TheCable

BY FEMI ODERE

It probably wouldn’t have been worth the while of any serious and discerning observer of Nigeria’s present socio-economic condition vis-à-vis the country’s place before the advent of the Buhari administration if Abraham Ogbodo’s article in which he wanted “Prof Osinbajo to answer his name properly” (whatever that really meant) had emanated from the country’s main opposition—-the People’s Democratic Party. Ogbodo is not known—-at least not publicly—-as that party’s mouthpiece. But the article in which he wished the Vice President Prof. Yemi Osinbajo would stop talking about the “grand corruption” under former president Jonathan may have given him away as the unofficial mouthpiece of the party more than his professional identity as the editor of one of the most important newspapers in the nation, The Guardian on Sunday.

In The Guardian on Sunday of March 25, 2018, Ogbodo had focused his weekly column on Osinbajo in an article entitled “Understanding Prof. Yemi Osinbajo.” In his attempt to convince his readers that the comment on the “grand corruption” that took place under the PDP, most especially in the six years of former president Jonathan was becoming too frequent on the part of the VP, the Sunday Editor threw together so many unrelated, absolutely insignificant, if not outrightly worthless issues in order to discredit the moral authority of the VP in his excoriation of the preceding administration which only made his argument very watery. This article also portrayed him as either refusing to accept or lacking the presence of mind to understand the real import of the “grand corruption” of the previous administration that was raised by the VP. It is, therefore, important to assist Ogbodo in giving clarity to a fuzzy professional compass that may have guarded him into writing a piece so disjointed and help to condense his thought process in the hope that he may have a better understanding of Prof. Yemi Osinbajo on that single issue of our time so debilitating to our national survival.

Although Ogbodo said so much in his article without really saying anything, there are two main pedestals on which his column rested. One was that Osinbajo, by virtue of his assets declaration at his assumption of office, is a wealthy Nigerian by any standard and therefore doesn’t have the moral standing to criticize the wealth of others. The other was that the vice president should cease and desist from apprising Nigerians of the “grand corruption” perpetrated by the PDP, most especially in the last six years of the Jonathan administration because the Buhari government has not done anything to write home about.

Ogbodo hinged his criticism—-the first pedestal—-of the vice president on the assertion that “Osinbajo made a declaration in the beginning of this dispensation that puts him far ahead of President Buhari in wealth accumulation” because he has “some millions in naira and stock” and “declared about one million dollars in bank deposit.” Be that as it may, but why Ogbodo would equate Osinbajo’s wealth—-created by the sweat of his brow—-before he became the nation’s No. 2 citizen with the wealth accumulated by PDP apparatchiks through massive and unprecedented criminal looting of the country’s collective patrimony beggars belief. One should ask Ogbodo if anyone has accused the VP since the public declaration of his assets of financial malfeasance. Aside being a professor of law in one of the Nigerian universities for many years, Ogbodo should be reminded that Osinbajo’s law firm is one of the best firms in the country that has successfully brought into conclusion litigations both on behalf of and against local clients and multinational business conglomerates in the Nigerian courts for many years running.

Ogbodo was particularly irked in his piece that the vice president wouldn’t stop hammering on the scale of corruption that have never happened in any country as it did in Nigeria during the Jonathan years. After some needless rigmarole and circumnavigation, he finally intimated his readers with the real reason for his gripe against the VP at the tail end of his article. Hear him: “Osinbajo came with yet another big claim…that N100 billion, $295 million and $3 billion were rapidly and rapaciously stolen in the twilight of the Goodluck Jonathan’s regime [when] the Buhari government has not moved forward on anything three years after it was birthed.” Really!

While Ogbodo reserves the right to choose what to believe about the Buhari administration, what cannot be denied no matter how hard he tried is the fact that this is the very first time in Nigeria’s history that a government has not only been so serious in fighting corruption, but the first time that monies in several hundreds of billion Naira and other hard currencies in millions have also been recovered. In the government’s unflinching resolve to expose these looters and in their desperation that their loots remain undetected, Nigerians now know that humongous loots were hidden (and probably still hidden) in the most unlikely places such as cemeteries, septic tanks, soakaways, farms, water tanks, walls in which safe deposits were embedded and what not. It’s also the first time in the nation’s history that just a few individuals—-including the wife of the former president who now wants to settle out of court—-had returned stolen monies equivalent to about a third of the country’s annual budget in less than three years of the present administration.

What needs to also be said is that perhaps Ogbodo’s unwillingness to believe the vice president’s claim despite the incontrovertible evidence in the public domain is a reflection of his values and the extent of his understanding of what principles and practices a society must emplace for real growth and sustainable development to take place. Aside the personal integrity he brought into the office, the office of the vice president is a heartbeat from that of the president the world over that there’s absolutely no reason to have raised this incredible alarm had Osinbajo not seen something so unbelievable and outrageous that was done to this country by the Jonathan government, probably far more than the $2.1 billion that was taken out of the apex bank supposedly for arms purchase but shared by PDP stalwarts.

The sad irony is that Osinbajo’s recent outrageous revelation, just like other revelations and discoveries that were at first vehemently denied in the past by the looters only for them to quietly return what they had stolen, would still be denied by a segment of the Nigerian population with what has become known as the “Stockholm syndrome.” Ogbodo may also have this syndrome. But the Guardian editor can be rest assured that this administration and the critical mass of Nigerians will never stop talking about the “grand corruption” in the Jonathan years. In most advanced democracies, most of these looters would not only have lost everything they ever acquired in their lifetimes, but spending the rest of their years in jail—-including Jonathan and his wife—-by now. What’s more, some citizens in these countries would have taken matters into their own hands by snuffing life out these unrepentant criminals (after which they would report themselves to the nearest police station for sentencing) who escaped the jail term due to some legal technicalities because the hopeless misfortunes in their lives were caused by them. China did not arrive at her present station as the second largest economic powerhouse in the world by chance. Anyone, no matter how highly placed, found guilty of corrupt enrichment in that country would simply be shot and the family would pay for the bullet(s) used.

It would take about fifty-two editions of The Guardian on Sunday to detail how far the Buhari/Osinbajo government has moved in order to disabuse Ogbodo’s mind in what’s patently a “put down” that “Buhari government has not moved forward on anything three years after it was birthed.” But suffice it to say that a government that “has not moved forward [in] three years” paid government workers’ salary arrears from 2011-2016.  A government that “has not moved forward” have paid—-and still paying—-pensioners from 1980 and giving them the best treatment never given through PTAD. A government that’s stuck on the same spot as Ogbodo would want us to believe would not have started the Mambilla Hydropower project of 3050MW 40 years after it was abandoned. A government with the feet of clay would not have improved power generation and transmission from less than 3000MW in 2015 to over 7000MW about two years after. An administration that has not seen any reason to move forward since 2015 now has revenue generating agencies such as FIRS, Customs, NIMASA, JAMB posting unprecedented revenues to the federation account.

Ogbodo would want us to see the Buhari government as inept, but it is embarking on very ambitious national rail network projects and roads across the country. It is a government that has not done anything but it has reduced out of school pupils from 10.5m to 8.6m in two years according to statistics from both UNICEF and UNESCO. An inept government is feeding over 5m pupils every school day in 19 states. This administration has no clue about the economy but it ended the recession gifted it by the Jonathan government and increasing saving in Excess Crude Account and increased foreign reserves to $40b from the $29b it inherited. An inept government moved 24 steps in the World Bank ease of doing business global ranking. An inept government bailed out all states with N2trillion to be able to pay their workers. Ogbodo thinks this government hasn’t lifted a finger but it has reduced monthly import bill from $5b to $1.5b. An inept government has reopened about 15 moribund fertilizer blending plants out of over 30 nationwide. And the list can go on ad infinitum. Ogbodo may have succeeded in drafting The Guardian on Sunday into the crusade to bring back corruption, but to have accused the Buhari administration not to have “moved forward on anything three years after it was birthed” is a ridiculously new low one would have hoped he has not dragged his personal and professional reputation in his attempt to defend what is morally, constitutionally and legally indefensible.

Femi Odere is a media practitioner. He can be reached at [email protected]