Although we have operated our polity long enough to see its effect, unfortunately, we have operated democracy from a place of fear and from the military sand point but we’ve never because of our timidity and seeking for crumbs experience real progress.  While it will take time for those who tell us they are leading our nation to undertake rigorous analyses of their own services, a number of things are immediately apparent as the quote above aptly depicts.

We are told that the EFCC, by the pronouncement of the so-called attorney (EFCC’s or whose attorney?), OBJ had been interviewed freely and was found to be free of embezzling the nation’s funds.  The fact is that OBJ in his treaties with the IBB’s case told Nigerians to bring forth evidence of IBB’s corrupt enrichment.  Now EFCC’s attorney is again calling Nigerians fools.  Nigerians do not need to supply direct evidence but the evidence is in the fact that OBJ out of prison was worth, by exaggeration, N200,000, equivalent to about $2,000.00.  How on earth could $200,000 be invested to yield more than $1.5 billion?  If this attorney went to school at all, he ought to have kept his mouth shut and let the matter die a natural death, the usual case in Nigeria.  What this attorney has done is to invoke the law of unintended consequences.  Now, many Nigerians will begin to strategize to steal knowing that the consequences are minimal as long as they belong to the cabal either by cultic association or by mere looting more than N1.00 billion in order to be in safe haven, be protected by current leader or by the EFCC itself.

Nigerian’s Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) recently proposed a new salary structure for the president, the vice president, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, ministers and other top government officials in Nigeria.  While Nigerians believe that there must be good pay for diligent labor we cannot phantom salary increases for those that do not meet minimum performance standard while reducing the payments of those who are working laboriously on a daily basis?  Even, with such an increase in salary structure, these elites will be further empowered to loot the treasury knowing that their backs are covered by the legal infrastructure meant to protect the nation and by the international “economic saboteurs and mafia.”

Let me go back to the case of OBJ, as in “EFCC clears Obasanjo of graft allegations” and try to make sense to determine on what basis EFCC cleared the former president.  Who is EFCC working for and if it is working for the cabal, why are we paying?  If EFCC is working on behalf of citizens, why is it seeing us as brain dead?  We now know that RMAFC has proposed an annual basic salary of N3.5 million for the president, N3 million for the vice president and N3.3 million for the Chief Justice of Nigeria.  Apart from their basic salaries, the bill provides allowances and fringe benefits which covers accommodation, domestic staff, utilities, entertainment, medical, security and furniture allowance.  This implies that OBJ was not making N3.5/annum while in office and at best, OBJ would have made maximum of N15.0 million/year.  OBJ stayed in office for eight years for a total of N120.0 million.  We’ll further assume that he invested half of his salary into his Otta farm and doubled his investment in eight years, say to another $120.00 million.  But then, he paid his workers and had to buy chicken, feed, etc.  We know he bought a private jet for, say, $10.0 million (N1.2 billion).  So then, how did N240.00 Naira grow to N185.00 billion?  It does not take a rocket scientist to know that something went wrong somewhere.  The only way the money doublers could have succeeded was if they were twisting the Executive Governor’s hands to share their allocation, taking part of NNPC funds, blackmailing business moguls they empowered to divert some of their contract funds into their account, giving bogus contract to Iyabo-Obasanjo, etc. 

So, Mr. Servant leader, I ask you, what does “due process mean to you?  What do you want your legacy to be?  We now know that OBJ cares less about legacy because he soiled his hands with graft, he soiled with his moral bankruptcy, the reported case “Treasonable Sex: You slept with my wife.”  This issue of sexual perversion has nothing to do with politics but has legal ramification for the whole nation.  Many children and other people’s wives have been traumatized by sexual perverts and maybe it is good that Gbenga Obasanjo exposed this secret so that as a nation we can find a lasting solution.  

Should Gbenga’s revelation be true, what a legacy of dysfunctional family and dysfunctional administration is OBJ leaving behind as a leader?  It is scary to think about.  While the case is still undergoing legal conjectures, OBJ should, nevertheless, be subjected to rigorous psychological evaluation.  The nation cannot afford to sweep this serious issue under the carpet because, in part, such issues may just be a pointer to how our corruption can be resolved and how our leaders’ use of their corporate power to destroy everything in their path.  

Talking of legacy, even, President Bush whose war of choice still baffles the citizens of the United States of America (if there is voo doo, Americans could have been voo doo-ed), is conscious of a good legacy.  He is now running around Middle East seeking a proverbial peace which he did not actively seek in last seven years.  Mr. Servant leader, what would be your legacy?  Would it be that you sold Nigerians to the looters or just simply that you could not stand up against the cabals and the energy saboteurs so that fellow citizens can for once win?  The law of unintended consequences is holding firm, that is even when Allah places on you shackles of illegitimacy that ought to propel you to fight on behalf of fellow citizens, you blinked and protected the thieves, those that are sacrificing our children to their gods in order to perpetually stay in office and those that are ready to sexually harass our children and our wives.  If you do not make necessary changes for moral, social improvement, technological and political development, your administration the one that the devil enabled and cabal emplyed, what a pity that would be.

All the above references are results of the laws of unintended consequence which may end up in making a difference in people’s life, when corrected.  Mr. President, it does not matter how long you stay in office but how many real Nigerian lives you positively touch.  This is what leadership is all about not insane accumulation of wealth by those who are tending towards their graves.  What we currently need in Nigeria are:

1.       Strong and prosperous middle class for poverty to be finally lifted from citizens.  If you don’t already know, middle class is the pillar for healthy workforce; 

2.       Stop those wrecking havoc on the nation and the economic saboteurs and bring them to their knees; 

3.       Encourage the nation to shed the toga of imperialism by finally engaging political honesty, and putting personal prejudices aside to move Nigeria to the crescendo of infrastructural development, educational advancement, technological rebirth, political maturity, and healthcare reforms;

4.       Letting Nigeria have her own proud Nation carrier – Airline that all viable nations are proud to have is a must.  This does not discourage ownership of private jet for those who truly need them but private jet just to transport stolen goods or for bragging right is simply unproductive, a waste of resources and seem too absurd;

5.       Eliminate providing houses for Ministers, Permanent Secretary once housing allowance is provided.  The issue of one administration building houses for Ministers and high ranking officers and selling it to them at give away prices must not continue; and more importantly

6.       Giving Nigeria a real energy policy not getting the nation back to the diesel and generator buying mode or the lantern days will be a real feather in your cap.  The world is moving and Nigeria is regressing.

True progress can only be accomplished through sacrifice, hard work, courage, diligence, and a hope that one day active looting could be a terrible system of the past.  Surely, writing to enhance a more equal society based on love of our nation by exposing the origins of corruption will hit at the core of a popular world believe system that Nigerians are mentally born corrupt.  Fellow Nigerians, it is time to anger those that debase our system.  We need to disengage corruption by correcting our ways at the expense of those that think nothing good can come from Nigeria except out crude oil. 

The world has sold us diluted cow dung as pepper-soup and we bought it.  How can African people and blacks all over the world believe that a race is incapable of serving and doing things for themselves and we believe it, our leaders buy into it and we, the citizens act it?  A behavioral political experience and its DNA affiliation are simply subcategory within the human gene alignment, and tribal race/tribe, in no way, should have ever dictated that life of one person within a region is more valuable than another in our cosmos of universe.

I work everyday for the widespread belief that Nigeria should not be a nation where dead men walk.  It shouldn’t matter if you're Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa or a minority to make Nigeria function right.  The day of equality should come soon so that those that have selfishly destroyed our nation can see that they have themselves to blame and that inspite of it all, the next generations of doers are determined to rebuild.  The day simply doesn't exist now but such day will not come by burying our heads in the sand, defending the thieves amongst us, carrying touch for them and crying hunger later in the day.  Being simply politically correct in Nigeria’s dead political arena benefits nobody but the ones who are the benefactors of graft and the laws of unintended consequences.

Our common struggle and the risks we take must be worth any progress for our greater good and the possibility that corruption, by any other name, can be chipped away and thus end under development of a nation.   Our collective efforts in ridding corruption or reducing it to a minimal will judge the success of our “servant leader” and help measure our nation’s commitment to true progress.  Many of our milestones may not end corruption, but it surely chip away at barriers that once impede it.  We must understand that the law of unintended consequences is not something to worry about but something to prepare against about in order to have a holistic solution to our common national problems. 

What we are observing in Nigeria today, unfortunately, is a reflection of years of delusional psychosis of our leadership pool, our common experience and contribution.  A mirror never tells lies.  We still have doers among us, don’t we?