We were never amused, nor were we ever surprised about the so-called “looters list” recently released by the Nigerian federal government. What surprised us however was that it took the administration almost three years to come up with such list.
Right from day one, Muhammadu Buhari, whether in khaki or in agbada, has never failed to categorize every other Nigerian, particularly those outside his constituency, as thieves and criminals.
In his first outing as military head of state, Buhari saw most of the civilian politicians, in particular, those he had ousted in the military putsh of December 31, 1983, as criminals. In consequence, he rounded virtually everyone of them up, and dumped into the Kirikiri Prisons.
Later, he set up Special Military Tribunals to try them of corrupt practices. Many of these civilian politicians were handed down several years imprisonment of between 90 and 100 years each, and even more.
Again, in the run up to his second coming as civilian President, Muhammadu Buhari also said that he was going to wage a vigorous war against corruption. Thus, as soon as he mounted the saddle on May 29, 2015, President Buhari quickly boarded his Presidential jet and landed in London where he proclaimed to the entre world that all Nigerians were criminals and “fantastically corrupt”.
Thanks to the current democratic governance in the country and the ever vigilant and critical Nigerian press, otherwise many of us would have by now been langushing in various prisons across the land. It was democracy that prevented Buhari from not using his kangaroo military tribunals which he used as military head of state, to luck up many Nigerians in prison. Because of democracy, Buhari was forced to resort to the normal judicial process.
But the judiciary could not be fooled, nor could it be intimidated as the corruption cases sent to it were thoroughly examined and many of them thrown out for want of evidence. Thus being unable to secure any judicial conviction since coming to power, the administration decided to resort to trials and convictions of corruption cases on the pages of newspapers, on social media, and on radio and television stations.
Incidentally, no member of his ruling political party, the APC, was included in the looters list, not even Babchir Lawal, grasscutter and former SGF, nor his Chief of Staff implicated in the MTN scandal, etc., just as no member of his military constituency made the list, like the head of the army, a civil servant, who was alleged tô have owned two massions in Dubai.
Buhari who always portrays himself as a saint, did not tell us what happened to the missing $28 million NNPC money, when he was Petroleum Minister in 1978. He also has failed to give account of his stewardship as head of Abacha’s Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) where several underhand businesses were alleged.
I don’t think that anybody can truthfully swear that Buhari has no hands in the “Abacha loot” currently being repartriated from some European countries, afterall the easiest place to steal money in the country is from the petroleum industry, PF which Buhari was in charge during the Abacha era. Was it not why he had stoutly defended Abacha as not being corrupt?
If Buhari is very honest to his conscience, why is it that he did not tell us how much that was spent on him by the Nigerian government during his almost six months stay in London hospital? Hypocricy is an incurable disease.
d
Comments 0