PART FOUR
SERIES: BUHARISM AND THE FIERCE URGENCY OF NOW
Usually whenever I want to amuse myself, I do tell people around me, if you ask Nigerians and the Britons to swap countries - all Britons, relocating to Nigeria, and all Nigerians crossing over to Britain for just twelve hours, the Britons will turn Nigeria around to the admiration of the whole world and posterity, but Nigerians who by this hypothetical scenario will now be the proud inhabitants of Great Britain, would play locust over everything it had taken the Brits to build across centuries, without adding anything to Britain!
OF A TRUTH, THIS COUNTRY WAS BETTER GOVERNED WHEN THE COLONIALISTS WERE HERE
No! I'm not suggesting a return to colonialism, but shouldn't we at this time contract the governance of Nigeria to some foreign investors or political management team/s? But if we have globalization, why is it just at the level of trade and investments, and not at the level of governance? The Nigerian story will change overnight if only two White Hall mandarins are sent to the Federal Secretariat to be in charge of things, and just two British politicians are sent to the Presidency, both as Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister!
Unarguably, in just two weeks of these four Britons taking control of things in Nigeria, the traditional bureacracy, the general gross indiscipline, the endemic corruption, all the go-slow (traffic) and all of dem nyama nyama in the Nigerian system will disappear over night.
Usually whenever I want to amuse myself, I do tell people around me, if you ask Nigerians and the Britons to swap countries - all Britons, relocating to Nigeria, and all Nigerians crossing over to Britain for just twelve hours, the Britons will turn Nigeria around to the admiration of the whole world and posterity, but Nigerians who by this hypothetical scenario will now be the proud inhabitants of Great Britain, would play locust over everything it had taken the Brits to build across centuries, without adding anything to Britain!
It looks to me they are some 'Andrews' who have been dreaming about checking out, are thinking of approaching Daddy G.O to pray in order to make it happen. But wait a minute, whilst you may be contemplating making this hypothesis a reality, don't forget that Daddy G.O and one Bola Ahmed Tinubu brought the ants-infested faggots to the House of Nigeria!
Expressing concern about my safety then, whilst I was Chairman, Editorial Board of the Daily Times of Nigeria Plc, my great mentor, Dr Ima'il Babatunde Jose, would send his daughter-in-law, Mrs Jose to me and she would said to me: "Your Baba say make I tell you to come." Upon arrival at the great man's house, once ushered in by his guards, he would beckon me to sit on the same sofa with him. What an honour!
After exchanging pleasantries and discussing about the nation, Dr. Jose would say to me: "I know how very passionate you are about this country, but I want you to relax a bit. Direct your attention to some other things for now."
He would the use his usual boxer analogy that a boxer who enters the ring and keeps boxing and boxing, will not only wear himself out, but would be knocked down by his opponent and he would ask me to adopt the Mohammed Ali style, "Even though you are a journalist."
Also, up till now, Aremu, a former Chief Tax Collector of the Federation is yet to tell the nation about his late wife's charity activities, her NGO or NGOs(?), all the money public officers and their band of civilian alleluia boys and girls were, cajoled to part with both for the taking off and running of the late Stella Obasanjo's 'charity' works, and upon her death, how much was left, and why the said money coming from public officers has not been returned into Government coffers after his wife's death, and if the NGO/s set up by Stella is/are still functioning or not, and if functioning, to whom is/are it/they accountable?
More, Olusegun Obasanjo as well as Ibrahim Gbadamosi Babangida were the proud beneficiary of hill mansions believed to be THANK YOU GIFTS from the companies that were the major contractors under their two rubbish administrations at different epochs. Whilst IBB's hill mansion is believed to be between 50 or 51-room mansion, it is not known how many rooms Obj's boasts of. But shall not Nigerians be told how much these hill mansions and others in the category of this shame all over the country how much they cost the tax payers or (them?) to maintain second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, night by night, week by week. month by month and year by year?
The late Maryam Babangida's Better Life for Rural Dwellers, I can confirm to the nation was a mere deception and a money-guzzling outfit, just meant to siphon money by a wife of a former ruler and her husband, for in the course of my investigations round, particularly in the Northern States of Nigeria, most of the Local Government Areas my interpreter, Musa and I had visited, all we saw were sign boards with the name of Maryam's NGO.
What is more, the $12 billion missing oil windfall under her husband IBB has remained till date unaccounted for!
Jonathan and the Otuoke Church gift nko?
The contractor and the former President probably thought God was bribeable, hence the erection of such obscenity! But this is what the word of God tells me: " Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," Galatians 6:7.
What of Mama Osakwe, Jonathan's highly depraved wife and looter of the national treasury through 'boys quarters'? Today, Patience Jonathan, that worm and vulture of a house wife is swimming in obscene wealth she had smartly and cleverly acquired as her own NATIONAL CAKE, whilst her husband's unparalleled ineptitude and profligacy lasted! Obscene wealth for which Mama Osakwe did not work - what I called WWW (wealth without work, better still www.com)! Chineke God mei, there is GOD-O!
I begi, what of Mariam Achaba? Hang on a minute: did I say Ajaba or Abacha?
And not to forget that very intensely ambitious Turai, whom the cabal were pushing to succeed her husband!
Mama Osakwe's husband, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan used his presidential power and privilege to extort over N6 billion claiming it was for building a library and other developmemt projects at Otuoke, his home town, just as Aremu before him had done, but nothing has been heard in that direction. So when will Muhammadu Buhari ask Jonathan and his gang of extortioners to return that money into the national coffers? Any way, there is GOD-O!
As a matter of fact, all charities set up by Their so-called First Ladies with public money, or with money donated by members of the public, indigenous and multi-national companies, other Governors, elected officers, political officials, their royal crooks, etc, actually belong to the public, the nation with respect to a President's wife, to States with respect to Governors wives or husbands, as the case may be, whenever we have female Governors and to Local Government Areas, with respect to local Chairmen and chairpersons - and must be publicly accounted for, with periodic accounts done by both internal and external/independent auditors.
And on leaving offices, all these so-called greedy First Ladies must handle everything regarding the NGOs/Charities they had so set up, whilst their husbands/wives were in power because the charities set up with money donated by members of the public and corporate citizens during the tenure of their husbands/wives in fact, belonged to the public, so whilst their husbands are handing over to the in-coming State Governors, their wives too should equally be handing over the details/properties of such NGOs/charities, including of course, all of the charities liabilities, pluses and minuses, and if minuses, the outgoing First Lady must be made to render account, be prosecuted, and if found wanting MUST go to jail, to waste the rest of their lives therein!
This is what an accountable polity does. Every First Lady that goes to the State House must not contitue with the nonsense of launching one chaarity/NGO after another, but must continue, where the former had stopped.
The Apex Legislative Assembly must immediately enact a law to support this view of mine without further waste of time.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Odey Aduma was formely Executive Secretary, Foundry Association of Nigeria; Southern Coordinator of President Muhammadu Buhari's pastoralists NGO - THE PASTORAL RESOLVE; Chairman, Editorial Board of the Daily Times of Nigeria Plc; member, National Committee for the Nigerian Youth Festival, 1993; member, core Committee of the National Tecnology Summit and was the Summit's chairman for two of its sub-committees - Publicity and Exhibition, 1998; member of the Administrative Panel of Inquiry set up by President Olusegun Obasanjo to investigate the illegal trade in and smuggling of endagered species of wild fauna and flora into and out of Nigeria, 2003.
He was the Chairman, Planning Committee of the General Murtala Muhammed Memorial Lecture for two consecutive years, 2001 and 2002 before it attained a Foundation status in 2002, having first been upgraded to that status in 2001. General Murtala Muhammed was one of Nigeria's former Heads of State and was killed in the abortive coup led by the then Colonel Buka Suka Dimka on February 13, 1976.
That same capacity saw Mr Aduma delivering huge succcesses during the Daily Times of Nigeria's 75th Anniversary (in which he raked in N6, 000, 000 into the coffers of the Daily Times of Nigeria Plc) and also, playing a similar role in a similar capacity during Dr Isma'il Babatunde Jose's 75th Birth Day. Dr Jose, doyen of Nigerian journalism was Mr Aduma's personal mentor. That relationship was so close and solid such that whilst Aduma was leaving the shores of Nigeria for Britain in 2003, Dr Jose gave him N10, 000.00.
In 1992, Mr Aduma's contributions to journalism was recognised with the awards of the Nigeria Media Merit Award as the Investigative Reporter of the Year and the Diamond Awards for Media Excellence as the Reporter of the Year, and also, the British Chevening Scholarship, which saw him studying International Journalism at City University of London in 2003-2004, with specialism in Environment.
Aduma is the author of the inspirational best-seller, THE DIAMONDS ARE HERE and the founder of Vigilance, the World's Leading Security Magazine and Scorpion News Corp, in addition to founding the Nationalists Unity Movement of Nigeria (NUMON).
God bless our Nigeria.
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