Christmas cheers and blues
By Okey Ndibe (E-mail:
okeyndibe@gmail.com)
To all my readers: Here’s a warm, hearty Christmas greeting! It’s
a Christmas of cheers as well as blues.
This is the first time in nine years that Nigerians are celebrating Christmas
without that mischief-maker-in-chief called Olusegun Obasanjo at the helm of
their affairs. It could easily have been different.
Had Nigerians gone to sleep while Obasanjo plotted a third term, we might have
woken up today to the presence of that human disaster ruining a country. Thank
God for mighty mercies: we have an Obasanjoless Christmas.
It’s a cheery Christmas in my home state of Anambra. It is our first Christmas
since seven wise justices of the Supreme Court issued a red card to Nnamdi Uba,
an impostor-governor. If the justices had, on June 14, failed to rule with a
sense of justice, the people of Anambra would have been condemned to despair.
This Christmas would have met them gnashing their teeth, too fatigued in body
and devastated in spirit to muster the gusto to say to their fellows: “Merry
Christmas!”
We must not forget, too, that this is our first Christmas since Madam Patricia
Etteh was shooed off as speaker of the House of Representatives. Initially billed
as a great inspiration to Nigerian women, Etteh became an embarrassment to womenfolk
and a plain incompetent legislative leader. She also proved to be as insensitive
a politician as any who has starred in Abuja.
Only a speaker with a profound case of alienation could have proposed to lavish
close to 6million dollars of public funds to refurbish two official residences
as well as spoil her office with expensive cars. Only a politician with a depraved
sense of entitlement could have contemplated such extravagance and aggrandizement.
And only a politician with Etteh’s level of arrogance would have insisted
on keeping her job and its perks in the face of overwhelming public outrage
at her wastefulness.
Etteh was imposed on the nation by a spiteful former president who sought, at
every turn, to reduce the nation to his level—a level in which Lamidi
Adedibu serves as avatar and patron deity. Once Nigerians figured out the nature
of the imposition, they repulsed it with all the fiber at their command. The
once hubristic speaker was forced to eat the humble pie. Her defeat gave Nigerians
another reason to be cheerful this Christmas.
There was an encouraging inkling from the Nigerian judiciary—or, more
appropriately, some members of its bench. Finally, some judges appeared to realize
the utmost importance—indeed the sanctity—of their constitutional
role.
In the first six years of the Obasanjo dispensation, many of the nation’s
judges seemed dazed. Unable to pick their way around the maze of executive recklessness,
a good deal of them seemed content to validate the president’s action,
however imperial, undemocratic or unconstitutional. Given the opportunity to
rescue the nation from the hands of a power-drunk dictator and his coterie,
far too many judges dropped the ball and cowered.
Nigerians looked on in helpless exasperation as many a judge preferred to doze,
while the constitution was raided and violated. Then, as if awakened to the
nature and scope of the monster, a few judges began to stir. In ruling after
brave ruling, they sought to check the rampaging emperor.
When Obasanjo felt it was up to him to decide whether Lagos State received its
local government allocations, the Nigerian Supreme Court demurred. When Obasanjo
used some sordid sleight of hand to illegally exclude some political aspirants
from the 2007 elections, the judiciary stepped in with a resonant no!
This trend of courage from the bench, while far from widespread, is felt today
in the judicial rejection of some of the so-called electoral verdicts produced
by the farcical polls of April 2007. In 2003, the electoral tribunals had shockingly
found little cause to reverse any of the gubernatorial elections. The one exception
was that of Chris Ngige in Anambra. Even in that case, many suspect that Ngige’s
strained relationship with his “political godfathers,” men who were
close to the former president, was as much a factor, if not more than the fact
that he was truly rigged into office.
In 2007, it’s as if we hired a brand new judiciary. True, the vast majority
of electoral tribunals have been delivering baffling and sometimes downright
cowardly verdicts. Still, at the last count, five gubernatorial verdicts have
been reversed. A few of legislators, at the federal as well as state levels,
have also been declared poseurs.
2007 will go down in the history books as a year of revelations. This is the
first Christmas since Nigerians had their worst fears about Maurice Iwu confirmed.
The warning signals had always been there, and some of us had shouted the message
from the rooftops: Iwu was bad news for Nigeria’s electoral system. Instead
of joining the chorus for the man’s rustication, many adopted a stance
of cautious skepticism. For those of us who saw little hope of the man conducting
credible elections, he did not disappoint; he lived down to reputation!
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which has tomes on corrupt
public officials, finally began to air them. Their dossiers promise to offer
us glimpses into how accursed Nigerian “leaders” stole whatever
public funds lay within their reach, and much that didn’t.
Last week, the commission netted former Governor James Onanefe Ibori of Delta.
Ibori’s arrest and arraignment followed months of hide-and-seek in which
the Yar’Adua regime vacillated, the ex-governor strutted, and Nigerians
watched in frustration. Through it all, Sowore Omoyele of saharareporters.com
tracked Ibori’s movements and (mis)fortunes with painstaking fastidiousness.
The website became a sort of Mecca for Nigerians seeking the latest update on
Ibori’s case in London—and in Nigeria.
The EFCC is in a critical stage of its evolution as an anti-corruption agency.
In dragging indicted public officials before the law courts, the commission
has served notice that it’s willing to, as Americans say, put up or shut
up. One hopes that the judges hearing the cases would prove to be beyond reproach.
They ought to scrutinize each case with dispassion, and impose significant sanctions
where they are warranted.
With every arraignment the commission makes now, Nigerians are bound to ask
for more. And justifiably so. Office holders who authored destitution for the
masses deserve their comeuppance. It’s proper that James Ibori has been
arraigned, but why not Peter Odili? Or Lucky Igbinedion? Or Victor Attah? Orji
Kalu has been charged to answer for his stewardship in Abia, but what about
Achike Udenwa, Tony Anenih and Bode George? Chris Ngige is being quizzed, but
why not his predecessor, Chinwoke Mbadinuju? Why arraign former Governor Saminu
Turaki of Jigawa but spare “Andy” Uba, the man named by the embattled
governor as the recipient of N10 billion from funds that were illicitly shaved
from the Jigawa treasury?
The scandals of the last eight years are being exposed before our very eyes.
Over the last month, several political and civic organizations have demanded
that the EFCC invite Obasanjo to explain the source of his stupendous wealth.
If the commission has serious plans in that direction, it has given little illumination.
Commendably, the commission announced last week that it was looking into the
involvement of the former president’s daughter and Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello,
in a contract deal between an Austrian firm and a Nigerian company that went
awry. The Austrians accused Ms. Obasanjo-Bello of using the false name of Damilola
Akinlawon to dabble in a shady power plant project. The petitioners told the
EFCC that the former president’s daughter was implicated in a deal that
was of a “fraudulent, corrupt and criminal nature.”
In a display of shamelessness worthy of the man who sired her, Ms. Obasanjo-Bello
owned up to a Nigerian newspaper that she used a false name. Why? Because she
was at the time engaged as a commissioner in Ogun State. She knew that her public
office precluded her from directly engaging in or profiting from private businesses,
so she went for a nomenclatural mask. That act of misrepresentation, alone,
stinks. Now unmasked, she unabashedly insists that there is nothing wrong with
signing business deals with a false name. Which moral universe does this woman
inhabit?
Her ethical obfuscation may make sense to her father, a man who hardly flinched
while profiteering from office, but it is repugnant to morally enlightened citizens.
Her shadowy behavior is compounded by revelations that her company received
billions of naira in energy sector contracts and billions more to equip hospitals.
Were those contracts awarded in line with transparent procedures?
At any rate, if Senator Obasanjo-Bello had played an innocuous game of adopt-a-
pseudonym with a group of friends, no reasonable person would have protested.
But to sign business deals with a false name—with the intent of evading
legal detection—is quite another, more serious, matter.
The question now is whether the former president and his family, friends and
associates are above the Nigerian law. Does the EFCC possess the independence
and mettle to do a thorough job of investigating Obasanjo’s daughter?
One has a sneaking suspicion that the senator from Ogun State isn’t having
a relaxed Christmas. With her father out of Aso Rock, she can no longer count
on being shielded from the potential jeopardy of her actions—if they’re
determined to be illegal. It’s a cheerful Christmas when those who brought
Nigeria to its knees are shivering to their roots.