▪︎Nigeria’s not Lagos …
Steve Osuji
Voice of a statesman is also the voice of God: Yes, it’s not just the voice of the people that’s the voice of God, as that age-old aphorism suggests. And there’s no doubt that former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo is the last true statesman standing today. Of course, the hallmark of statesmanship is the audacity to say things others only murmur about.
Expectedly, Obasanjo didn’t disappoint recently when he called out President Bola Tinubu leaving sweltering words on his back. Tinubu’s canines like Bayo Onanuga immediately chased after the wily old General, muddied the waters of the discourse and denied Nigerians the full import of Chief Obasanjo’s intervention. But the message is too weighty to be allowed to flounder.
OBASANJO’s MESSAGE: Obasanjo passed an earth-shattering message to Nigerians and the world at large but we all either seemed to conveniently overlook it or perhaps, the gravity of it was lost on us. Obasanjo told Nigerians in plain words that Tinubu and his cronies are practising a perverse kind of corruption. Meaning, a kind of corruption that is strange to even Nigeria!
Hear Obasanjo: “Nigeria is currently experiencing state capturing which is a pervasive form of corruption where powerful individuals and groups manipulate the country’s policies and resources to serve their private interests.”
This was the crux of the address Obasanjo presented at the Chinua Achebe Leadership Forum at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA. The keynote address is titled: “Leadership Failure and State Capture in Nigeria.”
Apparently, Nigerians missed the highpoint of this apocalyptic speech which warns us about the introduction of PERVERSE CORRUPTION to Nigeria by President Tinubu. Yes, Nigeria was always a corrupt country, ever ranking high in Transparency International’s annual report.
In fact, in 2016, British PM, David Cameron described Nigeria as “fantastically corrupt.” This was President Muhammadu Buhari’s era, the hypocrite who deceived Nigerians into believing that he wanted to fight corruption. His administration turned out to be the most blatantly corrupt before Tinubu came along to break the ignoble record.
In exactly one and half years, Tinubu has given a new meaning and new modus to corruption. Let it be put on record that President Tinubu is the man who redefined corruption in Nigeria.
This is why Obasanjo cried out in his under reported Yale address: “WHAT IS HAPPENING NIGERIA – RIGHT BEFORE OUR EYES – IS STATE CAPTURE: THE PURCHASE OF NATIONAL ASSETS BY POLITICAL ELITES – AND THEIR FAMILY MEMBERS – AT BARGAIN PRICES, THE ALLOCATION OF NATIONAL RESOURCES – MINERALS, LAND, AND EVEN HUMAN RESOURCES – TO LOCAL, REGIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL ACTORS.”
Obasanjo explains further that the main risk of state capture is that decisions no longer take into consideration the public interest, but instead favour a special interest group or individual.
Former President Obasanjo didn’t mince words, he drove in the sword and twisted it vigorously, surmising: “THAT’S THE SITUATION MOSTLY IN NIGERIA IN THE REIGN OF BABA GO-SLOW AND EMILOKAN.”
And here’ Obasanjo’s closing verdict on President Tinubu: “The failing state status of Nigeria is confirmed and glaringly indicated and manifested for every honest person to see through the consequences of the level of our pervasive corruption, mediocrity, immorality, misconduct, mismanagement, perversion, injustice, incompetence and all other forms of iniquity.”
STEALING NIGERIA’S ASSETS BY STEALTH: Obasanjo says that President Tinubu having captured Nigeria, is converting Nigeria’s assets to personal property. Though the media wouldn’t report this bit with requisite perspectives, the retired General said that while previous leaders helped themselves to the treasury, Tinubu is hefting the entire treasury and moving it to his bedroom. This is what Obasanjo means by “purchase of national assets by political elites.. and through family ties.”
Examples of this infamy are numerous and in the public domain:
Example 1. ENTERS SEYI TINUBU: Last May, shortly before Tinubu was sworn in, Bloomberg had reported that Tinubu’s heir, Seyi, had purchased a £9 million worth mansion in choice area of North London, UK. But it is not the humongous cost of the property nor the fact of a president’s son with no known business buying it. What’s mind-bending here is that the mansion was among those under investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC and suspected to be proceed of crime committed by former Oil Minister, Diezani Allison-Madueke and her rogue friends, Kola Aluko and Jide Omokore.
The trio were being investigated for undercutting payment for crude oil purchases to the tune of $1.5 billion. The mansion was to be sold by the EFCC to recover some of Nigeria’s revenues but alas, it ended up in the hands of president Tinubu’s son.
EFCC has remained mum on this tangle of epic sovereign crime. It’s the same EFCC that’s making a song and dance of recovering 753 duplexes in Abuja. But that single mansion in London would probably build 1000 duplexes in Nigeria, not counting the hundreds of value it would avail Nigerian builders, architects, civil engineers, cement manufacturers, building material dealers, etc.
But we wager that the EFCC today will never revert to the London mansion. Import: EFCC is a badly damaged article, an amoral entity that picks and chooses its ‘victims’ while pretending to battle graft.
Example 2. ENTER CHARGOURY & CHARGOURY (C&) : The first major contract Tinubu awarded immediately he assumed office is the $11 billion Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway. There was no public bid, no supplementary appropriation, no Senate approval, no public engagement. Nigerians were merely informed that what’s perhaps the single largest public project in Nigeria’s history was about to start. Just like that.
That may have been tolerable if intentions here were pure and noble. But no, this is beyond criminal, it’s official, barefaced banditry as the contract was found to have been handed to small-time construction firm, Hitech.
Guess who’s a part-owner of the firm: Seyi Tinubu! Another-part owner is a certain Gilbert Chargoury who was an ally to Nigeria’s former military despot General Sani Abacha.
Chargoury in cahoots with Abacha carried out what’s probably the most vicious economic rape ever visited on any country. Most of the notorious Abacha loot passed through the Chargoury conduit pipes and sluiceways.
Chargoury fled from Nigeria after Abacha fell.
Today, the international rogue is back, even more influential than before. Unable to operate freely during Buhari’s time, Gilbert Chargoury is now based in Paris from where he directs affairs in Aso Rock.
The Chargourys, economic mercenaries and carpetbaggers, are currently the closest confidants and business partners to president Tinubu. They are on rampage this time, buying up massive assets of multinationals fleeing from Tinubu’s state of anomie – from oil and gas behemoths to FMCGs conglomerate.
A money-laundering super-machine, it is common knowledge in Nigeria that C&C is front for you know who in Eko Hotels, perhaps the largest hospitality outfit in Africa and Eko Atlantic City, the most premium swathe of property in Nigeria.
In other climes, the Chargourys would be in jail.
Example 3. FECKLESS FRANCE: The examples are numerous but Nigeria’s current dalliance with France is an especial case to watch closely. Going by France’s now broken relationship with their vassal states of West Africa, the European power is openly a bandit nation. The world has looked on for over six decades as France remorselessly disemboweled and stunted the growth of the sahel countries, making them the poorest places on earth, even though they have the most precious minerals. As far as Africa is concerned, France is an evil empire. This explains why her former colonies are currently putting up strident rebellion.
Note that Gilbert Chargoury is a person of influence in France and he has led his super pal, Tinubu to France.
A rapine and unscrupulous entity, France would gladly present a comfortable conduit for the worst money-laundering rackets ever to be experienced in Nigeria. Unlike the US and the UK, France is not known to frown at international financial malfeasance. A cursory look at France’s Financial Action Task Force (FATF) compliance evaluation, shows that she is remit in critical areas like correspondence banking and politically exposed people. In all the hue and cry from the West about Abacha loot, did you hear pim from France? Did France ever return a dim of any loot ever? That’s the nature of France – it’s not exactly a crime to hide stolen sovereign wealth in Paris. In fact, rogue leaders who launder substantial funds into France are likely to be rewarded with a medal D’honour!
But the obverse is that France has a country to run. President Emmanuel Macron has his people to tend to and he has elections to win. He would do anything, including looting a foolish sovereign to get his job done.
On the other hand, Tinubu owes nobody any favours.
TINUBU AND TINUBU INCORPORATED: Nigeria be damned, so long as Macron would invite him to Elysee Palace! Tinubu owes no allegiance to neither the people nor the state. Apparently he’s not aware Nigerians have labelled him T-Pain.
Surely, President Tinubu doesn’t know the meaning of Human Development Indices (HDI). This is why he has joyously deployed giant pay loaders to throw Nigerians into the abyss of poverty.
If Tinubu has an inkling of the meaning of HDI, why is he unfazed that over 10 million Nigerians have been shoved into poverty in just 18 months of his administration? Why isn’t he aware that over two million infants in Nigeria have lapsed into end-stage malnutrition in his short reign? And why did he publicly declare that “Nigerians were living a fake good life before fuel subsidy removal?” It’s either he’s possessed of a morbid sense of humour or his incompetence is of a genocidal magnitude!
BACK TO OBASANJO: Again, what we are witnessing under the guise of governance is what Obasanjo aptly describes as PERVERSE CORRUPTION. Explained in simple terms, it is a situation in which Nigeria’s sovereign wealth is being converted to the personal wealth of President Tinubu, his son, his wife and his friends and associates. They would heft the entire Nigerian space and make away with it if they could. Not unlike in Lagos where the state has been in Tinubu’s back pocket for 25 years and the nicest and grandest things belong to the Tinubu’s.
However, Nigeria is not Lagos. Or is it?
He who has tears let him shed for our dear country, Nigeria.
Feedback: steve.osuji@gmail.com
▪︎Osuji was editor at The Guardian, THISDAY and NewAge. He was until recently, a member of the editorial board of The Nation.