Category: Opinion

As people of Southern Kaduna struggle to recover from the multi-billion dollar shock and embarrassment that Andrew Yakubu assaulted them with by stashing such stupendous wealth in the midst of the poverty and squalor of his brethren, we must come to terms with the reality of stark greed and selfishness of our elite and potential political leaders. When Andrew Yakubu was appointed to the most lucrative GMD position in the country, most of us were proud that our son had successfully connected us to the mainstream of government recognition and patronage.

Today, at the peak of ravaging recession we ponder with disbelief and disgust the self-aggrandizement that dashed our expectations of communal empowerment even as Andrew Yakubu is now heartlessly sponsoring dollarized propaganda that his well-deserved travails are nothing but ethnic victimization of the people of Southern Kaduna! If the flabbergasted commoners of Sabon Tasha are demanding not only the dollars but also the head of Andrew Yakubu for making an expensive mockery of their ghetto environment as a classical camouflage for concealing his sensational spoils of office, how can people of southern Kaduna suffer the insult of becoming his mercenaries in addition to the injury of being short-changed or rather duped by their own son?

For the avoidance of doubt, the people of southern Kaduna are not known to be ingrates wherever they have been. We have always rallied round our public-spirited compatriots in appreciation of their evident tangible contributions to bettering the lot of our struggling communities. Andrew Yakubu was only a momentary star of southern Kaduna people, taking the shine from his prized appointment but leaving his euphoric kinsmen in the dark shadows of selfish abandonment. Ever since his uncomplimentary ejection from office, he has withdrawn into an isolated cocoon of close relatives practically deleting himself from the collective memory of his kinsmen in southern Kaduna.

The sudden exposure of his staggering stacks of dollars and pounds conservatively worth more than four billion naira, cunningly concealed in the desolate heart of a Kaduna slum, was therefore a tearful testimony to the accumulative acumen of Andrew Yakubu in self-service and his disdain for charitable endeavors. For someone who was NNPC GMD for only two years and left office almost four years ago to still be in possession of 9.8 million dollars cash “gift” is a pointer to the humongous amount he must have cornered as well as his superlative stinginess. Not even one employment opportunity or one culvert has been attributed to Andrew Yakubu despite his inestimable wealth!

Rather than turning into his ethnic solicitors and advocates now that he has been forced by personal hazard to realize the value of his kith and kin across Kaduna State, Andrew Yakubu should be left to stew in his own pot if only to serve as a life lesson to him and a deterrent to his elite colleagues in and beyond southern Kaduna against abuse of office and neglect of their people and area of origin. At least we southern Kaduna people are living witnesses to the sins of our selfish son, which cannot and should not be politicized against the laudable and highly effective unprecedented war against corruption waged by the indefatigable President Buhari and his corrective administration. The anti-corruption crusade has so far claimed prominent sons and daughters from all the geo-political zones of Nigeria with no particular sacred cow or no go area. More importantly, “our man” Andrew Yakubu was caught with his cache of pounds and dollars in broad daylight and he has also claimed ownership without remorse, so where is the so-called ethnic persecution his propagandists are spinning?

As an indigene of southern Kaduna, I am at pains when I reflect that we have the largest number of unemployed youths that have passed secondary school in Kaduna state. I am at pains that most of these children of the poor are being misled into believing that the Hausa Fulani are responsible for their predicament. I am more of pains when I read some jobbers claiming ethnic and religious sentiments are behind the Andrew loot scandal especially when I know the first victim of Buhari anti-corruption war is Sambo Dasuki – a Muslim, a Fulani, an aristocrat of the caliphate. Are we saying our faiths and our culture encourage corruption and abuse of trust?

President Buhari should just fire full cylinders in pursuit and prosecution of as many thieving serving and former top government officials and politicians as his anti-corruption drive smokes out. He definitely has the support and commendation of the generality of common people across southern Kaduna who are actually angered by the Andrew Yakubu episode as it highlights the scale of diversion of commonwealth and deception of the masses being perpetrated by greedy and selfish elites supposedly representing their people in government.

As far as the masses are concerned all the noise about ethnic and religious agenda in the on-going successful onslaught on corruption by the Buhari Administration is nothing but the futile efforts of the cabal of corrupt people to fight back and retard the impact of the crusade. More culprits should be brought to book if necessary by establishing special courts that will be insulated from the time-wasting tactics of well-paid lawyers and corrupt judges currently delaying dispensation of justice.

Nok is a youth leader in Kafanchan, Kaduna State.

Even for millions of hapless Nigerians already accustomed to frequent reports of alleged pilfering of billions of dollars and Naira from our three tiers of government, this particular discovery was still mind-boggling in many respects.

First, while all the previous reports were beginning to appear like mere fables – since almost all the accused principles have continued to plead their innocence and with hardly any major conviction since the advent of President’s corrective administration – the case involving the former Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Andrew Yakubu, provided only the second solid evidence of the unprecedented looting perpetrated in the life of the previous administration after those involving some retired Air Force Generals who hid their heists in their sewages. This discovery literary provided the ever inquisitive Nigerians with graphic proof of the loot literally in the ‘flesh’!

Second, we can be assured that for generations to come, Nigerians will never grow tired of talking about the criminal ingenuity in the choice of location for the hidden loot. Yakubu chose to hide a total of  $9.7million and  £74,000 along with a few thousands more in Euros, in the most unexpected place imaginable, and, in the process, made the likes of the late Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, and his Mexican reincarnation Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, with the expensive tunnels they constructed, seem like amateurs.

Yakubu made even Ali-Baba and his Forty Thieves appear like novices because the cave in which they chose to hide their own loot was in a mountain deep in the wilderness, and the entrance also required a password.

Sabon Tasha, the massive slum on the outskirts of the expansive Kaduna metropolis, is the sort of location you expected the poorest among the poor to inhibit. It is, also, sadly, the sort of location preferred by hardened criminals and cutthroats. It is certainly not where you expected to find a fortune except if it was to retrieve a ransom paid to rescue victims of the city’s frequent kidnappings.

I should know. My cousin was a recent victim. That Yakubu chose the exact precinct to hide the cash is instructive. It showed that while he may have been trained and certified as an excellent engineer, he also, undoubtedly, possessed the mind-set of the topmost Mafioso.

Ordinarily, assuming that Nigerians are still capable of experiencing shock, the news that the case is before our judiciary should be comforting to many, but the reality of the ‘system’ suggests that it is also the beginning of their worries.

Few high profile corruption cases have ever been prosecuted to their logical conclusion in Nigeria. And, in almost all instances, the victims have always managed to get-off with light sentences that made a mockery of their crimes while they still retained the proceeds from their loot. With such antecedents, it is perhaps not surprising that some high profile Federal Judges were recently indicted for corruption.

In a curious twist of fate, the Nigerian Judicial system has somewhat found a way to bastardise the plea-bargaining system the Americans used to break the Mafia’s “Code of silence” and essentially brought the criminal fraternity to its knees.  The plea-bargaining system should not be an end to itself, but a means to an end! It is often the light concession granted by the state in the judicial context to get at the bigger crooks whose criminal activities imperilled the collective.

Regrettably, in Nigeria, the system has allowed indicted looters of the public treasury to escape the sort of justice they deserve especially in the life of the previous administrations. In the process, an unfortunate impression was created to feed the growing belief that in Nigeria, justice is not only for hire, it exists only to punish the poor and the weakest segments of our social spectrum.

Already, there are reports that Yakubu has filed for the return of his cash. He has asked the court to set aside the forfeiture order that granted FG ownership of the money.  Specifically, he wants the court to set aside the order and return the $9,772,800 and £74,000,000 which he said belongs to him insisting that the court lacked the jurisdiction to grant FG ownership of his money. And, quite incredibly, he still wants the court to accept that the money was gift.

In the meantime, a shadowy group that claims to represent professionals from Southern Kaduna has also faulted his arrest and demanded for his release. They inferred that their brother was the victim of a witch-hunt.  While we await to see the outcome of the protracted court case that will follow, it becomes inevitable to recall legacy and some of the enduring legacies of the late Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Some Nigerians may find issues with the way he chose to live his life, but we can only ignore his legacy at our collective peril.

The late Fela Anikulapo Kuti was not only a musician of universal repute purely on the originality of the Afro beat genre he singlehandedly created. Although he seemed like a reluctant rebel to many, Fela was also a social crusader and seer rolled into. He could have chosen to enjoy the trappings his upper middle-class upbringing provided but preferred to be uniquely different from the social trajectory of his siblings.

In the song “Authority Stealing”, which he wrote and sang nearly thirty years ago, Fela lamented the prevalence of big time robbers in the highest echelon of the Nigerian society. Against the squalor and misery of what he believed to be the pathetic state of the Nigerian social infrastructure at the time; Fela believed the big thieves ensconced in the plush boardrooms of our corporate entities represented the greatest danger to our quest for rapid development, because, they not only stole with relish in the comfort of their offices, but also with the stroke of their pens!

And in the damming lyrics he composed to conclude the song, he shamed a society which preferred to lynch its poorest for the barest malfeasance while allowing the biggest thieves that thrived in the corridors of power to escape justice unscathed. Fela, is not alive today, but only God knows that king of songs he could have composed in his reaction to alarming decay and degree of corruption experienced in the polity since his demise.

Everywhere we dare to look today, Fela’s legacy is so evident in the numerous songs on social justice he bequeathed for posterity and their poignant lessons. The songs are not only befitting reminders of his greatness as an artist, but also reasons for sober reflection for both our leaders and the led.

Fela’s songs provide a befitting metaphor for deeper introspection on how the social ills and endemic corruption, and its twin evil of under-development he warned about succeeded in reducing a once promising nation to an importer of garri from India like someone alleged in my WhatsApp Forum at the weekend.

While he is surely entitled to his day before the law, Andrew Yakubu, and all the other felons in the same category should thank their stars that they have been spared the wrath of Fela’s court because the great musician is no longer with us. But his songs, and the lessons they impacted, have ensued that his legacy will endure.

By Abduljalal Danbaba

General, it has been 41 years since you departed us, but the indelible mark your leadership commitment made in our hearts since then as young people and admirers would continue to be cherished. Your determination and undoubting courage remained a source of inspiration to patriotic Nigerians. While my endless prayer for Allah’s Mercy for you in particular and other good leaders shall never cease till I join you sooner or later, it’s with heavy heart that I intimate you with the developments in our Fatherland. Since your Shahada on Friday, the 13th February, 1976, by then I was just in primary 5 but could catch the glimpse of all the happenings on that day, through the FRCN Kaduna. From then, up to the time of my University education, I have been active participant in the memorial club (Murtala Muhammed Memorial Club, ABU, Zaria) named after you, in appreciation of your Leadership qualities, I had never relent in extolling your qualities as a model.

The Nigeria you left behind is now 57 years old since political independence and now under democratic rule. You set the first transition time table, but Allah did not spear your life to implement. Your successor, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo fulfilled your promise and handed over power to democratically elected government in 1979 to President Shehu Shagari. His government scuttled the same election process that brought it into power with massive rigging that threatened the continuity of democratic process of governance. The government of Shehu Shagari could not go beyond the first quarter of its second term in office when the military intervened again.

After the first attempt in the second republic, with some military interjections, narrow escapes and Allah’s interventions, we are now 17 years old into consistent democratic governance; but I must tell you that the Nigeria of your dream has not yet been realized. Surprisingly perhaps, one of your compatriots (Muhammadu Buhari) who served in your government as Military Governor of the defunct North Eastern State (now Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Bauchi, Gombe and Taraba) is now our President, thanks to the card reader and wind of Change. He had served as Military Head of State 33 years ago, but lasted only 20 months before another disciple of yours took over for a rough ride that lasted 8 years which finally culminated into another aborted and failed transition to democracy. It was in this confusion that your good friend Chief M.K.O Abiola in an attempt to perhaps realize his democratic dreams lost his life.

Oh! I forgot to inform you that the 19 States you left behind have increased to 21, to 29 and finally to 36. But Sir, up to today no single State was created through democratic process, but all by the military. The new federal capital had finally moved to Abuja, though not the Abuja of your vision where the have-nots have been virtually excluded from the plan because of capitalist materialism that you never planed the country on. The middle and lower class public servants have been expelled from the plan and had to find alternative from the outskirts of Abuja for settlement.

Your Excellency (though you abolish the use of such designation with immediate effect), your unalloyed commitment to Africa has yielded results at different countries and happy to inform you that apartheid regime in South Africa has finally been put to rest. South Africa and other frontline States have been freed from the shackles of colonialism and apartheid; Angola where the Nigerian government supported the MPLA liberation movement at that time have established government in Angola and the only thorny in their political flesh, Jonah Savimbi has been taken care of for peace to reign in Angola.

At the home front, the degree of success you were able to achieve in 6 months of your short-lived administration was like a dream. The transition programme you set was realistic and achievable, and had been achieved; the 1979 Constitution drafting was achieved and even ushered in the second republic. The Justice Akinola Aguda Panel report was implemented and the FCT Abuja is now where the power brokers leave make and mar the constitutional provisions.

The constitutional democracy (American democracy) we finally adopted as our system of government appeared too expensive to manage, particularly when you consider the quantum of personnel and resources involved. As you were aware, the three tiers of government: Federal, States and Local Governments still exist, but the States are now 36 and one FCT, 774 Local Governments. At the federal level, we have bicameral legislators of 109 Senators, 360 members of the House of Representatives, cabinet Ministers and almost uncountable number of agencies and parastatals, etc, etc. At States level, with legislators of not less than 20 members, commissioners and many parastatals and agencies. Local Government Chairmen and their Councilors are already side pockets of many States Governments. So much is being spent on government with too little governance to show. The official vehicles, supportive staff, domestic servants, constituency this and that, I am beginning to have a second thought about this system of demo-crazy.

Your Excellency, let me not bother you with too many negative news, surely there are some positive developments in our country since your departure. The population of our country has multiplied, now about 180 million; as one time Federal Commissioner of Communication, I am glad to inform you that we have made remarkable progress in the area of communication, perhaps more than any other sector. The arrival of GSM has eased the communication sector up to grassroots and affordable to almost all class of Nigerians. However, the basic infrastructure for the survival of such development like electricity has bedeviled our country since after the Electrical Company of Nigeria (ECN), followed by NEPA, then PHCN and now fragmented into generation, transmission and distribution, but the end has not yet justified the means.

The Nigeria Airways is now history, yet more airports were built, less aircrafts and less number of Nigerians that can afford to travel by air. The airports are only maximally utilized during the Hajj airlift of pilgrims, and when our flamboyant governors crisscross the country with chartered aircrafts. The level of destruction and primitive accumulation of wealth makes one to doubt the mental stability of some politicians and Nigerians in public offices. The most devastating and heart breaking is the corruption in the Judiciary, the camel back has finally been broken and the last line of defense penetrated and commercialized. The heart is ill; therefore the body cannot function properly.

Sir, before my next letter in 2018 inshaAllah, I wish to close my letter on an encouraging note that with the recent Change, after 2015 general elections, we are seeing the glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel. Your fellow compatriot (Col. Muhammadu Buhari, now President) in spite of age is doing his best to get the country out of these crises, and to face the reality of building a nation of your dream devoid stealing and waste. He was one of the very few of your remaining compatriots that maintained his perpendicular integrity and unalloyed love and commitment for his country. He almost suffered similar fate of being assassinated like you, this time through a bomb blast, but he survived it and he is still on. Those who are so much in a hurry and care to know should know that the secret and divine tenancy of years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds of any man on earth must be attained. May your courageous soul continue to rest in perfect peace, Ameen.

Dr. Danbaba wrote this piece from Zaria, Kaduna State

Nigeria is a crime scene that nobody remembers. The young man says his uncle is in charge of some forthcoming lecture in Lagos in July or thereabouts and is seeking my permission to suggest my name to his uncle as the guest lecturer.

Somewhere in the chit-chat, he drops a little detail. They are even thinking of approaching Senator Andy Uba to attend the event. They have not approached him but they plan to do so. Why he thought that mentioning Andy Uba would raise the profile of the lecture he is selling in my estimation is beyond me but I can make some guesses: Andy Uba is a crime scene he has forgotten.

Now, this is an upright young man. I approve of him and consider him one of the folks I am privileged to mentor in the hope that there just may be enough Nigerians in his generation to pick up the pieces and rescue the doomed nation.

The trouble with Nigeria is that she is a crime scene that is always forgotten because every generation is removed by time and age from the said crime scene. You are either too young to be conscious of the crime scene or as you grow older, the crime scene recedes in your memory and you don’t remember.

The dilemma of the crime scene is the reason why the young man mentioned Andy Uba to me so approvingly. Today, he is scandalized by Abba Kyari’s corruption and is a member of the social media army that has been pillorying President Buhari for turning a blind eye to that matter.

Without doubt, he would have the same attitude towards Andy Uba if he knew that there is a direct line of Villa corruption succession from Andy Uba to Abba Kyari via Tanimu Yakubu and the late Oronto Douglas.

My young mentee was approaching his teenage years during the Obasanjo years. Too young to have had any consciousness of the Obasanjo crime scene. Today, he is old enough to know but we do not do history and memory in Nigeria. So, all he is aware of is the crime scene of Abba Kyari. He is unaware of the road to Abba Kyari.

He does not know that Andy Uba is the beginning of that road in our Fourth Republic. It was with Andy Uba that the practice of a super-corrupt, hyper-powerful domestic Villa aide started in the short history of the Fourth Republic. The practice of converting a particular aide to a Presidential majordomo started with Andy Uba.

While he was busy falsifying his educational qualifications somewhere between Canada and America, Obasanjo found him and turned him to the dominant Villa chihuahua of the day. It was said that he would sometimes be in the toilet taking notes and receiving instructions while Obasanjo pooed and he dared not cover his nose.

In fact, the rise of Andy Uba as Obasanjo’s chief domestic corruption poodle put paid to Femi Fani-Kayode’s courageous struggle to occupy that position – a position he might have been able to occupy in a second Jonathan term absent Oronto Douglas.

Andy Uba carried the day and became the personal supervisor of Obasanjo’s corruption rackets – including using the Presidential jet to ferry looted cash to America ostensibly to buy tractors for Obasanjo farms.

The paradigm that was set for Andy Uba by Obasanjo would guide the Yar’Adua/Tanimu Yakubu dynamic, the Jonathan/Oronto Douglas dynamic, and now the Buhari/Abba Kyari dynamic.

The Buhari/Abba Kyari crime scene is enabled mainly by the fact that we have forgotten all the previous crime scenes preceding it.

This problem with memory and history is why it is perfectly possible for a bright young chap who resents corruption to condemn Abba Kyari and speak approvingly of his ancestor, Andy Uba. All he knows now is that Andy Uba is a Senator of the Federal Republic. He does not know that Andy Uba is a crook plenipotentiary.

Forgotten crime scenes enable crime scenes of the moment by giving the insurance of time cleansing to the current actors. Just as there is a generation of Nigerians who are unaware of Andy Uba’s antecedents, the Buhari/Abba Kyari crime scene of today understands perfectly what the future holds for it if it stays the course. Ten years from now, perhaps there will be a Governor or a Senator Abba Kyari being cited approvingly by Nigerians in their early 20s.

Don’t forget that Andy Uba is now even a respected member of President Buhari’s APC.

In Delta, Okowa will fete returnee criminal, James Ibori, in a church service because a previous crime scene in Nigerian Christendom – criminal Bode George being feted in a Christian church upon his return from prison – has been forgotten.

Did Bode George do thanksgiving?

I’m not sure. I’ve forgotten.