The Deity we now Worship.

One of the senators, who is regarded as a mascot of the current era and has perhaps never held any serious employment in his life until he drifted into politics, is now a member of the monied class. He spent many years in the House of Representatives until he got elevated by his constituents into the Senate. He displays his opulence everywhere. He has more personal cars than Alhaji Aliko Dangote. So many are his cars that he keeps one in his sitting room for his visitors to admire!

 

When the world call us corrupt it is because they see how easy it has become for our leaders to steal from the Commonwealth. In the early days of the current era, far-reaching investigations were made by the Federal Ministry of Justice under Chief Bola Ige into the money stolen by General Abacha. Billions of dollars were traced to more than 130 bank accounts all over the world owned by the late dictator. One of Abacha’s bagmen who was arrested and detained, was released after he surrendered more than 100 million dollars in his care. That bagman is today an elected governor. Tackling corruption is not going to be easy because the entire system is now woven into it.

 

Everyone knows that the duty of the Legislature is to make laws and that of the Executive to execute the law. We know that the so-called Constituency Project was invented to ensure that the lawmaker too has a way of recouping his investments while also playing the role of a Man of the People. Two of my friends in the Senate have ran into problems because they focussed mainly on education and neglected “welfare” of the party leaders. Now election is days away and “welfare” would have a day of reckoning. 

In 1984, Chief Gani Fawehinmi at the premises of a military tribunal where a top military officer was facing trial for alleged embezzlement of public fund, said corruption cannot be tackled through the normal process. “Experience has shown that corruption in public life cannot be obliterated by mere probes and commissions of enquiry or by the invocation of the criminal code under the ordinary legal system,” Fawehinmi declared.

 

“The compelling need, therefore, arose to evolve and devise a system swift enough, fair enough and serious enough to deal a lethal blow on corruption in public places.”

 

When Fawehinmi made that statement, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari was Nigeria’s military dictator and Major-General Babatunde Idiagbon was his unsmiling deputy. Today Buhari is an elected ruler and Idiagbon is dead. The country is still the same but the market of corruption is different. In 1984, a military governor of one of the South-Western states bought himself a brand new Peugeot car costing almost N10,000. Idiagbon fired him a query and threatened to remove him from office. The governor had to explain and show the evidence, that indeed he took a car loan...

 

In the past, the deity we worship was power and not money. None of our founding fathers was noted for his wealth.

 

When Chief Obafemi Awolowo was Premier of the defunct Western Region, his wife, the unforgettable Mama Dideolu, was running her shop at Gbagi Market in Ibadan, trying to augment the family’s income. At that time, first ladyism had not overtaken us. The military followed in that footstep. When General J.T.U Aguiyi-Ironsi and Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi were killed in the counter-coup of July 29, 1966, neither of them had any house anywhere.

 

Navy Captain Philip Oladipo Ayeni, the first military governor of Bayelsa State, had no retirement home in Okemesi, his hometown, many years after he served as governor and retired from the navy. It took the generosity of Governor Seriake Dickson, the current governor of Bayelsa State, to build him one. It was a great favour for us in Okemesi for when Ayeni died in April 2017, we were able to bury him in his own house. No government is strong enough to fight corruption alone. We all have a duty to ensure that the deity of corruption does not find a comfortable home in Nigeria. The battle ahead against corruption would be rough and protracted. The judiciary, to justify its position as the Last Hope of the Common Man, must rise to the occasion and imbibe new impetus for speed and justice. Some of the accused former governors sitting pretty in the Senate have been facing trials for more than 10 years.

 

In most countries, corruption trials don’t last more than 10 months. We cannot afford our judiciary to become a laughing stock or else our country is finished! Weep not for Nigeria but rise up to fight corruption even at your own domain. Follow not the way of Corrupt Men and Women but walk away from them for it is through this way the future generation will get independence from corruption. 

 

by Dare Babarinsa.