Nigeria: Celebrating Honour Amongst Thieves

This blog was first published at Nigerians Talk under the same title.

A wrong comparison

They wore T-shirts proclaiming him the ‘Joseph of our time,' pretty much sums up the occasion to which I will provide a backstory. [News Story [1]]

Joseph was one of the 12 sons of Jacob in the bible who dreamt dreams of him being the leader of his brothers and created such envy amongst them that they sold him into slavery. In Egypt, he was a servant of high official whose wife fancied him and when he rejected her advances he was falsely accused of sexual harassment and dumped in prison.

A whole range of coincidences of fate occurred where he interpreted dreams of inmates and that reputation lead to him doing the same favour for the Pharaoh of Egypt, which culminated in his becoming the Prime Minister of Egypt and his dream coming true when famine in his homeland brought his siblings to Egypt and had them bowing to the authority of his office.

A thief of the lowest order

The said “Joseph of our time” has no such illustrious biography; as the Chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority, he along with many members of the board of directors were found to have grossly mismanaged public funds and were duly charged then justly convicted and jailed for their offences.

However, on release from prison this weekend, he made no speech expressing remorse apologising for his errors of judgement and the criminal acts that landed him in jail but was lauded, praised and feted as one of the wronged, in concert with many of the ruling and breaking bread with the presumed respectable of the country.

They are no role models

Indeed, one is surprised that the tide is changing in Nigeria where now there has been great revulsion at the fanfare that accompanied this event, we have had people who have long since gained respectability though having a provenance of criminality.

Lots of the moneyed who have unaudited sources of wealth, who cannot account for how they have become so rich having only held public office or worked in public service and are the brood of literally pauper parents and possibly poorer relations.

They have never been involved in industry and whatever qualifications and professions they might have could not have provided for the treasure troves they now dip into with reckless abandon, they have no scruples and with impunity they have milked and bilked the Nigerian Treasury, stolen and squandered, swindled and cajoled, creamed and scraped as they worshipped the god of corruption with body, soul, reputation, character and integrity.

The need for polite society

This was the modern-day Joseph that got thronged as he left prison hardly repentant but definitely defiant, beyond rehabilitation and perfected for the next possibility of corrupt enterprise that gives him honour amongst thieves of the same ilk.

Sadly, Nigeria has lost its polite society, the non-egalitarian reserve of snobbery that shunned people who were tainted with gossip of impropriety, talk less of allegation, indictment, conviction and the ultimate social death of imprisonment for crimes committed.

To crown the affront to all that is good and wholesome they congregated at the Cathedral Church of Christ, Marina, Lagos – the cathedral of all that was once respectable, commendable, honourable and deserving of fawning obsequiousness by reason of breeding, pedigree, old money and social industry for a thanksgiving service which had in attendance a former president and some governors whose reputations should rank lower than the value you get out of manure.

However, the Nigerian narrative is changing, this event must be the one that opens our eyes to rejecting the celebrity of the criminal, those who find support amongst the powerful and are shielded from due opprobrium just because they have money and clout earned through their abuse of office to avert our gazes from the fact that they are criminals, thieves and are worthy of nothing but disgrace.

Thieves must not find honour in Nigeria anymore.

Sources

[1] 234Next | Bode George's triumphant return shocks Nigerians

Nigeria: Abba Abacha sues the Swiss for Nigerian loot

Speechless and more

I read it with a sharp intake of breath, the effrontery of it all, the shame-faced boldness of hereditary impunity that started from leaders the generation before ours, is perfected in their children and beyond belief in their offspring.

One can only wonder what drives these people, so despicable, exuding of privilege and unearned entitlement with the means to buy the hearts and souls of those who would pawn their beings for filthy lucre.

Yes, Abba Abacha, the son of the despotic and heinous Sani Abacha [1] who plundered Nigeria till she was bereft and squeezed her till her pips squeaked has taken the Swiss to court [2] to challenge the order to return ill-gotten assets to the tune of $350 million.

Brigandage to the extreme

It is conservatively assumed that Sani Abacha as Brigand-in-Chief robbed Nigeria of $2.2 billion, of which the family after his death returned about $700 million.

That was not in taxes and definitely not in restitution, they were just so blatantly open with their kleptomania the momentary tinge of guilt that extracted that return now seems to have faded away completely.

In making a claim for the return of the moneys, I would suppose Mr. Abba Abacha has hired a crack legal team that might be offering services on a no-win no-fee basis with their greed latched onto a percentage of the returns, if any.

The lies would amaze

The perjury, perfidy and falsehood that would consist the weight of evidence in this case might make the devil innocent, because one can only wonder what business activity or providence might have created this largesse of wealth for the Abacha family without any noticeable commercial entity to back the sources of the wealth.

The gall of it all is breathtakingly beyond belief, Abba Abacha has grown so accustomed to the bilking of Nigeria that he can see no wrong in having his hands on stolen moneys and is ready to defend to the utmost the right to be labeled a thief as his father so obviously was.

There was a time people would hang their heads in shame and not be seen in public for the disgrace of dishonesty, lies, treachery and distrust – now, if you have the money, you can never be wrong no matter how bad you have been.

Swiss roll him into jail

Mr. Abba Abacha has been refused a visa to Switzerland to attend the hearings, but I should expect if he does return, the Swiss should happily accommodate him in gaol on the technicality of having rescinded the suspended custodial sentence he received in November 2009.

Everyone has the right to fight for what is right, but this is wrong, it brings unnecessary opprobrium to an already battered reputation of Nigeria and Nigerians, he as a member of a criminal organisation now needs to face justice and hopefully the return of most of what allows him to strut about with outrageous arrogance.

Sources

[1] Sani Abacha - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[2] BBC News - Son of Nigeria's Abacha challenges Swiss $350m order

Christmas is today, the feast of thieves

Between God and mammon

One is almost driven to distraction about the way Christmas is so yoked to retailing to the complete exclusion of the Christmas story in the United Kingdom.

Originally, as varied historians assert, what became the Christmas [1] feast was once a pagan feast, not that it so matters now, but the contemporary message of Christmas should for all intents and purposes retain a link to what gives rise to the celebration.

What I see on the English channels on my hotel television is the great lament about retailers, shopping, bargains and profits – Baby Jesus cannot seem to get in edge-ways.

Buying at every cost

Materialism has pervaded the atmosphere, even customers are rushing into the upscale Selfridges, it really makes you wonder as people queue up for shopping in the winter cold just to grab a cheaper handbag, shirt or dress.

In my view, what you cannot afford at the full price you probably should not have, the victory of a bargain or a price reduction by omission or commission rely belies a poverty of spirit that people fail to understand. However, sometimes shops have deals or promotions but we should not be waiting for the stirring of the water by angels [2] for cripples to “jump” in.

Between affordability and bargains

For instance, when I was buying my home, my unspoken prayer was to be able to afford it whenever I was ready rather than having to wait for prices to collapse before I stepped in – what if prices did not collapse but doubled, then I would never get to buy my home.

Equally, much as we live in a debt-fuelled world where the ability to pay off a debt depicts your seeming creditworthiness especially if you are middleclass, the received wisdom should be that one should not spend what you do not have in the bank to pay off – regardless of the reach of your credit cards.

But people are trapped in a hedonistic addiction to goods and the need to be able to show off, Christmas should never be a time for bargains and really, I have no sympathy for retailers who fleece their customers throughout the year and plead low till receipts at the end of the year.

Not in that demographic

If most customers were like me, retailers would have to get into better logistics to keep in the market, the competition would be so keen that only retailers with durable, sophisticated and valuable goods would remain in the marketplace.

Behind all this lament of the retailers stands the shareholders who have raked in profits like money is going out of fashion and even in these lean times, they still expect those atrocious profits – my wallet is closed because, the shoes I buy, last; the clothes I wear are durable; I am not a fashion slave, my old television still shows good pictures and I am not given to unnecessary ostentation.

The government would like the economy to recover through more consumer spending, which is a fine macro-economic idea, but customers as individuals need to be wary of situations where they are more exposed financially than they should be – thrifty is the word, regardless of the national call to spend; except where you have received a bailout from the government.

Bring Christmas back

Since Christmas is about the roots of Christianity, if the retailers are having a really tough time this Christmas without any mention of Christ, we can look at it as the proverbial overturning of the tables in the temple – then Jesus took exception to making His Father’s house a den of thieves [3], today, the climate takes exception to making a holy and religious time of celebration and reflection a trading day for cheaper tat.

Maybe one should have some sympathy for the impoverished, seeking the unaffordable but who think overpriced goods they crave are now a bargain to be had – conversely, maybe that is the real price of the goods with a little markup – we have all been had and we think we have had them.

In fact, Christmas becomes a good cloaking scam for a more sinister con, but if it costs less, it is worth less or should that be worthless?

Sources

[1] Christmas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[2] John 5:4 For an angel of the Lord went down at certain

[3] Den of thieves

Save Nuhu Ribadu

The thief nabs the victim

There is a saying in Yoruba spoken in South-Western Nigeria and I would try to translate whilst keeping the context. If you are not soon after the thief you stand the risk of becoming the suspect. (Àì tètè m´ólè, olè n mólóko)

This saying brings true in many situations and I first wondered about this when about a month ago in an interview with ex-military President Ibrahim Babangida (IBB), he accused the erstwhile President Olusegun Obasanjo of entrenching corruption in the body polity of the Nigeria.

In some circles, IBB is noted as the Godfather of Modern Nigerian Corruption; military regimes or governments that fail to gain the audited fair mandate of the people become vehicles of patronage and impunity where all those who have fully imbibed the machinations of sycophancy and nepotism fuelled by corruption gain ascendancy over meritocracy and technocracy. See excerpt from The Military and Politics in Africa – Google Books.

Honourable thieves

These selfsame people who have milked, pilfered, plundered and looted with wanton excess have gained to themselves followings that seek crumbs that fall under their tables – these followers then become the power-base that begins to offer these thieves a form of respectability.

Before long, these thieves use all the leverages of the law or menace to shield themselves from retrospective auditing of their means and justice when pursued by anti-graft agencies.

The presidencies of both men are unravelling with amazing interest but they have also become demigods, almost immune to probes that their hypocrisy is so ingrained they and their followers believe they are now victims of some vendetta – we the wronged by these men whose legacies should read as those who had opportunity to change Nigeria for the better but lead the country to a place far worse than when they took office are now the suspects.

The tough job of the EFCC

There was hope when the EFCC was formed to begin to address corruption issues but the position of the head of that organisation has been an unfortunate political football to be kicked around by anyone who has opportunity to get on the field of play.

Mr. Nuhu Ribadu has a tough job by any standards and as he said a few weeks ago – when you fight corruption, corruption fights back – he has been in the crosshairs of everyone who has felt the agency breathing down their necks – the suspect “crooks” have pulled every kind of lever of influence to undermine, castigate, coerce, threaten, sack or eliminate him without much success.

One critical matter absent in the status of this man is independence – independence of the executive, confident liaison with the judiciary and accountability to the legislature where a committee of eminent legislators can help strengthen the reach and powers of the anti-graft agency.

Eliminate unnecessary hierarchies

Whilst he started as a policeman and has ranking within the police force he should have been retired from the force such that he does not have to answer to that hierarchy in executing his duties, but kept in synchronicity with a pay-grade that befits his status.

The development that he is being asked to take a compulsory one-year study leave by the Inspector-General of Police as a possible prospect for the top job in the police force is too suspect not to warrant more scrutiny because it would definitely turn the heat off the culprits the EFCC has been indicting of recent.

The executive having failed to muzzle him though the banditry of the Attorney General of the Federation has found another route through the police hierarchy, which also reports to the executive to sideline the man and possibly put a pliant figurehead in his place; this person would first have to grow into the job and then begin to exercise his discretion – quite unlikely.

Save Nuhu Ribadu

I would hope that the legislature would intervene in this matter and seek to disconnect this police force influence since the man is doing a worthwhile duty in service of the nation; if he has not yet learnt enough on the job to qualify for the top police job he probably would not after the course – it is a surreptitious means of taking the man into the oblivion of insignificance.

No doubt, the EFCC is a work in progress, not all the instruments are perfect and the work of improvement must continue, in that light, what is most required is an uninterrupted leadership structure buttressed by deputies who see the greater vision of making corruption in high places an anti-social, disgraceful, shameful and serious criminal act worthy of very punitive sanctions.

The dragnet of the EFCC is beginning to catch big fish and it is homing in on the whales, is if not the time to head for the port but the very appropriate time to put more hands on deck and more boats to the pull.

Whilst I am not given to placard activism, one might have penned one saying – Save the EFCC - Save Nuhu Ribadu