UGOCHUKWU EJINKEONYE

 By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

Virtually every Nigerian knows and strongly believes that any day Nigeria is able to make up its mind to end its obscene and ruinous romance with the stubborn monster called “Corruption”, this country will automatically witness the kind of prosperity no one had thought was possible in these parts. Just imagine the amount of public funds being stolen and squandered daily under various guises by too many public officers and their accomplices, and the great transformation that would happen to public infrastructure and the lives of the citizenry if this organized banditry can at least be reduced by fifty percent!  

 President Umar Musa Yar’Adua With Queen Elizabeth 11 of the United Kingdom

Now, is this monster divorceable? Of course, yes. But are there any signs that anyone in the corridors of power is interested in ending the strong grip it maintains on the very soul of the nation? That is the problem. It is sheer foolishness to expect any of them to willingly block the very hole from which great goodies also flow to him or her just because some other persons are also benefiting from there. No, you can neither fight corruption with soiled hands nor retain monopoly of it! It spreads like cancer. And the whole thing has now been horribly compounded by the emergence and empowerment of a very formidable class whose sustenance and longevity solely depend on its ability to continue sustaining the culture of corruption and bleeding the nation pale

This problem began when public office gradually ceased to be a platform for rendering selfless service to the people and transformed into the easiest route to financial empowerment. And since then, several generations of public officers have passed through public office, looting the nation blind with utmost impunity, and retired into abundance and incredible plenty, without any fear of anyone ever prying into the clearly unearned wealth they flaunt with utmost abandon.

          Dinner From A Lagos Dustbin: A victim of the Cult of Corruption

Thus, an ever-swelling Cult of Looters has emerged, whose nuisance value and the ruinous culture they are perpetuating, are now the undisputed headaches of the nation.  And since it is now almost impossible to find any former council chairman, governor (military or civilian), minister, president (military of civilian), army general and several other categories of public officers who is not sitting on boundless accumulation of unearned wealth, it has also become impossible to persuade the current rulers to resist the temptation of surpassing their predecessors in the stealing contest – the only thing that qualifies them for the membership of the great Cult of Corruption.

 Indeed, wealth has become everything and no one cares any more about leaving behind sterling legacies and a good name. And so, virtually no Nigerian governor, for instance, would find it ennobling to wake up every morning, after he had left office, to engage in honest labour to earn a living. That would automatically demean him, and present him as “inferior” to his colleagues; in fact, even his people may begin to call him a big fool for returning from the Government House a “poor man.” And, so the desperation to retire into boundless wealth and comfort is the reason for the mindless stealing going on everywhere.  

Another set of victims:Toiling daily to subsidize the profligacy of their rulers

Who now will break this circle? Well, he must be a person with no inclination to steal! And who is that person – who does not want to retire into billions after public office? Is it the president, governors, ministers, or even the chairpersons of the so-called anti-graft bodies set up to battle the monster to the ground? That’s one question we need to answer sincerely, because, it is difficult to find any person among those ruling us today who is more interested in acquiring a good name than accumulating unearned riches. No doubt, the Cult of Corruption is an attractive assemblage of the nation’s political and economic elite, and the sole qualification for initiation into this elite cult is wealth, boundless wealth, stolen from the public treasury, and ownership of a couple of exquisite mansions in choice areas in Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt, Kaduna, London, New York, Paris, Dublin, Dubai and so on. I doubt if the point being made here should in the least sound strange to anyone who has lived in Nigeria.

Forced to live dangerously in an oil-rich nation

Now, was it not late Sunday Afolabi, who, while working for the irredeemably corrupt Olusegun Obasanjo regime, told us that those who were offered political appointments were actually invited “to come and eat.” At least, the man was sincere about his understanding of the whole thing. Gone were the days when people went into public office to serve the people and make a good name for themselves.  No, not any more! Today, people go there to serve themselves and make boundless wealth. And they usually end up losing the capacity to feel ashamed, so much so, that even if they are called thieves to the faces, they remain unperturbed.

How then can this monster be tamed? How can anyone make all the past public officers to give up all they had stolen and live normal lives with resources whose sources are explainable, in order to make those currently in office to resist the temptation to steal? Where would any one possibly start? And who would lead such a campaign? When will Nigeria be made a functional state so that people would not need to go to great lengths to steal in order to provide for themselves the amenities and comforts they failed to put in place for the entire citizenry when they were in power

Nigeria's House of Representatives in session: Representing whose interest?

With this dreadful cult in effective command at all our public institutions, including INEC, how then can we possibly hope to have a free and fair election in this country? Because, having criminally accumulated so much money while in office, these fellows only enthrone themselves as formidable godfathers and kingmakers, and deploy the billions at their disposal to install and remove governments at will. Many of them can single-handedly found and fund political parties without the slightest impact on their bottomless pockets. They also have all it takes to frustrate any attempt to pry into their slimy and hideous pasts. The very negligible few among them who manage to get “messed-up” in the “anti-corruption war” are those foolish enough to find the trouble of those more powerful than they are, or get into some really complicated situation that it would be difficult to extricate them without a serious backlash that might  threaten the peace and stability of the entire cult. So, he is carefully sacrificed to preserve the whole house from going under.

 The Cult of Corruption also has many quiet and more deadly members. These include “very successful and wise” fronts, errand boys (and girls), thugs whom the ‘ogas’ use (or had used) to prosecute their criminal accumulations, and, also, the countless mistresses, concubines and “state prostitutes” who take care of the leisure moments of the ogas. These, too, in the process of time, acquire their own wealth and clout, and gradually rise in prominence to become “successful business moguls” or “party stalwarts.” Others get into government as Special Advisers, Commissioners, Ministers, council chairpersons, State or Federal lawmakers, or even governors. A nation is judged by the quality of persons leading it. On this score, Nigeria has been most unlucky.   

 Now, with such a very formidable criminal elite controlling the politics and economy of the nation, with many of them even maintaining effective hotlines to the Presidency, how can anyone pretend to enthrone transparency in the governance of the country? How can corruption be rooted out? How can progress be recorded? Do the fellows ruling us even understand what it means to build a country? By the way, where would the person intending to root out corruption even start from?  The sheer number, clout and destructive ability of members of this Cult of Corruption are simply too intimidating. Some have over the years even matured to become refined, patrician “elder statesmen” (and women) with vast “family business” empires, commanding enormous respect, but still doing enormous harm to the nation. Yet the only day jobs anyone could remember they ever did were serving as either ministers or ambassadors, local government chairmen, governors, presidents, army or police officers, special advisers, commissioners, permanent secretaries or just as a “director in the presidency.” 

Tender Victims: Who is considering their future?

But should we give up? No! Never! No society should ever sit passively and watch the scums, scoundrels and dregs in its midst seize its tomorrow and murder it. That nation is doomed which has shameless thieves as its kings.  Ask yourself today: What are the antecedents of my governor, lawmaker or councilor? Can a thief possibly succeed in rebuilding the very house he is busy plundering? It amounts to unqualified foolishness on the part of the majority to  allow themselves to be perpetually enslaved by a criminally-minded minority? A time comes in the life of a nation when the people must rise with one voice and bellow a big NO! And that time is now! Especially, as 2011 approaches.

 scruples2006@yahoo.com

www.ugochukwu.wordpress.com

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

While hapless, helpless Nigerian students remain at home, for several weeks now, idling away precious time and wasting their lives due to the indefinite strike embarked upon by university teachers because of the Federal Government’s refusal to implement an agreement it had freely entered with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), and patients are being snatched away every other hour, if not minute, by clearly avoidable deaths because of the ongoing strike by Nigerian health workers, President Umar Musa Yar’Adua thinks that the best use he could put Nigeria’s nearly N4 billion (N3.9 billion) to is to squander it on the furnishing of the corporate headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to impress African leaders converging in Nigeria next year for the African Union (AU) meeting. 

Now, that is not all. If by today, the Federal Government fails to meet their demand for better pay and improved conditions of service by adopting and implementing a Medical Service Scale (MSS) for doctors employed by the government, Nigerian doctors under the aegis of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) will commence their own indefinite strike. This can only compound an already very bad and horrible situation. Last Friday, patients, even those in very critical conditions, at the National Hospital, Abuja, were discharged en masse and asked to go and seek medical attention elsewhere. The same benumbing situation was replicated in almost all Federal Government health institutions across the country. And where else are they expected to seek medical help from after being sacked from the nation’s tertiary health institutions? Abroad? How many of them can afford overseas medical treatment?  

As we are all aware, only in vain can anyone hope that this sad state of affairs would move Yar’Adua and other members of the callous ruling elite. No doubt, their children cannot be found anywhere near a federal or state university. Nor would they allow any member of their families to be treated at any public hospital in Nigeria. Indeed, they have enough public funds at their disposals to treat even catarrh (common cold) in any part of the world. That is why they don’t care if the already rundown universities and health institutions remain closed till the conversion of the Jews

Government would want us to see employees who go on strike to press home their demand for better pay and improved conditions of service as unpatriotic and constituting themselves into a huge nuisance. While they keep appealing to workers to make more sacrifices “in the interest of the nation”, the ruling elite never fails to cart away for themselves huge sums of money every other month for contributing an insignificant little or nothing at all to the development and progress of the nation.

 What can anyone say our federal lawmakers have been able to achieve to make Nigerians appreciate them? Many Nigerians see them as grossly underweight, light-minded and purposeless; individuals who lack the capacity to appreciate the gravity of the assignment they are supposed to be performing in Abuja. Yet, a Senator’s basic salary is: N2, 484,242.50 per annum, while that of House of Reps Member is: N1, 985,212.50. Note that it was much higher than these before the recent reduction.

 But what they “lose” in the so-called salary cut, they triple with countless juicy allowances. Monthly, they cart away millions of naira as Furniture Allowance, Car Loan Allowance, Wardrobe Allowance, Accommodation Cost, Entertainment Allowance and all manner of perks that incredibly swell their bank accounts - just for grossly underperforming, or, as many would put it, achieving nearly nothing. Every quarter, each Senator gets N45 million (N15 million a month) while a House of Reps Member gets N39 million. This is to enable them operate their constituency offices. Yet, most of these constituency offices and staff exist only in the imagination of the lawmaker. And why should a lawmaker be executing constituency projects while there is a governor and council chairman where he comes from? This is one of the countless avenues created for the ruling elite to loot the nation pale.

 A report in The Guardian of last Sunday (July 12, 2009) entitled, “The Bleeding Of Nigeria - Huge Bills, Little Result” contains this stirring lamentation: “At a time when developed economies were looking for ways to cut down on recruitment bills, a new emolument was retroactively passed by the National Assembly earlier in the year, thus increasing the President’s take home pay to N10.899 million; that of the Secretary to the Federation and Ministers was jerked up to N5.907 million. The President/Governor lives in a Government House where they do not pay rent or utility bills. They live lavishly and stupendously. Yet they still collect allowances for services already paid for by the people.”

Councilors earn better money than distinguished university professors. The salaries and allowances of these officers at the 774 local councils in the country for fours years add up to about N2.4 trillion. Many of these councilors may just be lay-abouts or thugs everyone knew in the village the other day who were doing dirty jobs for unscrupulous politicians. And now, having been rewarded with councillorship positions, they earn more money than professors. What of the lawmakers? What qualifies them for all the wealth being poured into their pockets for idling away at our expense in Abuja, while hardworking professionals are left to suffer deprivation because of poor salaries? Are these not the same light-minded lawmakers who confirmed a Central Bank Governor within three hours or suspended plenary to have lunch with a presidential aide?

The issue is that Nigerians are yet to rise with one voice to demand why a bunch of unprofitable citizens, less than five per cent of the population, who only know how to run the country down, should brazenly cart away huge sums of money monthly while hardworking professionals are paid peanuts and asked to tighten their belts. According to The Guardian on Sunday report, before the recent slash announced by RMAFC, salaries and allowances of those at the federal executive arm gulped over N170 billion annually.

Some readers may have been embarrassed by my insistence here last week that using N456 million to merely bring the president to Bayelsa State to “commission some projects” and lay the foundation for an airport project amounted to an unqualified waste. Many may have wondered why I was “making noise” because of such a “small change” spent on “a whole” presidential visit. And here am I again complaining that at this time of crippling crises in two critical sectors, health and education, someone outside a lunatic asylum thinks it is not obscene to furnish an ordinary office complex with nearly four billion naira! Please, pardon my obsession with “small matters.”

But wait: if this office would be furnished with N3.9 billion (about $33 million), what did it cost to build it? Nigerian leaders can spend anything to attract mere smiles from their foreign colleagues, who call them fools at the back. Indeed, if wasting all the money in the treasury would have made President Obama to visit Nigeria instead of Ghana, Yar’Adua, I am sure, would have been compelled to do it.

That is the tragedy of the nation - a nation where N6billion was recently removed from the budget for education and health, two very vital sectors, to build a ten lane road from the Abuja airport, so our rulers can impress foreign visitors with the beautiful, expensive road that leads into their country of benumbing insecurity, boundless corruption, countless starving people and millions of generators.

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scruples2006@yahoo.com

www.ugochukwu.wordpress.com