What is in a name? Over the past four years the name Nuhu has come to be associated with nemesis or waterloo for fraudsters (419) and corrupt government officials, no thanks to Nuhu Ribadu who held sway as the Chairman of EFCC until early last month when he was asked by the police authorities to go back to school. The fear of Nuhu became the beginning of wisdom for some who wished to retain a future on the Nigerian political scene. Ribadu’s  belated   redeployment to NIPSS generated so much but unnecessary rancour among Nigerians understandably due to the perceived irreplaceable courage of the anti-corruption warlord for whom it appeared to be difficult to find a substitute.

So penultimate Wednesday, when another Nuhu, this time an Aliu, stood up on the floor of the National Assembly to announce to the world that the hallowed chambers was not hallowed after all as it was harboring some fraudsters, it struck a familiar chord in my medulla oblongata and I began to sing: ‘Nuhu on the Mountain Run! Run!’ I recalled that it was in that same hall that the other Nuhu(Ribadu)sometimes last year pronounced over 31 state governors and some other big-time politicians corrupt and unfit to hold public office.

I was particularly excited at the possibility of the new Nuhu(Aliu) demystifying the ethereal and labyrinth clique of questionable characters masquerading as our lawmakers once and for all. It is known now that most of them got to the national assembly on stolen mandates- the election petition tribunals that nullified dozens of these ‘mandates’ are my witnesses. And for people who did not possess the integrity to play the election game by the rules, coupled with the fact that a number of them are under trial by EFCC over corruption, leaves one with no doubt that some 419 kingpins could be among them.

The trouble with this theory however is that despite compelling instinctive inference, an outsider does not have concrete evidence to prove anything against them. It is this fact that got me excited when a former DIG who has put in over 30 years in crime investigation, and is expected to know what he was talking about, voiced the threat to expose the 419 legislators. I did not sense that the same Senate that cheered the first Nuhu for branding some persons corrupt without conviction would find cause to chide the second Nuhu for attempting to bring charity closer to home.

Like an incurable disease, corruption allegations have remained ineluctable by the National Assembly and one is inexorably inclined to infer that some fire must be fuming the smoke. The Senate particularly has been struggling to obliterate corruption from their mist with little success as more and more allegations keep propping up now and then. And each time an allegation is made, the heat is turned on the source of the allegation, in a mob-like fashion, which forces the accuser to become the accused and subsequently he chickens out leaving the cabal to relish their mysteriousness in gaiety. This formula has so far worked successfully and smart people know its bad game to change a winning formula for the sake of it.

But it takes more than just a namesake to be a true ‘Nuhu’. Some Nuhus are more ‘nuhic’ (read courageous) than others. This Aliu type of a Nuhu is a counterfeit. He is a coward. Nuhu Aliu baffled not a few when he suddenly changed the musical keys from treble and began to sing bass, profusely apologizing and withdrawing his statements ‘in toto’ to save his neck from possible ‘sanctions’. And true to my expectation, Senate President, Chief David Mark, praised him for his action, which he said, stood him (Nuhu) out as a courageous man!

I beg your pardon Mr. Senate president. Did I hear you say courageous man? Nigerians must then begin to understand the new meaning of words used in our legislative halls in order to keep abreast of the workings of the system. For instance in the new dictionary of the Senate, a courageous man is actually a coward who has the ‘courage’ to see evil but is afraid to expose it. A courageous man is a grandstanding fellow who backpedals in the face of pressure and intimidation against the dictates of his conscience. A courageous man is a fellow who keeps silent in the face of tyranny. The Senate must be full of ‘courageous’ men!

By this lexical paradox, Mark has told us that the other Nuhu(Ribadu) was actually a coward! It goes to show how far our leaders can go in their game of deception. Our gullibility as a people is our undoing. We are taken for a ride because the so-called leaders do not reckon with us as being capable to detect nonsensicality from our politicians. While the Senate reserved the right to accept Nuhu’s apology, there is hardly anything to achieve by elevating his ignominious act of cowardice to virtue.

Senator Aliyu’s citing of legal reasons for not naming the fraudsters in the National Assembly and Mark’s attempt to explain why he felt Aliu is a courageous man leaves some pertinent questions begging for answers. Mark said ‘very few people would demonstrate such courage. When you are wrong and you have the courage to get up and say that you are wrong. I think we should congratulate such a person.’

Here are the questions: Would a truly courageous man choose to be only courageous in admitting he is wrong and not courageous enough to stand on what he believed to be true? Or is Nuhu (and by extension Mark) saying that by his (Aliu) apology, the 419 persons he knew were in the house suddenly disappeared? Should David Mark appear to be grateful to Aliu by congratulating him for not naming the fraudulent characters in the Senate so the polity could be sanitized? What reason should the public have for not believing that Mark’s profuse appreciation of Aliu’s cowardice is a sigh of relief of some sort for his (Aliu) allowing the cup to pass them by? Should the personal interest of Aliu (not wanting to loose friends) override public interest, which he is supposed to protect as a Senator?

It is still good however that Mark allowed the matter to continue at the committee level. I expect Nuhu to be put under oath to mention all the 419 legislators he claimed that he once investigated. His evidence can be useful to the EFCC in prosecuting these people. It is not enough to say that since they were not convicted, they cannot be exposed for prosecution. The burden of investigation and proof of guilt will shift to the EFCC once the Senate writes a petition to the EFCC alleging the complicity of some of its members in 419 scams based on the findings of the Ethics and Privileges Committee on evidence provided by Nuhu.

But I have little hope that the matter will follow this trajectory. Since Aliu has withdrawn his statement, the Ethics and Privileges Committee may be faced with the technical difficulty of investigating a man on the basis of a statement that does not exist by virtue of its retraction. So effectively Nuhu Aliu has pushed us to cliff of excitement and then withdrawn leaving us high and dry. This is the wrong way to be a Nuhu.

Robot  # 1 | 04.02.2008 11:18

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Lagos Boy  # 2 | 05.02.2008 08:34

The upper house has proven once again to be a den of dubious characters who will go to any length to protect their shady interests. I have observed that they have no intiative and have always taken their cue from the lower house. The budget for this year would have been passed wthout question by the Senate but for the probing of the house of Reps (under new leadership i must add) Now we know the real reason Aliu was prevented from naming names on the floor, becaues he was going to be pressured in private to retract. If keeping his friends (who are my prime suspects by the way), is more important than ridding the house of corruption then we know whose interest he is serving. He even went as far as saying he would be his brother's keeper. His choice as the (s)elected representative of his constituency is to "keep" his 419 brothers and sisters (SICK) Nigerians should brace up for a shocker because this matter is not over yet and will not be swept under the proverbial carpet