NIGERIA'S OBASANJO: WHEN IS
CORRUPTION NOT CORRUPTION
By Chika Onyeani/African
Sun Times
Snippett, "Given the above, it is time that Nigerians
stop President Obasanjo from continuing to orchestrate this
charade of being an champion of anti-corruption. He needs
to come clean, and own up to his hands being as dirty as
those he has accused, or at least, in the main, stop
insulting the intelligence of Nigerians with this ballyhooed
and hollow sloganeering of being an anti-corruption
champion. If Nuhu Ribadu, who had earlier been acclaimed
for his steadfastness in rooting out corruption, wants to
retain any iota of credibility, he should charge Obasanjo
with corruption. It is not enough to pretend that he is
‘investigating’ the president. He already has enough
wrong-doings to charge the President with corruption. Or if
he is pressured from doing so, resign his post in protest.
There should never be a time when corruption should not be
seen as corruption, whether it involves President Obasanjo
or anybody else."
Nigeria’s President, Olusegun Obasanjo, has been touting
himself as a fighter against corruption. Earlier in his
first term in office, he established the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission, and appointed a dynamic young
man, Mr. Nuhu Ribadu as Chairman, to root out corruption in
Nigeria. In the initial years of its existence, the
Commission and Nuhu Ribadu were applauded by Nigerians when
the Commission went after what Nigerians considered the
bigger fish of corrupt individuals. First, the Commission
uncovered the looting carried out by Nigeria’s
Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Tafa Balogun, to the tune
of N17 billion (seventeen billion Naira or about $125
million) in a country whose per capita income was estimated
in 2005 to be about $697. Mr. Balogun was arrested and
charged to court. The government announced that it had
recovered most of the loot, including properties owned by
Mr. Balogun. But he was only sentenced to six months
imprisonment.
On Tuesday, March, 22, 2005, President Obasanjo went on
national television to express his ‘shocking indignation’ at
and ‘expose’ the then minister of education, Prof. Fabian
Osuji, who he accused of having raised a total sum of N55
million ($380,000) from departments of the education
ministry to bribe members of the legislature to increase his
ministry’s budget. He promptly announced during the
broadcast that he had sacked the education minister. Also
roped in into this ‘corruption’ case, was the then Senate
President Adolphus Wabara, who also had to step down.
Obasanjo then dismissed a few other ministers for corrupt
practices.
But behind the facade of hollering about anti-corruption and
presenting himself as an champsion against corruption in
Nigeria, was Obasanjo’s hidden agenda: to thwart
Nigeria’s constitution and run for a third term of four
years, invoking the same useless sayings that other
dictatorial African presidents have always invoked: “I
haven’t finished my good deeds for the country.”
Unfortunately for him, but fortunately for Nigerians, the
Nigerian legislators dealt his third-term ambitions a deadly
blow, by voting not to amend the Nigerian constitution so
that Obasanjo could run again. Since then, Obasanjo has
been on a rampage of vindictive revenge against those who
caused his ambitions to fail. However, Obasanjo’s travails
in the third-term machinations are not the essence of this
column, which I have already dealt with in an earlier essay.
What we have to look at here is the perception that Obasanjo
has given to the world that he is a fighter against
corruption. Okay, let’s agree that when he took office in
1999,
Nigeria stood at No.2 as the most corrupt country,
just behind Bangladesh’s No.1 status, according to
Transparency International. In almost eight years in
office, Obasanjo has achieved the 'distinction' of getting
Nigeria to the No.5 bumbed-group of corrupt
countries, including
Turkmenistan,
Tajikistan,
Sierra Leone,
Pakistan,
Nigeria,
Kyrgyzstan, Kenya,
Congo Republic and
Angola, in that order.
As to Obasanjo’s credentials or credence in being a champion
of anti-corruption, in reviewing the events that follow, we
have to remember that the former dictator of
Nigeria, late Gen. Sani Abacha, locked up Obasanjo in
1995, and not until Abacha’s demise in 1998, was Obasanjo
released. Upon his release, he really had nothing except
his almost bankrupt farm in Otta.
It is necessary to ask the question, when is corruption not
corruption, when you begin to examine the actions of a
so-called champion of anti-corruption. Against practices
adopted by presidents in constructing their presidential
libraries, especially those of U.S. presidents’ presidential
libraries for which Obasanjo modeled his, whilst he is still
in office, Obasanjo held a fund-raiser to start the
construction of his presidential library, where almost the
state governors contributed more than N100 million each,
together with companies directly and deeply involved with
doing business with the Nigerian government. Nigeria’s
Nobel Literature Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, called the
exercise “presidential extortion.” When challenged as to
why a sitting president would be peddling his influence with
individuals and companies doing business with his
government, Obasanjo’s excuse and according to a court
defence he had filed in answer to one of Nigeria’s most
promiment civil rights leaders, Gani Fawehinmi, was that “
the library did not belong to him but to a legal entity
called Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library Foundation.”
He further went on to state that he had nothing to do with
the Foundation. But the library bears the name: Obasanjo
Presidential Library. So, when is corruption not
corruption, when a sitting president, who according to Wole
Soyinka extorted money from individuals and companies doing
business with his government? Yes, when is it not
corruption?
Again, here’s a sitting president who was destitute when he
came into office, but whose application to open a university
was approved in June of 2005. Obasanjo’s government
regulates the approval through the Federal Executive Council
of which he is the chairman, and through the recommendation
of the Nigerian Universities Commission, members of who are
also appointed by the President. So, where did President
Obasanjo get the money, running in the billions to start the
Bells University? So, I ask when is corruption not
corruption - is it only when committed by President
Obasanjo?
As I said earlier, the Nigerian President has been on a
bitter vindictive rampage against any of those who
participated in thwarting his third-term ambitions, and no
other person has borne the brunt of his anger than the
Nigerian Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, who ferociously
fought against the President’s third-term ambitions. The
President has employed all the instrument of the Nigerian
government to persecute this man, going as far as arrogantly
and unilaterally declaring the post of the Vice President
vacant without regard to Nigeria’s constitution, which among
other provisions, specifically states that the Vice
President could only be removed through impeachment.
Misusing the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC),
which had earlier been applauded by Nigerians, but now seen
as an instrument of persecution, Obasanjo had the Commission
tag the Vice President with corruption for ‘misapplying’ a
sum of $125 million from the Petroleum Technology
Development Fund. It turned out that the money was
deposited in different Nigerian banks, yielding interest for
the country. Unfortunately for Obasanjo and Nuhu Ribadu,
the Nigerian courts have looked at these charges and stopped
the duo from proceeding with prosecuting Atiku Abubakar..
The Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, on his part, has fought
back, and charged the President with being corrupt. When a
govenor of a state, Plateau State, ran afoul of the
President and he was charged with corruption and misusing
his state’s funds, it was Atiku Abubakar who charged that
the governor had given N100 million to the President’s and
his election campaign. After this revelation by the Vice
President, Obasanjo quickly returned N50 million to the
state. So, I ask again, when is corruption not corruption,
or is it only when committed by President Obasanjo?
Again, the Vice President blew the whistle on Obasanjo’s
purchase of 200 million shares of a new behemoth
corporation, TRANSCORP Corporation, formed under his
direction, and patterned to emulate the “Asian Tigers” - the
huge Asian companies which had started from scratch. Yes, a
sitting president bought 200 million shares of a company he
summoned corporate leaders to his office and asked them to
form the corporation, and which proceeded to be awarded oil
blocks, get the Nigerian Hilton Hotel and the Nigerian
Telecommunications company, Nitel, at a sung. At the
issuing rate of the stocks of TRANSCORP Corporation of
N7.50, the 200 million shares Obasanjo purchased would have
amounted to N1.5 billion. Obasanjo’s defence was that the
shares were purchased, as in the case of his presidential
library, by the same Obasanjo Foundation. Could you just
imagine the uproar that would engulf a
United States president, if he is found buying shares
of a company he was instrumental in forming? We are talking
of a destitute President, who makes less than N3 million a
year, buying N1.5 billion worth of stock. Where did
President Obasanjo get the funds to purchase the 200 million
shares? And I ask again, when is corruption not corruption,
or is it only when committed by President Obasanjo?
Just a few weeks ago, Vice President Atiku again threw
another bomb-shell, and revealed that President Obasanjo has
expanded his farm ownership from one almost bankrupt farm to
six, in different geo-political regions of the country, at a
whopping cost of N2 billion. Here again is a president
clearly misusing his office, and he has not denied that the
six farms cost N2 billion. But his acolytes have come out
to say that he got a loan from three banks - the same banks
that his government regulates, the same banks that receive
the bulk of Nigeria’s new-found wealth in deposits. The
question, then, is where did President Obasanjo get the
collateral to convince these banks about his
credit-worthiness? So, I ask again, when is corruption not
corruption, or is it only when committed by President
Obasanjo?
Given the above, it is time that Nigerians stop President
Obasanjo from continuing to orchestrate this charade of
being an champion of anti-corruption. He needs to come
clean, and own up to his hands being as dirty as those he
has accused, or at least, in the main, stop insulting the
intelligence of Nigerians with this ballyhooed and hollow
sloganeering of being an anti-corruption champion. If Nuhu
Ribadu, who had earlier been acclaimed for his steadfastness
in rooting out corruption, wants to retain any iota of
credibility, he should charge Obasanjo with corruption. It
is not enough to pretend that he is ‘investigating’ the
president. He already has enough wrong-doings to charge the
President with corruption. Or if he is pressured from doing
so, resign his post in protest. There should never be a
time when corruption should not be seen as corruption,
whether it involves President Obasanjo or anybody else.
Chika Onyeani is the Publisher/Editor-in-Chief of the
award-winning African Sun Times, Fellow of the
New York Times Institute of Journalists,
internationally acclaimed author of the No.1 bestselling
book, “Capitalist Nigger: The Road to Success,” as well as
the blockbuster novel, “The Broederbond Conspiracy.”
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