From contradictions to confusion; that is the direction of movement of this government and through their ways they arm us everyday with the right arsenal to lambast them for their gross failings.
It’s difficult in Nigeria’s recent political history to recall any government as confused as what we have now.
They started with contradictions and matured the odd art to a point now that they have lost ideas on how to keep contradicting themselves. So, they have got confused. Their lies are no longer easy to be clothed in false colours like when they started their gamble. Right now, Nigerians have seen through them and known their worth or the lack of worth.
While I was about putting this writing down, a message popped up on my phone announcing that the Federal Executive Council briefing after their ridiculous meeting last Wednesday announced that the FEC had empowered Abubakar Malami, the Attorney General of the Federation to write Switzerland and demand for the refund of $321m loot stolen and stashed over there by late Sani Abacha, the former head of state. Really? You actually mean Abacha loot?
You know why I ask? Some years ago, President Muhammadu Buhari had vowed to us that every accusation against Abacha for stealing is evil in itself. He swore that Abacha didn’t steal a dime of the nation. Now, he signed a deal to recover Abacha loot, and we ask him, oga, which Abacha are you talking about? What is the meaning of loot when Abacha didn’t steal a dime?
That was the time the contradiction started rearing and incubating. Today, after hatching and growing to full age and strength, it has started consuming the breeders. This government is now confused amid its own contradictions for want of lies to tell and blame game on who caused its gross failures.
Everyday, it moves from a stinker to a stench. Right now, it is the turn of Mainagate. And to save face though belatedly, it announced the sack of two major actors, Babachir Lawal and Ayodele Oke after a long investigation. Announcement of the sack now is a way of diverting attention from the Mainagate that sends stench across the continent. It is face-saving campaign to wear some semblance of seriousness and we would applaud that this government doesn’t tolerate corruption and we, therefore, forget the Maina odour. It remains the worst so far of the self inflicted pains of this ruthlessly ethnic and sectional, exclusive and segregating government. Like I said last week, it is good that we have been excluded so that as the Nigerian project collapses in their hands, there would be no dispute on which ethnic group did it.
Late last week a newspaper did all of us the favour of publishing the list of 100 appointments by President Buhari and the north having 81 of them. That put an end to the denials of the segregative government of the north, by the north and for the north.
It was the same denial championed by Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State against Buhari’s mandate to the World Bank to target the north for their projects until the 14 World Bank projects so far were listed and the north exclusively having seven and sharing the remaining seven with the rest of the country. It is a regime that is unpretentiously contradictory.
Here then comes the Mainagate as facts unfold unlike some of us lamely argued that Mr. President would not have known of Maina’s reinstatement, that he actually was part of the plan and execution and was even advised against that. But they did it because theirs is the government and there is nothing anybody can do about it. So Maina’s family has been vindicated for saying the truth that this government BEGGED Maina to come back.
Maina was sacked by a government known for corruption, and for real the PDP government was corrupt, but until we knew APC, we never knew corruption comes in many colours, even the corruption of the mindset and warped thinking so steeped in segregation and hate for outsiders. Maina was tagged for arrest by a corrupt government, a bench warrant was issued against Maina by a corrupt government and all those were thrown overboard by a clean government and Maina brought back and paid about N22m backlog of salaries and benefits when Nigerians who are fully working have not been paid. I would dare ask if other directors who have been at work for that length of time have earned that much. Maina was double promoted without taking any promotion exam. Maina was reinstated without challenging his sack from service. That sack from experts that know the civil service rule must be challenged within three months if contentious. When Maina got the order for his arrest vacated even though the court told him to go back to the police and clear the allegations against him, he never worried, neither did he challenge his sack or termination from civil service. That implies the statutory window of redress had been shut when Maina came back, but he was brought in, paid and promoted by a corruption- fighting government.
In all these, the Attorney General of the Federation gave his advice that Maina should be brought back. Indeed his almighty order was obeyed and he was reassigned to a vacant seat in the Interior Ministry supervised by another untouchable the administration has graciously declared very fit and clean.
Right now their contradictions boil over and they don’t seem to know how else and what else to contradict and the near pernickety of what next to contradict puts them in confusion and frustration.
Sometimes I remember the ardent Buharists during the campaigns, I feel really sorry for their shame today for this gross disappointment their master has willingly gifted them. Imagine a party that benefitted from the madness of the PDP that collapsed that fateful Saturday in July 2013 at the Eagle Square complaining that PDP hijacked their show.
Worst of ingratitude is Hameed Ali, the Customs chief complaining that PDP trespassers took over the spoils of their frivolity when they actually sponsored and made possible the victory of Buhari and APC.
Apart from running budgets raised by the PDP crooks as managers of Buhari’s campaign, what did the Alis of APC contribute? At least we know the most popular of the PDP turncoats that dropped a bill of N18bn he actually stole from government over time as a senator and governor. What about the governors and ex-governors and ex-presidency bigwigs of the PDP that bankrolled the entire project? Which of the opposition members had a dime to donate to the campaign? It was the PDP characters that had fattened themselves with public money that had the capability to pick the fat bills. Ali and others didn’t complain until now.
Alhaji Ali, for the records, of the 30 APC guber candidates in April 2015 elections, 23 were the past PDP members and they are still members of the APC from the leadership of the legislature to the judiciary and to the executive at the state and federal levels. So which PDP do you exclude now? PDP is the thread with which the APC cloak is woven, and as the Igbo would say, by the time you succeed in removing all the threads and strands from the clothe, the person wearing the dress stands naked. Oga Ali, by the time you succeed in sorting the PDP from your APC ranks, there would be no more APC left and you will step back to those fruitless days Buhari’s campaign was known for. You (APC leadership) rather hold your peace and enjoy the transferred political booty PDP bequeathed to your APC, an ungrateful and undeserving legatee.