Nigeria's Misplaced Priority, Leaving Corruption to Blossom
August 6 2020 By Abiodun Giwa
Nigeria's questionable Corruption Caesar, Ibrahim Magu, and President Muhammed Buhari
Nigeria has just increased fine for hate speech from N500,000 to N5 million. The announcement was reported by some of the country's media early in the week. Observers say that if the country has devoted much time and attention to corruption as it has done hate speech, the country would be a better place.
Meaning that the country has a misplaced priority, given attention to an issue that is better addressed through public education, and leaving undone what it should do against corruption, a cankerworm that is seeking to destroy the country.
Nigeria's history of corruption dates back to the early sixties, beginning with the overthrow of the first civilian government in a military coup during which the military guys accused the politicians of being ten percenters, an accusation the media translated to mean that politicians benefited themselves from every contract to the tune of ten percent and that they had made such gains a culture.
The same accusation of corruption came up again, when Murtala Muhammed overthrew Yakubu Gowon in 1975, five years after the end of the civil war. General Gowon can never say his administration was not corrupt with his own personal ostentatious marriage, which must have been bankrolled by government at a time the country was hurting in a civil war, as a very good example of an act of corruption of the time.
It could not have been that Gowon spent his own money for that marriage. Muhammed declared and gave back the money he said he confiscated from a bank during the war as a way of showing his readiness to sanitize the nation's sense of probity. But he soon fell to a gun man's bullets as a return for his temerity of overthrowing a corrupt regime, and leaving the stage for the corrupt elements to take over.
Many Nigerians believe General Olusegun Obasanjo who assumed office after Muhammed's assassination was not anti-corruption. They say if Obasanjo was not corrupt at the time, he would have allowed a free and election in the process of returning the country to civilian rule in 1979 and that the opposite was the case.
Many Nigerians argue that the fact that the process of returning the country to civilian rule in 1979 was made on a foundation laid with corruption fully returned corruption to the center stage in the country's affairs. The National Party of Nigeria, NPN, believably populated by questionable millionaires was favored into power with a teacher training certificate holder who emerged as president against a tested and trusted candidate who lost the election.
Many Nigerians were equally at loss up to this day about how the NPN won reelection in 1983, despite a government that had nothing to show for its first four years in office, and marking a system plagued with lack of accountability. By now, Nigeria has effectively returned to a journey without accountability, the reason the military guys terminated the first civilian government, showing that the Nigerian leadership ranks needed some form of sanitization.
Millionaires who had penetrated the military ranks and file began to play roles in determining which government to stay and which to go. MKO Abiola and Great Ogboru came in for mention here. Abiola was instrumental to the emergence of Ibrahim Babangida as a military president and displaced Muhammed Buhari, who had sacked Alhaji Shagari and NPN corrupt regime. Ogboru reportedly sponsored the failed 1990 coup against Babangida, turning military coup into an instrument of corruption and vendetta, and no longer an instrument of accountability
Many Nigerians were tired of corruption close to 1990 and expected Gideon Orkar to wipe away all past leaders and millionaires believed to be responsible for the Nigeria's journey to nowhere. But Orkar and his men finished poorly and they paid dearly with their own lives. After the failure of Orkar's coup, many Nigerians seem to have given up.
Military coups have failed. Efforts towards discouraging ostentatious living have failed. How much you claim to have is what matters, and how you amass the wealth does not matter, leading to what I.K Dairo sang about that there are many directors without office and they have turned many happy homes into solitary places through sharp practices. There were also those who had office and were worse than those without office.
The war between Abiola and Babangida over the country's leadership was itself a height of corruption. They were bosom friends. One was a military president sponsored into office by the other and the other wanted to take over or succeed his military friend. Truly, the other won an election put in place by his military friend, but the military general vowed his friend would not succeed him against the wishes of Nigerian voters.
Obasanjo's return to the saddle in 1979 as an elected leader in a questionable election process from the efforts of former military leaders to cover their own corrupt paths represented another perfect festering of corruption. Obasanjo's return crowned Babangida's run to end the race that began with his selection of Ernest Shonekan as a substitute to Abiola to rule the country and ended with the emergence and death of of Sanni Abacha as head of state.
Why Obasanjo? Wasn't it a matter of birds of same feather flocked together? Buhari too was also one of them. He became isolated following Babangida's decision to kick him out of office in 1984, because he came to power to fight corruption, but he saw no wrong if his government was corrupt so long he was not the one who was corrupt and that he could treat others suspected of corruption like animals in a fight against corruption without following due process.
Nigerians who voted Buhari into office several years later remembered he was first a general against corruption who was swept aside by a wave of corrupt elements - Babangida and Abiola. They forgot the reason he was swept away was his inability to stem men and women around him from corruption. Babangida was his chief of army staff when he was military head of state.
Obasanjo ruled for eight years. If he had his way, he would have ruled for additional four years. He transferred the baton to Umar Yar'Dua. Yar'Dua did not live long. He was succeeded by Goodluck Jonathan, a quiet and seemingly careless about the stealing spree around him. Yar'Dua and Jonathan were products of Obasanjo's continuity of the PDP in government. The party disappointed Nigerians, and Nigerians chose Buhari as a replacement for the nauseous PDP leadership.
What is happening under Buhari since he assumed office as a civilian president is similar or worse than what Nigerians witnessed under Goodluck in term of the festering of corruption. It is like Nigeria and Nigerians have been destined for bad luck. And unless Buhari goes into action to deal with the corrupt elements in his party and government, the fight against corruption in Nigerian may be done and the repercussion to Nigeria and Nigerians will be detrimental.
Meaning that the country has a misplaced priority, given attention to an issue that is better addressed through public education, and leaving undone what it should do against corruption, a cankerworm that is seeking to destroy the country.
Nigeria's history of corruption dates back to the early sixties, beginning with the overthrow of the first civilian government in a military coup during which the military guys accused the politicians of being ten percenters, an accusation the media translated to mean that politicians benefited themselves from every contract to the tune of ten percent and that they had made such gains a culture.
The same accusation of corruption came up again, when Murtala Muhammed overthrew Yakubu Gowon in 1975, five years after the end of the civil war. General Gowon can never say his administration was not corrupt with his own personal ostentatious marriage, which must have been bankrolled by government at a time the country was hurting in a civil war, as a very good example of an act of corruption of the time.
It could not have been that Gowon spent his own money for that marriage. Muhammed declared and gave back the money he said he confiscated from a bank during the war as a way of showing his readiness to sanitize the nation's sense of probity. But he soon fell to a gun man's bullets as a return for his temerity of overthrowing a corrupt regime, and leaving the stage for the corrupt elements to take over.
Many Nigerians believe General Olusegun Obasanjo who assumed office after Muhammed's assassination was not anti-corruption. They say if Obasanjo was not corrupt at the time, he would have allowed a free and election in the process of returning the country to civilian rule in 1979 and that the opposite was the case.
Many Nigerians argue that the fact that the process of returning the country to civilian rule in 1979 was made on a foundation laid with corruption fully returned corruption to the center stage in the country's affairs. The National Party of Nigeria, NPN, believably populated by questionable millionaires was favored into power with a teacher training certificate holder who emerged as president against a tested and trusted candidate who lost the election.
Many Nigerians were equally at loss up to this day about how the NPN won reelection in 1983, despite a government that had nothing to show for its first four years in office, and marking a system plagued with lack of accountability. By now, Nigeria has effectively returned to a journey without accountability, the reason the military guys terminated the first civilian government, showing that the Nigerian leadership ranks needed some form of sanitization.
Millionaires who had penetrated the military ranks and file began to play roles in determining which government to stay and which to go. MKO Abiola and Great Ogboru came in for mention here. Abiola was instrumental to the emergence of Ibrahim Babangida as a military president and displaced Muhammed Buhari, who had sacked Alhaji Shagari and NPN corrupt regime. Ogboru reportedly sponsored the failed 1990 coup against Babangida, turning military coup into an instrument of corruption and vendetta, and no longer an instrument of accountability
Many Nigerians were tired of corruption close to 1990 and expected Gideon Orkar to wipe away all past leaders and millionaires believed to be responsible for the Nigeria's journey to nowhere. But Orkar and his men finished poorly and they paid dearly with their own lives. After the failure of Orkar's coup, many Nigerians seem to have given up.
Military coups have failed. Efforts towards discouraging ostentatious living have failed. How much you claim to have is what matters, and how you amass the wealth does not matter, leading to what I.K Dairo sang about that there are many directors without office and they have turned many happy homes into solitary places through sharp practices. There were also those who had office and were worse than those without office.
The war between Abiola and Babangida over the country's leadership was itself a height of corruption. They were bosom friends. One was a military president sponsored into office by the other and the other wanted to take over or succeed his military friend. Truly, the other won an election put in place by his military friend, but the military general vowed his friend would not succeed him against the wishes of Nigerian voters.
Obasanjo's return to the saddle in 1979 as an elected leader in a questionable election process from the efforts of former military leaders to cover their own corrupt paths represented another perfect festering of corruption. Obasanjo's return crowned Babangida's run to end the race that began with his selection of Ernest Shonekan as a substitute to Abiola to rule the country and ended with the emergence and death of of Sanni Abacha as head of state.
Why Obasanjo? Wasn't it a matter of birds of same feather flocked together? Buhari too was also one of them. He became isolated following Babangida's decision to kick him out of office in 1984, because he came to power to fight corruption, but he saw no wrong if his government was corrupt so long he was not the one who was corrupt and that he could treat others suspected of corruption like animals in a fight against corruption without following due process.
Nigerians who voted Buhari into office several years later remembered he was first a general against corruption who was swept aside by a wave of corrupt elements - Babangida and Abiola. They forgot the reason he was swept away was his inability to stem men and women around him from corruption. Babangida was his chief of army staff when he was military head of state.
Obasanjo ruled for eight years. If he had his way, he would have ruled for additional four years. He transferred the baton to Umar Yar'Dua. Yar'Dua did not live long. He was succeeded by Goodluck Jonathan, a quiet and seemingly careless about the stealing spree around him. Yar'Dua and Jonathan were products of Obasanjo's continuity of the PDP in government. The party disappointed Nigerians, and Nigerians chose Buhari as a replacement for the nauseous PDP leadership.
What is happening under Buhari since he assumed office as a civilian president is similar or worse than what Nigerians witnessed under Goodluck in term of the festering of corruption. It is like Nigeria and Nigerians have been destined for bad luck. And unless Buhari goes into action to deal with the corrupt elements in his party and government, the fight against corruption in Nigerian may be done and the repercussion to Nigeria and Nigerians will be detrimental.
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