By Louis Odion
Besides its entertainment value,
another use the unfolding Panama Papers scandal evidently serves providing us a
barometer to gauge the shame index across the universe. Shame is no sign of
weakness, mind you. When evinced timeously, it brings out honour. Shame speaks
to an inner strength to recoil in the admission that violence had been done to
the normative value that defines society; hence the penitent cessation of that
course of action.
*Fayose and Aluko |
What is despicable, let it be noted, is
shamelessness. To become dishonorable is to lose the sense of shame. The freer
a society is, the more leaders would then appear predisposed to show shame when
caught pants down.
But in a closed society, they live in denial, thus forfeiting the
chance of self-redemption.
The nobility in shame would be demonstrated Tuesday when Iceland 's Prime
Minister, Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson, resigned once leaks linked him to the infamy
of Mossack Fonseca, a Panama-based law firm specializing in helping world
celebrities and politically-exposed persons to either launder fortunes or
shield investments from tax. The PM and his wife owned an offshore company
registered by the Panamanian firm to conceal million dollars worth of family
assets. Their shell company, Wintris, had significant investments in the bonds
of three major Icelandic banks that collapsed during the 2008 financial crisis.
Long before an angry mob of Icelanders began to occupy the
parliament's gate, Gunnlaugsson did the honorable thing in the circumstance by
throwing in the towel.
Elsewhere in London ,
Prime Minister David Cameron practically turned himself in for thorough body
search at the British parliament Tuesday. He had to reveal personal
secrets to prove he had nothing to do with his dad's shell company exposed by
the Panama Papers.
Addressing a charged chamber, he listed all his earthly possessions
to include "My salary, of course, the house we lived in before moving to 10 Downing Street
(which now yields additional income as rent) and savings I've from which I earn
interests."
Though the details of their own dealing are no more graphic than
those of the Icelandic and British leaders, Russian and Chinese authorities
have expectedly been in denial. The Panama Papers listed Russian President
Vladimir Putin's friends as operating dozens of companies through which
billions of dollars had been laundered. Moscow 's
response? It conveniently dismissed the reports as another show of
"Putin-phobia"! No further comment.
*Russian President Vladimir Putin |
In Beijing ,
the official response to reports linking Chinese leader Xi Jinping's
brother-in-law to the malfeasance was, in fact, brusque. Little was done to
hide official hand in open censorship. Anywhere Panama Papers was as much as
whispered or mentioned since Monday - on foreign television channels viewed
locally on cable - grainy blackout quickly followed. Ditto the social media.
Back home, the drama is simply comical. On his own, already
embattled Senate President Bukola Saraki put up a robust defense by denying
responsibility for the shell company linked to his wife. He insists that his
wife, Toyin, comes from a wealthy family with an independent and verifiable
source of income.
His predecessor, David Mark, just resorted to the familiar tactic of
drawing red herring across the way. He chose to politicize the issue. To the
ordinarily earth-shaking allegations of engaging Fonseca to register record
eight firms for the sole purpose of money-laundering, all Nigeria's
longest-serving senator could say through his aide is "I'm not sure about
the accuracy of your claims. We know where that may be coming from. It is
political."
Perhaps to be on a safe side, Mark even had to allegedly involve a
member of his harem in these offshore ventures. They bear assorted
romantic-sounding names like Marlin, Medley and Quetta . So frenetic, it would seem, were
their activities that a special secret code had to be invented to differentiate
a particularly bulky account at the Swiss branch of HSBC entered in his wife's
name.
Worse is the suggestion that part of these illicit transactions
actually transpired while Mark presided over the National Assembly as president
of the Senate, the elite law-making chamber in the land.
But again, in the face of the proverbial smoking gun, all Mark says
is "It's political." To say nothing of Nigeria's existing political
folklore which effusively lists the Benue Big Man among lucky soldiers who left
the Nigerian Army with bulging pockets as even though they were not known to
have inherited any family wealth nor earned other known income outside their
official salaries.
Now, to find where Iceland
and Nigeria
stand on the global shame index, simply contrast Gunnlaugsson's graceful bow
with Mark's infantile subterfuge.
*Bukola Saraki |
Overall, the exposition of this humongous infamy should be
recognized as a monument to a transnational activist vigilante committed to
common good. Not since Wikileaks have we witnessed this sort of sweeping meltdown
among the rich and the powerful. The tidal gale swept a whopping 11 million
documents into the open. The consortium of journalists/media agencies
(including our own wave-making Premium Times, irrepressible Sahara Reporters
and TheCable) shared the intelligence across the continents. Fonseca's rump was
thus exposed. Ever since all its hordes of nocturnal clients no longer sleep at
night.
Beyond the cult of the high and the mighty clinically unmasked, it
is a mark of shamelessness on her own part that the Panamanian nation will
still be featuring in the narrative of this sordid kind at this point.
Decades ago, the Latin American country served the global underworld
well as the poster-boy of rogue states. Its then military strongman, Manuel
Noriega, was fingered as former drug-pusher. As head of Panama 's army,
he secretly doubled as CIA informant in the 70s. The Panama Canal was of
strategic and economic importance to the U.S.
as it straddles the two great oceans on the narrow isthmus linking the Americas . That
was all that mattered to Washington
then. So, Noriega would enjoy protection from United
States which looked the other way while his illicit
cargoes criss-crossed the Atlantic and Pacific
oceans.
Later as commander-in-chief in the 1980s, Noriega was accused of
providing cover for Mexican drug cartels to launder their loot. Having outlived
his usefulness to Uncle Sam, American marines eventually invaded Panama in
December 1989. With tail between his legs, the sitting president had to scurry
from the Presidential Palace into the Vatican Embassy in Panama City for political asylum. After weeks
of being holed there, he eventually surrendered in January 1990 and was
immediately whisked off to Miami to face trial
that culminated in a twenty-five-year jail term in U.S. prison.
After Noriega, successive Panamanian leaders have tried to launder
their country off its shameful history. But they failed to change national laws
which entrench corporate and individual financial secrecy. Existing strict
confidentiality laws and regulations prescribe severe civil and criminal
penalties for violations. The names of corporate shareholders are not required
to be publicly registered. The country also has strict banking secrecy laws.
Financial institutions are prohibited from giving information about offshore
bank accounts or account holders.
So, for Panama ,
post-Noriega efforts at self-deodorizing in the past quarter of a century seem
to have come to grief with Fonseca's unravelling last week.
And from Ekiti
State came something no
less melodramatic few days ago. Though the year is hardly half-spent, Tope
Aluko is undoubtedly already leading the nomination list for the "Biggest
Fool of Year 2016". Weeks back, the Ekiti-born political chameleon caused
national sensation with a graphic account of how Ekiti guber poll was allegedly
rigged in 2014 to usher in Ayo Fayose as governor. Many were persuaded to
believe given his status as the "operations director" in the PDP
campaign then.
Like the proverbial canary, Aluko went into lurid details of how millions of dollars was trucked into Ekiti before the election to compromise opponents, security agencies and public institutions to dislodge incumbent Governor Kayode Fayemi.
Like the proverbial canary, Aluko went into lurid details of how millions of dollars was trucked into Ekiti before the election to compromise opponents, security agencies and public institutions to dislodge incumbent Governor Kayode Fayemi.
His reason for spilling the beans? Aluko cried betrayal by Fayose
and the overarching need to clear his conscience. But just when the nation was
still struggling to come to terms with Aluko's revelations came a rude
shock Monday morning. The media was awash with reports and
photographs of Aluko and his supposed "estranged godfather" fielding
questions at the lobby of a Lagos
five-star hotel, crowing to the world that the hatchet had been buried.
But following media backlash, Aluko Tuesday made yet
another U-turn. He denied ever making peace with Fayose. He would have us
believe he was lured to a "peace meeting" by a serving senator from
the state and a former governor.
By still affecting the toga of honour today and expecting to be
taken seriously, Aluko is only deceiving himself. Let us be charitable by even
accepting his plea that he made a "tactical blunder" by honoring the
invitation in the first place. But we didn't see any gun being put to his head
when he said before television cameras at the hotel lobby that the beef with
Fayose was instigated by "external forces". (No prize for guessing
"the external forces" Aluko alluded to.) Or would that footage also
be a "film trick"? By even admitting he came for a "peace
meeting", Aluko had already given himself away. "Peace meeting"
with who? As a supposedly educated man, he ought to know "peace
meeting" could only be in the context of the "enemy" being
present.
If we make some allowance for Aluko's obvious creative
after-thought, even a kid would not have much difficulty reconstructing the
probable sequence of events that led him to shame that Sunday evening
in Lagos .
Apparently unsatisfied by the "accommodation" offered him outside (by
the so-called "external forces"), he sheepishly fell for the bait
thrown at him by honoring an invitation to meet with Fayose to talk things over.
Possibly because of the fabled "stomach infrastructure" (or what he
would eat), Aluko sneaked into the hotel under the cover of darkness. He must
have calculated everything would remain confidential.
But he obviously under-estimated Fayose's capacity for cunning.
Unknown to Aluko, as the "negotiation" was ongoing, his more
street-wise quarry was itching to land the killer blow. A battery of
journalists (most likely from the press corps normally embedded in the
governor's entourage) had been tipped off discreetly. When the swivel door
finally swung open around midnight, Aluko inevitably walked into the
ambush. As television cameras began to roll, a visibly disoriented Aluko could
only mutter some nonsense in response to reporters' questions, looking more
like a famished rabbit caught in blinding floodlights.
Trust Fayose, he didn't allow the golden moment slip without seizing
it to further bruise Aluko's already bloodied nose on the cold asphalt. A wry,
triumphant smile on his lips, the Ekiti governor described the greying,
avuncular pensioner as "My boy, my son. I've forgiven him."
It would take 24 hours for Aluko to recover from the shock of being
set up; hence his Tuesday's fairy tale. The morale of Aluko's
disgraceful showing: there is no substitute for politics of principle. But what
some people will eat will not let them keep their honour.
*Louis
Odion is a former Commissioner for Information in Edo State
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