By
Chinweizu
14dec2013
sundoor999@gmail.com
1]
Former President Obasanjo, OBJ, is a general. Like a good general he is trying
to defend a city under siege by launching a diversionary attack elsewhere, to
draw the besieging troops off to defend the target of his diversionary attack
and give himself respite to defend his city. That’s a military strategy that’s
been in use for thousands of years.
*Presdent Jonathan
I think
that’s the strategic objective of his 18 page letter to President Goodluck
Ebele Jonathan, GEJ.
OBJ
is a diehard defender of the Nigerian status quo, of which he has been a major
lifelong beneficiary. This National Dialogue/Conference debate is directing
serious attack on the 1999 Constitution and the status quo that is based on it.
Presumably, being doubtful that the system can withstand this siege, OBJ has
launched this diversionary attack on corruption, which he believes will capture
the attention of the, supposedly, gullible Nigerian public and divert them from
the issue of the SNC and a new People’s Constitution. We must resist the
temptation to follow him and change the conversation to corruption from the
issue of the SNC and a new Constitution.
2]
We must realize that politicians and their interests are subordinate to the
people and our interests. We must resist any effort to divert us from our
interests and to preoccupy us with the politicians’ interests. At this time the
politicians are obsessed with their 2015 elections, whereas we should be
obsessed with the fundamental question of how to get rid of the fraudulent 1999
Constitution—for that is a matter central to the relationship between the
entire political class and
the rest of Nigerian society, who they are empowered to plunder by the 1999
Constitution.
*Chinweizu
3]
Some of OBJ’s specific concerns raise serious constitutional issues that we
must find answers to.
He
complains that GEJ made a promise to him and some other politicians that he
would not seek a second term. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. Let’s assume that
he did. Such a promise or contract, whether written or verbal, is
unconstitutional: It violates the constitutional provision that allows a 2nd term
to a president. We need to insist that politicians should desist from making
contracts or insider deals that are unconstitutional. Such deals have no legitimacy/validity,
are null and void and are unenforceable. So they shouldn’t enter into them.
Furthermore,
under the 1999 constitution, if a contract or understanding is
unconstitutional, is it not also unconstitutional, and a crime to enter into
it? If so, isn’t it also a crime to insist that the criminal contract be
carried out—as OBJ is demanding? Is the aiding and abetting of a constitutional
crime not also a constitutional crime? I invite our lawyers to answer that question.
4]
OBJ is now posing as an “anti-corruption” crusader.
Before
looking at OBJ’s anti-corruption rhetoric, let’s look at the word ‘corruption’
as
used in Nigeria. In Nigeria the term covers a wide range of crimes, from a policeman at
a checkpoint taking a N2 bribe, to a state governor appropriating the state’s budgetary allocation of billions of Naira and money laundering it into his private bank account
abroad, under protection of theimmunity clause of the 1999 constitution. This latter crime goes far beyond corruption and is actually looting.
used in Nigeria. In Nigeria the term covers a wide range of crimes, from a policeman at
a checkpoint taking a N2 bribe, to a state governor appropriating the state’s budgetary allocation of billions of Naira and money laundering it into his private bank account
abroad, under protection of theimmunity clause of the 1999 constitution. This latter crime goes far beyond corruption and is actually looting.
After
half a century of unpunished practice, such looting by government officials
(lootocracy) has become entrenched as the norm in Nigeria and is imitated by
all and sundry; which is why officials, down to the policeman at the checkpoint
and the messenger sent to get a file, brazenly abuse their office and, with
impunity, extort money from the members of the public that they are officially
paid to serve. Nigerian officials have become addicted to lootocracy even
though a significant and vocal segment of the population is opposed to it and
decries it as “corruption”. But calling
lootocracy by the name “corruption” is a gross misnomer and the error should be
rectified: it is like calling a bank robbery that empties the bank vault by the
name ‘pilfering’ or calling by the name ‘pick-pocket’ a bank robber who has
made away with billions, or describing an act of mass murder as a case of
assault and battery—a crime of doing bodily harm to somebody.
*Jonathan, Obasanjo, Yar'Adua
Since
the 1999 Constitution, with its immunity clause and its clause ousting its
Chapter II, is the godfather of corruption, any anti-corruption talk is just
rhetoric unless it is combined with an insistence that the 1999 Constitution be
abrogated. So, if OBJ wants to be taken seriously, if he is really against
corruption--instead of just playing to the gallery and indulging in factional politics,
why isn’t he campaigning for the SNC that would give Nigeria a new constitution
that would
get rid of that constitution’s encouragement and protection of lootocracy/“corruption”?
If Nigerians really want to get rid of “corruption”/lootocracy, here are two ways they could go about it. Consider the case of a man who is complaining about the flies disturbing him in his bedroom. But it turns out that he has put a shit bucket under his bed. If he wants to be rid of the flies he has two options: carry the shit bucket out and bury it far away, or leave it in his bedroom and take a fly whisk and swat each and every fly. If he insists on swatting each and every fly, he will just work himself to exhaustion without getting rid of the flies. But if he seriously wants to get rid of the flies, he needs to carry away the shit bucket. OBJ’s preferred method seems to be to swat individual flies. That’s what his EFCC and his verbal assaults on individual cases of “corruption” amount to. A hundred incorruptible EFCCs, even with the best will in the world, cannot hope to catch half the lootocrat officials in Nigeria—lootocrats that are encouraged and protected, and thereby generated daily, by the 1999 Constitution itself. OBJ must know that, and must have known that when he set up his EFCC. Of course, the speculation was that he had a hidden agenda in setting up the EFCC—which was to use it to target his enemies and shield his friends while posing as fighting corruption.
If Nigerians really want to get rid of “corruption”/lootocracy, here are two ways they could go about it. Consider the case of a man who is complaining about the flies disturbing him in his bedroom. But it turns out that he has put a shit bucket under his bed. If he wants to be rid of the flies he has two options: carry the shit bucket out and bury it far away, or leave it in his bedroom and take a fly whisk and swat each and every fly. If he insists on swatting each and every fly, he will just work himself to exhaustion without getting rid of the flies. But if he seriously wants to get rid of the flies, he needs to carry away the shit bucket. OBJ’s preferred method seems to be to swat individual flies. That’s what his EFCC and his verbal assaults on individual cases of “corruption” amount to. A hundred incorruptible EFCCs, even with the best will in the world, cannot hope to catch half the lootocrat officials in Nigeria—lootocrats that are encouraged and protected, and thereby generated daily, by the 1999 Constitution itself. OBJ must know that, and must have known that when he set up his EFCC. Of course, the speculation was that he had a hidden agenda in setting up the EFCC—which was to use it to target his enemies and shield his friends while posing as fighting corruption.
OBJ’s
EFCC and verbal castigation approach to fighting corruption is part of the
problem, not part of the solution. Getting rid of the1999 Constitution is the
equivalent of carrying away the shit bucket and burying it far away. OBJ should
join the SNC campaigners for a new constitution if he wants to be taken
seriously as being an anti-corruption crusader.
------------
5]
Finally, we must remember that Nigeria’s
entire political class is lootocratic, from LGA councilors and State Assembly
members all the way to the NASS and beyond. They are lootocratic and have been
so for 50 years! That’s what Nigerians must terminate, by changing the
constitution that drives the lootocracy. We can’t allow ourselves to be drawn
into their distractive factional quarrels. The entire system must go! The siege
on the 1999 Constitution and its version of Nigeria must not be relaxed; it
must be intensified until the OBJ citadel, the status quo
that OBJ is defending, is completely overrun. Then, and only then, will
corruption and lootocracy find no constitutional prop in Nigeria.
14dec2013
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