background which this writer happens to know. She is not cut for the kind of corrupt office she was appointed and which is habitually surrounded by hounds. She cannot afford, by her nature, the corrupt environment that subsists in Nigerian life. I was not surprised to read that when her marked share of ten million naira (N10ml) was offered her, she directed that the money be shared among the junior civil service cadre in the ministry accordingly. That is the kind of person she is. If she is not naïve and permissive, she would not have allowed the corrupt and hardened professional civil servants to influence her judgment, since she was responsible for decision-making in the ministry. She should have followed the Executive directive of the president and returned the three hundred million naira (N300ml) to the treasury. Though born and bred in Lagos, her father; a respectable and popular pharmacist located on Nnamdi Azikiwe street in Lagos for very many years was known as Adebowale Commercial pharmacy. Nearly, if not, all that had to wear prescribed glasses in Lagos and elsewhere from outside Lagos had to obtain their pair of glasses from her father's pharmaceutical company. The family is the well known Adebowale family from Ita-Osu, Porogun, Ijebu-Ode. The grand-father was a business tycoon in their days and the huge family house the old man built from his hard work, tears and sweat, still exists in its original place. I feel sorry that Professor Adenike Grange unfortunately and suddenly became a victim of the wide spread carnage of corruption which had been spread all over our helpless and hapless nation by politicians of mean consequences. I wish her God's grace.

Incidentally, Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello is making a drama of the situation at the ministry over the three hundred million naira, out of which her committee took ten million. As a law maker and as a Senator that is responsible to sovereign Nigeria, she owes it to common sense and her calling to submit herself to questioning, either at the EFCC or at the appropriate court of law where she is supposed to appear. Her father should tell her to do that because that is where responsibility and honour for her and family lie. As rightly put by Femi Falana, there is no hereditary immunity that could apply to her. Her father, the ex-president, no longer enjoys any kind of immunity because he is out of office for good. Nobody is after her life. Nigerians neither want nor need to see her killed. People just want justice because there is too much corruption in our land. Her father set up the EFCC as president and to allege that her life is not safe because EFCC wants to investigate her role in the Ministry of Health scandal is totally preposterous.

The Senate should conduct their business with a high sense of reasonableness and should not digress into native, cultural and unnecessary traditional sentiment about Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello's whereabout. If the Senate is responsible enough to avoid meaningless sentiment among themselves, the issue of ten million from the Ministry of Health and Iyabo should have been left alone without interference since the EFCC is investigating it. Why should the Senate engage in any findings to clear Iyabo of any wrong doing before the EFCC completes its work? Are n't there other members of the Senate that have problems with the EFCC? How about the former governor of Enugu state? Are you people up to the task of the high expectations and standards expected of you as Senators without favours or any type of bias? It should continuously occur to you that the Senate or the Upper legislative Chamber, in any democracy, developing or developed, consists of WISEMEN of impeccable bearings and qualities. I am not suggesting that you should not show concern or care to your members when involved in problems but when the problem borders on morality and law, the Senate's integrity should not be dragged along. It is better for you people to appeal to your colleague, Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello to submit herself to the law of our land and wait to see what happens.

As a people; a national plural community that wishes to develop to appreciate its natural gifts, talents and resources, and all that God has bestowed on us, but have been abused and bastardized since independence by its cadre of bad leaders, we are therefore unfortunately, saddled with paying the wages of elusive economic and political development which the corruption of our leaders, military and civilian, have imposed on us.  May God help our land by creating liberators among us for our dear nation. Amen.

By: Bankole Okuwa Ph. D.   (Professor of Political Science )

 

Robot  # 1 | 02.05.2008 00:27

Ambassadorial Appointments: In what circumstance, considering our capac...Read the full article.