Editorial
Mmesoma Ejike: Nigeria, a hypocritical place *The Bola Tinubu, Peter Mba question!
The Nigerian polity has been awash since penultimate Sunday with the deafening din over the revelation by the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board that Mmesoma Joy Ejikeme, the student of Anglican Girls Secondary School Nnewi, Anambr State, actually forged the result she was flaunting indicating that she scored a princely 362, eight points short of the maximum 400 grade possible in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) organised by the agency, instead of the 249, she actually scored.
Like everything since President Muhammadu Buhari, as he recently was, left a big gouge in Nigeria’s national psyche, after running the most unprecedentedly nepotistic government nobody thought any Nigeria could conceive, contrive not to talk about possibly achieving, what ought to be an issue of right and wrong and no more, took the ethnic dimension, intensifying after the committee set up by Charles Soludo, governor of the state, came out with damning report, confirming the development.
For all the period of last week, when the controversy raged uncontrollably till date, it was a different version of the ethnic war that was spiked in the social media by mainly the All Progressives Congress (APC), which, having failed Nigeria woefully by its dismal outing that plunged the country into a bottomless pit of hopelessness, had to resort and rely on that sole weapon to fight the 2023 general election, though this time, there was no physical component to it, such as were seen on election days.
The clatter of eager tongues had so soon after, become a matter of Igbo versus Yoruba in the main, while other ethnic groups, took sides depending on where they stood during the just concluded elections and where they stand now.
Those who as much as cautioned that a thorough investigation should be carried out, were labelled enablers, backing fraud because the student involved was from their ethnic roots, while on the other hand, those who condemned her were termed haters trolling her because of where she hails.
In the cacophony of voices, the true essence of the issue, – fraud and the need to reprobate it, wherever it occurs – was lost. How sad! How long must a nation endure this? When would Nigeria recover and reset its spirit from this dangerous and degenerate mindset and begin to see things for what they really are? When will Nigeria regain its soul? When will Nigeria heal?
Incidentally and instructively, the case of Mmesoma, is a tiny dot in the oasis of frauds that have been committed in, within and against Nigeria over the several decades. In fact, its political history particularly is replete with how practitioners got away with blue murders and monumental bad behaviours without consequences.
Many political leaders, past and present, have been caught pants-down in the same manner Mmesoma, was discovered, but unfortunately, have been protectively covered in the manipulative blankets of official actions and lack of them. Their crimes are either ignored by the authorities that should have gone after them or bungled, most times deliberately by the same authorities or given legal cover by a manifestly suspect or outrightly corrupt judiciary.
In fact, in most of the cases, the judiciary have remained the major enablers, particularly. The recent drama at the National Assembly during the valedictory session of the Senate, bears ample testimony to the imprimatur of the same arm of government that is reputed as the bastion of truth, by its common perception and official acknowledgment as the temple of justice, presenting itself as the official platform and instrument for destroying and deprecating the same essence with which it earned the tag of the last hope of the common man.
What Adamu Bukalchuwa, a Senator from Bauchi State and Rochas Okorocha, his Imo State counterpart, left unsaid at that event, were adequate pointers to the obvious suffocating odour oozing out from the courtrooms in Nigeria, at least by public perception.
Yes! Just like Okorocha pointed out, Nigerians, left scandalised, if not benumbed have also been wandering in the wilderness like a herd of lost sheep, by the pronouncement of the Supreme Court judges, who allowed Ahmad Lawan, former Senate President as he then was and Godswill Akpabio, incidentally, his successor to return to the red chambers of the NASS after contesting for presidency a few months earlier, in clear violation of what they were told was the law.
Okorocha, had asked the apparently embarrassed Lawan to explain how he got back to the Senate against the clear law that clearly states that nobody could vie for two positions in an election circle. But Lawan and Akpabio did. How? But even witty as he sounded, the former Governor of Imo State, needed not ask, because the answer had been supplied earlier by his colleague from Bauchi.
Against what appeared normal, the former diplomat, had told his colleagues at the session and by extension a stunned public audience, that he influenced his wife, Zainab Bukalchuwa, as President of the Court of Appeal to skew justice in favour of members of the NASS. So, what else? Today, the same judiciary has returned to the spotlight as it is again being called to duty. Amongst the surfeit of cases at the various tribunals, two glaringly have direct bearing to the case of Mmesoma Ejikeme – President Bola Tinubu and Peter Mba of Enugu.
The both are tainted by certificate scandals. Specifically, Mba is being challenged over the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) certificate he is parading. Instructively, at the same period Mmesoma was dominating the airwaves, the Governorship Election Petition Tribunal in Enugu, was being told by the NYSC, the issuing body of the vital document without which nobody would enjoy public employment in Nigeria as university or polytechnic graduate that the document in the hand of Mba was fake, as it did not issue it.
At the Court of Appeal, Abuja, currently sitting as the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT), it is a similar scenario. Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is challenging the certificate presented by Tinubu, who claimed to have graduated from Chicago State University in the US, to back up his assertion.
Naturally, most Nigerians who have taken the gauntlet to defend the young girl, are demanding that the cleansing must start from the putrid fish-head, before anyone could be justified to cast stones at her. This is even when all seems agreed that what she did was wrong and required adequate punishment.
Here is a sampler of a reaction, which seems to resonate in a public groundswell: “Do we really have the moral justification to judge Nmesoma? A depraved society like ours, perverse in behaviour, lacking moral decency and marked by corruption and evil should first reflect on its role and complicity in the action taken by Nmesoma.
“A society that celebrates kleptocrats, rewards criminals, elevates thieves to high offices, defends certificate forgery, election rigging, ballot box snatching has no moral bearing to judge Nmesoma. A society that mocks good behavior, piety, empathy, justice, equity and good conscience has no grounds to judge Nmesoma. We should be apologising to Nmesoma for failing to protect and teach her real values! Nmesoma is a product of what we all birthed! Tueh!”
Indeed, how would anyone who supported what the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), presented as the byproduct of the 2023 election, which gulped more than N400billion be contemplating casting a stone at Mmesoma? How could any supporter of Tinubu, whose identity and academic records – primary, secondary and even university educations, are still quite nebulous, stand in good stead to demand a pound of flesh from the breast of the young girl, on whose head the amniotic fluid of her mother is yet to dry?
Yes! The President is prancing about gingerly, embracing and shaking hands with world leaders. But does he think those people are not aware of the shadow of infamy following him, due this unexplained past, which he has failed to address in the main, since deliberately leaving them out in the INEC papers he filled before contesting his election? Does he think it does not matter to those he seeks to hobnob with? Accepted that questionable, compromised and outrightly rigged elections are common within the circle, but how many of his counterparts in Africa, not to talk about the higher global level are similarly yoked with such cloudy pedigree as well?
Back home, how could a child in Damaturu, Ede or Eket, old enough to comprehend the outcome of the 2023 elections, be told that what Mmesoma did in Anambra, was wrong, when he saw how those the exercise produced, actually emerged? How would he be convinced that forgery, thuggery, stealing and lying do not pay more than good behaviour, such as studying hard to pass examinations and campaigning hard to win elections, assuming he harbours future leadership desires? How does a Nigerian child be convinced that crime does not pay, when the integrity of his President retains a huge question mark?
That is an issue that must be resolved one way or the other. It must not only be resolved, but it must be resolved first. And there is no other place to do so now, but the courts. In Enugu, the tribunal must tell Nigerians how Peter Mba got his certificate. There must either be a proof that NYSC is lying or in the alternative that he does not need one to become governor.
At the national level, the PEPT, must also tell Nigerians that Tinubu has clearly provided a clean copy of his past and proven same to boot, or that he does not need to do so to become President. Else, Mmesoma must be allowed not only to breathe, but actually be celebrated as a heroine rather than a villain, because she had learnt well from the examples of her leaders.
However, judges including those at the apex court of the land, had in the past, given themselves out as having the ability of decreeing impossibility to happen. In fact, one commentator, said recently that they are capable of stating that the child king Solomon was called to mediate over its true mother, was actually given birth to by a man. That is the level of reputation that have wittingly or unwittingly cut for themselves. It is left to be seen how far they go in either sustaining or reversing the trend.
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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