Editorial
Ekweremadu: The joke is on Buhari, when shame takes flight!
What would President Muhammadu Buhari be discussing today with his colleague Presidents and Heads of State in England as they converge on the country for the coronation of King Charles 111? Would he be aware of the stolen glances, muffled conversations, snide comments, hidden laughter and benign sympathies?
What if one of the bold British reporters walks up to him to pop that important question – Sir, what do you think about your country’s former number six citizen being sent to prison when you’re here? Would he consider it insulting or would he simply dismiss it with the simple answer – do the crime, do the time!?
No one needs to wager a bet that the President would not be perturbed by the implications of what is unfolding before his own eyes in the UK. Of course it would be difficult to ascertain how come the sentencing of Ike Ekweremadu, Nigeria’s former Deputy Senate President, for such a high crime of organ harvesting, would be happening at the same period Buhari is in the UK. It might well be a coincident or planned to be so. But give or take, the important thing is that the optics. Does it look edifying in anyway?
No matter how it might be waved aside as just a course of events, it is difficult to see how it would be divested from the menu of discussions within the diplomatic circle gathering in London, if not officially, privately. Even as an ordinary citizen, the publicity given to the incident is enough to generate a fair interest, not to talk about a nation’s top citizen – a former number six citizen.
What a diplomatic calamity! Which other President outside Buhari would be proud at this time, standing shoulder to shoulder with other world leaders with such an obscene and ugly scenario playing out before him, in which a top citizen of his country is being dressed in orange dress and being led away to jail, before his very eyes. Only a Nigerian President would suffer such a shame.
Yes, the argument is being made that the British court is no respecter of persons and therefore impervious to Ekweremadu’s status. It is also being argued that the date had been scheduled and could not be altered because of the coronation. But must Buhari be at the event? What is there for him or Nigeria to gain as to make it imperative to be subjected to such an international insult?
In other words, would he claim not to be aware of the implication? Assuming he did not advert his mind to it, would his advisers not have told him? Must he attend the king’s coronation, if it would present an opportunity to throw mud in his face? Must he be in London at this time?
Naturally, this would not be the first time. Using a big event to deliberately smear Nigeria or accentuate its fault, seems to have become the standard in Britain. In May 2016, while foreign leaders were arriving London ahead of an anti-corruption summit held by the UK government, David Cameron, seized an opportunity of an event at the Buckingham Palace, to celebrate the 90th birthday of the late Queen Elizabeth 11, to describe Nigeria as “fantastically-corrupt.”
Though it seemed an unintended faux pass – an off-handed statement made in a private meeting – but many vast in diplomatic circles, suggest that the video clip accompanying it, was deliberately leaked to achieve a major purpose, in the well-orchestrated scheme to demean Nigeria.
Incidentally, to many people, who had assumed that Buhari would have fumed with righteous anger at the deliberate slight by a fellow leader, and probably made a well-deserved protest, were amazed about how he gave more impetus to the obvious insult in his benign retort that he would fight corruption.
Today a more intriguing reaction is coming from the larger Nigerian society to the Ekweremadu saga. Countless number of compatriots, rather than see the hidden implication, have practically rolled out the drums to celebrate what they believe was a victory. One of their “enemies” is down.
He is corrupt. He thought it was Nigeria. He deserves what he got. If he had invested the money he stole in building a befitting hospital, he wouldn’t have been in this mess! On and on, the blame game goes on. But what they fail to realise is that the fate Ekweremadu just suffered has a ripple effect, like throwing a stone into an open market.
They seem not to realise that it may have a direct link to why a Peter Obi, or Wole Soyinka or Yakubu Mahmood with green passport, would be pulled out of a line a the Heathrow Airport in London or JFK in the US and delayed for hours, while their counterparts from Ghana, Togo, Zimbabwe or even the smallest nations in Africa are given easy passage.
Why would the same people not see that the same Oyibo people they are quick to eulogise commit far worse crimes in Africa without consequences. Ekweremadu’s case was attempt at organ harvesting, which is against the law and therefore he had to go in for it. But who punishes the white man for the horrendous atrocities they commit across African countries?
The suggestion is that crimes, local and international are embedded in the African genes only. But do not even look crimes like the slave trade, pillaging of commonwealth of colonised countries and other atrocities centuries ago. Those may have receded far at the back of history. What about many recent events that are still very fresh ?
Remember it was the white man that arranged hazardous wastes packaged and dumped in Koko, Delta State in 1988. It was the same white man that in 1996 illegally used some 200 children as guinea pigs in a vaccine experiment that killed 11 of them and left the rest with various degrees of deformity, including paralysis, in Kano.
Today, not only are some rare artifacts from Nigeria and Africa are decorating many public and private museums in their countries, they are still stealing and carting more of them till date. It is still the same white man that have made their homes havens for child trafficking and prostitution, despite what is there in the open.
You wonder today why not a single dime enters the public till in Nigeria from production and sale of oil, when each day, shiploads of products leave the shores of the Niger Delta to foreign destinations. You don’t need to look deeper to see the imprimatur of the white man in the heist.
Were it just economic crimes alone, it would even be better. It is far worse! They have to kill and maim – in thousands and millions – to achieve their purpose. This is the fatal fate of countries like Congo Democratic Republic (DR), the acclaimed richest enclave in the world in terms of mineral resources. In such places, there is a pattern. Once deposits of mineral resources are discovered using satellite imagery, the next step is to arm vulnerable local youths with guns and drugs and off they go killing each other while they land with their helicopters and mining equipment to steal the minerals.
That is why today the people of Zamfara in Nigeria’s North West bury their dead in tens and hundreds, while reporting the frequent landing and taking off of some flying objects, loaded with gold and other precious minerals, while the official story is that it is all about herdsmen and their cattle.
How many people died in Iraq where the world was told of a certain Saddam Hussein was storing Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), only to discover that it was a personal beef and disagreements over mundane issues? Today, what is left of a once proud and beautiful country are relics of the past as the present is buried in misery of biting poverty – people hitherto swimming in opulence now dying of hunger in the midst of continued slaughtering in the streets by religious fanatics or other criminals.
What about Libya? This was a country so rich that on the attainment of 25, a man is ushered into his well-furnished home on government account, where studying from cradle to the highest level of educational attainment is free of charge, including foreign training. This was a country where citizens practically enjoyed a land filled with milk and honey in real terms. But what is Libya today? A wasteland of drugged, gun-bearing youths killing each other on the orders of warlords created by the leadership gap after the mindless blitzkrieg unleashed on the country by the white man.
Now, what has happened to the culprits in these monumental wastage and massive carnage. George W Bush who has long admitted that Iraq was a mistake, has since retired to his ranch in Texas enjoying the status of world leader. Barak Obama, David Cameron, and Nicolas Sarkozy of US, UK and France who teamed up to commit that heinous crime of killing Muommer Gadaffi, are today strutting about the globe in like manner and being accorded red carpet treatments as statesmen by their hosts, when their places should be in jail for causing such human calamity.
So, talk about crimes! It has the colour of Africa. How much have you heard further of the sexual offences case of Prince Andrew, of the British royal house? Through the backdoor channels it has been settled quietly without fuss. But the case of Ekweremadu, a father trying to save his daughter cannot be settled. Of course, before Ekweremadu, was James Ibori, a former Governor. Again, Nigerians rolled out the drums as they’re doing today in celebration. They celebrate because they believe what Nigeria could not do by putting the former Delta State helmsman behind bars had become possible elsewhere.
Before Ibori was the late Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, former Governor of Bayelsa State, who was lucky to have escaped back to Nigeria after being arrested in London for money laundering. Even the late Chinwoke Mbadinuju of Anambra State, escaped by the whiskers of a cat. His own crime was that he was seen with his traditional elephant tusk. His saving grace was that the tusk turned out to be fake when scientifically examined.
Else, he would have been ferried from the airport where he was caught straight to court and jail. Of course there would have been joy in the land, because like Ekweremadu, Ibori and Alams, Mabadinuju was not smelling roses with his people in Anambra at the time, coupled with the fact that all public officers in Nigeria have enemies who would always wish the worst to happen to them.
So, like every other world leader, Buhari would have his space at the gallery to watch the event of Saturday, May 6, 2023. There would be handshakes, patting on the back, exchange of banters and pleasantries. But the joke would be on him. In the private places, out of earshot, he would be the butt of diplomatic jokes. Then Nigeria will sink further. Then the citizens would taste the outcome – at airports, in foreign lands and elsewhere nationalities take prides of place. That’s the tragedy!
It began less than 10 minutes after taking the oath of office. In his address to the nation, he uttered those three-letter words – subsidy is gone. The ink with which he signed the documents declaring him President was yet to dry.
That was it. From that moment, Nigerians have known nothing but poverty, tears and death. It was a declaration that came out of impulse rather than articulacy. It was not even contained in his original speech prepared for the occasion. But it sprouted out – from a rash, unthinking and impetuous mental construct.
But the effect was instant, the impact direct. From that moment, Nigerians have never known peace. Every thing took a cue. Minutes after, the news broke that the price of Premium Motor Spirit, otherwise known as petrol had jumped from N189 to N550. It was that instant. Today, it hovers around N1,500.
The effect: Within minutes, transportation cost quadrupled. So too, commodity prices. Caught unawares, marketers, who had earlier thought it was a day of the rains as customers rushed to their shops, soon became suspicious and then got wiser – these were not ordinary customers but smart alecs playing a fast one on them.
They stopped selling, retrieved the items they could from those who had not disappeared with their goods and closed shop to study the situation properly. Hours after, they responded. A plate of eba and soup, went up from N200 to N1,000. Prices hit the rooftops.
In fact, the vehicle transporting what used to be Nigeria, which had been moving at a horse and buggy pace in the days of Muhammadu Buhari, stopped abruptly, engaged the reverse gear and began galloping backwards. That has remained the ugly, parlous tale of the Tinubu days, since May 29, 2023.
Now, the expectation would be that the President and his government that wrought such a horrendous punishment on the polity, would themselves take some blows. But nada! Instead, the opposite was the case. Within months of plunging the citizens into the untold hardship Tinubu went on a binge, spending money – in the words of Olusegun Obasanjo, former President – like a drunken sailor.
Few weeks after, as Nigerians were reeling and gasping in pain from the impact of their new situation, 469 newly-minted Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs), rolled out from factories in Japan, where they were produced into the premises of the National Assembly for the just inaugurated members.
Put the cost at N100billion – that is N160million for each unit, plus other charges. Reason: The lawmakers needed the vehicles because of their good suspension system, to navigate the so many bad roads in Nigeria. Yes, you heard right. How could they think well and make good laws after the hassles of the bad roads? Tinubu saw reasons, acquiesced and voila!
But it did not end there. Tinubu suddenly realised that Kashim Shettima, his deputy, needed a new home “befitting” his new office. Pronto! A voucher of N21billion was raised and he had it. Till date a haze still hovers over the project.
The last news that was heard was that Number Two refused to take residence because the entire environment, including the toilets was wired to the teeth to monitor him. And Number Two needed privacy.
Again, in the same weeks, Oga Patapata, also realised that Madam needed to transport more comfortably. Pronto! It was arranged. Another voucher was raised for cars for the Office of the First Lady. Cost N1.2billion. Of course, madam needed the comfort for peace at home.
Naturally, since transportation is not done by land alone, he also took care of that. For the sea, a yacht was procured. Cost N5billion. Because the birds in the presidential fleet were not good enough, Tinubu did the needful.
He enriched the fleet with the one befitting of his status and had it transformed to mimic the US Air Force One. To complete the status symbol project, he also added a replica of The Beast, the US presidential automobile.
Ironically, the funds used in procuring these luxury lifestyle, came, not out of productive ventures of Nigeria, but through borrowing. Today, Tinubu has practically borrowed Nigeria blind, doubling or even tripling that of his predecessors.
Meanwhile Nigerians had upped the ante from mere groaning and skreiching. Citizens, unable to take it anymore, now stop their hitherto sleek vehicles on the Third Mainland Bridge and plunge into the Lagos lagoon to end it all. The option is now more rampant than remote and occasional.
Many others, taking the Socrates option, now drink hemlock and many more simply sleep off without any intention of waking up. That is where we are. That is the new Nigeria – the Tinubu Nigeria. But there is more.
Terrorists and the landlords of the forest, having now discovered that the Commander-in-Chief has other fancies than security and welfare of the people – the constitutionally-declared primary purpose of government and scant regard for the citizens, have practically gone haywire. They have taken over and established their authority.
Presently, outside those wantonly slaughtered or butchered in their homes like animals at the abattoir, incinerated alive while sleeping on their beds, among other forms of decimation, many more citizens are now spending months, going to years as victims of captivity with them in various forests in Nigeria.
In their rampage, the terrorists have since broken all barriers considered out of place hitherto. One of their escapades is the present videos of the school children and teachers taken from Oyo State. The gory imagery captures the current Nigerian story.
For instance, on Thursday, just as the sound of heavy celebration was going on in neighbouring Ogun State as the world marked the Ojude Oba yearly carnival, two of the victims, one of them with a toddler on her back, were pleading for their lives, as others went through various forms of torture, including heavy whipping like beasts.
Don’t forget that the terrorists had earlier slaughtered one of their colleagues. In the new video, the totally terrified women, informed that they had chosen another victim to be similarly eliminated. Yet, no word about rescue! Terrible!
Interestingly, if not painfully, Tinubu’s response, in the few cases he bothered, was to see the crisis through the politics lens. His most recent reaction was to tell the world that the harvest of attacks and carnages ravaging the country, were sponsored by his political enemies, intent on shoving him out of power. That to him was all that mattered.
Now, where are your powers as C-in-C? They are mostly found in the most disgraceful economic and political acts of impunity. Nigerians now waking up to hear of the award of brain-dazing contracts such as the N15trillion Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway and Badagry-Maiduguri Highway – with scant regard for official regulations, is now becoming more common than rare.
Few days after one of the teachers was beheaded and the video of the hideous act made to circulate on the social media, the President and his All Progressives Congress (APC), party, rolled out the drums of his winning the party’s ticket to contest the 2027 presidential election.
To say that it has been three years of weeping, wailing, mourning and gnashing of the teeth, is a clear euphemism. There is no starker way of putting it than calamity – pure, unmitigated catastrophe – disaster.
Then comes the big question. Nigeria is already breasting the tape of these ruinous years of the first term. Suppose Tinubu succeeds in renewing his tenure by January next year? Will Nigeria survive five more years of a life like the last three? What will be left of Nigeria? Is there a way out, outside shouting – God forbid!?
Now that Nyesom Wike, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has fully executed his plot against Siminalayi Fubara, Governor of Rivers State, where would it be placed in terms of identity, nuances, ethos and history? Where would it be placed in democratic arrangement and value? In other word, by what name would it be called?
So, this is what President Bola Tinubu’s much-advertised democratic credentials is all about? This is what being listed among the arrowheads in the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), the body that fought relentlessly against the late Sani Abacha and his henchmen has finally come to?
Is this where “The Last Man Standing” – apologies Tony Elumelu – has ended up? So, after wedging an epic battle for and through Lagos State, against then President Obasanjo and practically defeating him, even if perceptibly, in all the struggles – such as running government without federal allocation for years and surviving the political onslaught that took away other South West states like a tsunami, it has come to this?
Don’t forget that it was this selfsame Tinubu that served as the bastion of opposition in Nigerian politics from when he was Governor of Lagos State, not only standing up against Obasanjo, but undertaking the relentless battles that led to the All Progressives Congress (APC), winning the war eventually in 2015.
So, this is what all the struggles, the speeches, the colloquia, the meetings and the strategies have come to – the end result? So, the definition of democracy, to Tinubu, is selling the dog to buy a monkey – replacing democratic bad-behaviour with democratic-heist? So, this is it?!
Make no mistake about it. What you saw play out in Rivers is nothing but Tinubu at work. It is all about him, it is for him. Never make the mistake of adorning Wike in the toga of a powerful man. That would be a fatal error of judgement. Every power he exercises, real, imagined, inferred or contingent belong to and are exclusive to Tinubu.
Take away the President and Wike would turn to a political meek-lamb or a jellyfish. Fubara would have eaten him for lunch a long time ago. So, Tinubu it is – the reason the klieglights must be beamed on him. That is why he must carry the can in this odious construct in Rivers in particular and the entire Nigerian political scenario in general.
With the picture that assaulted Nigeria regarding the APC primaries that have just held, what is different from the edition we saw in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of old? Is it not worse or the worst in real and imagined terms? What then has Tinubu been fighting all these years?
Incidentally, where we have Wike today, we had Lamidi Adedibu, the Amala Politics exponent, Tony Aneni of the Mr. Fix-it fame and the Uba brothers in Anambra to whom the political firmament in Nigeria once bowed, among many plethora of examples.
So, there is nothing really new about the development, but for the fresh dimension that has been introduced into the narrative by the Wike phenomenon, which is totally novel. Before now it was a case of one behemoth in a political party rampaging the system.
But today, it has gone beyond that. Wike has developed the penchant for taking no prisoners. In his own strange construct, he has now coalesced the entire APC and PDP structure into his shoulder basket, from where he dispenses favours.
Imagine Kingsley Chinda, purchasing APC governorship election form, as a PDP federal lawmaker without first resigning from his original party. That is how wacky it has become. Wackier still is that nobody – not even the APC apparatchik has been able to raise a finger. Why? Obvious answer – the Tinubu factor.
Now, here is the danger. By the heist in Port Harcourt adding to the sequence of political oddities and absurdities since the Tinubu years, it has become obvious that Nigeria is headed towards a Paul Biya’s Cameroun, a Yoweri Musaveni’s Uganda and Zimbabwe under the late Robert Mugabe.
Tinubu, has shown obvious incapacity to tackle the parlous economic crisis in the country with 150 million Nigerians plunged into multidimensional poverty and many more growing the list daily, while also displaying uncommon powerlessness towards addressing the debilitating state of insecurity.
Under his nose citizens are daily being forced from their homes into the forests by terrorists, with some of them taken from their crutching positions, positioned before the camera and slaughtered – heads cut off like animals at an abattoir and video images freely displayed on social media.
Yet, by what has now happened in Rivers State, it has become obvious that Nigerians are not being factored into the whole equation and if they were, scant regard is paid to their opinion, ending in their powerlessness to change the situation. That is the tragedy!
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