With a pedigree of an incurable self-advertisement behind it, the
Muhammadu Buhari government is not known for half-measures.
Alas, this propensity has not found its
profoundest expression in the prosecution of an agenda for engendering good
governance.
The upshot is that the emergence of the Buhari
government has burdened the citizens with a miserable existence that harks back
to a Hobbesian state of nature where life is nasty, brutish and short on account
of the half-hearted measures for governance that has been deployed. For the political party of Buhari, the All Progressives Congress (APC), there
is the tragedy that this predilection has also become the petard on which it is
being hoisted.
Or why are the party’s leaders unrestrained as
they fight themselves over who has the power to determine those to take over
the reins of leadership in different states? Yet, we cannot ignore the fact
that this tendency has redounded to shoring up the political fortunes of the
government and the ruling APC. |
| *Lai Mohammed |
It was through this attribute that the Buhari
government was able to convince Nigerians that it was no longer sensible for
them to continue to saddle themselves with the government of Goodluck Jonathan.
Since it assumed office, the Buhari government
has maintained this path. Its reality is out of sync with the reality of the
citizens.
Where there is mass starvation it says that it
has gorged the citizens. Where the land is strewn with broken limbs, legs and
corpses, it says it has restored enduring peace.
Where it sows the seeds of discord and ethnic
and religious suspicion, it says it is working for the unity of the country by
appointing people from only one part of the country and religion into office.
It haunts its enemies out of proportion with their offences. Before the APC government came to power, it was Lai Mohammed who discharged the
responsibility of telling the world what only the members of the APC were
seeing but remained invisible to others. And since the party assumed office,
Mohammed has retained this responsibility as the Minister of Information.
For Mohammed, there is no reason to cringe
when he is considered as the face of the dissemblance of the Buhari government.
No, he wears his Goebbelian tag like a badge
of honour. He is nimble-footed when it comes to reeling off what portrays the
government in a good light.
But Mohammed is currently missing an
opportunity to play his accustomed role. Quite out of character, he has
suddenly become publicity-shy.
In the fist place, why should Mohammed be
interested in keeping the cost of feeding Ibrahim El-Zakzaky as a top secret,
far removed from the prying eyes of the citizens? Why was he not excited at the
opportunity of telling the whole world how much his government is concerned
with the wellbeing of El-Zakzaky by spending so much on him? Thus, that moment
of unaccustomed demur signalled the sinister motive of Mohammed. He was not
scandalized nor has he fumed that he was misquoted by some inattentive or mischievous
reporters.
Mohammed told journalists that he was speaking
off the record when he disclosed that the government spends N3.5 million
monthly to feed El-Zazaky.
If the motive for disclosing this was to
demonstrate how well the government cares for El-Zakzaky, it failed. For, the
kind consideration that El-Zakzaky requires is not to be fed with sumptuous
meals daily.
After all, he can provide these meals for
himself outside the custody of the Department of State Services (DSS). What he
needs is to be granted freedom after killing his three sons and hundreds of his
followers. Besides, the insincerity of the government was shown by the Shiites dismissing
Mohammed as a liar. They lamented that El-Zakzaky has always complained of not
feeding well.
They noted that as recent as last month, their
leader complained of poor feeding since he was transferred to Kaduna
For, was it not in the DSS custody that
El-Zazazky lost one of his eyes? If the government were so caring, why would
they allow this to happen to him?
Again, as an old person how much can
El-Zakzaky really consume? If the government can feed El-Zakzaky with all that
amount, it indicts itself for insisting that the minimum wage for its employees
is N18,000.
We must be alert to the possibility that when
Mohammed said that such a huge amount is spent monthly on feeding El-Zakzaky,
the government was interested in denigrating him as a gourmand.
In that case, he is being portrayed as a
person who is preoccupied with eating government delicacies while his followers
are out on the streets exposed to the impunity of soldiers who pride themselves
on having no rubber bullets.
Mohammed cannot vouch for his claim, so he
cannot produce a breakdown of the feeding cost. Thus, these opaque transactions could only lead the citizens to the suspicion
that the cost of feeding El-Zakzaky is high because there are some people who
are turning into millionaires through feeding him. No wonder the government
likes to keep suspects in prison in violation of court rulings.
Thus, just like El-Zakzaky, officials of the
Buhari government are feeding off Sambo Dasuki. In the case of Dasuki, the
government must be spending more.
After all, Dasuki needs to be protected so
that he would not die of poor feeding and prematurely go to his grave with the
secret codes of his multi-billion naira bank accounts.
He is unlike El-Zakzaky who may die in custody
and the government and its officials would not lose anything.
The nation would not also lose its peace. Not
when the government is poised to pounce on any Shiite who would dare protest
against his death. Or when they killed hundreds of them in 2015 and scores of
them just last month was there any trouble for the government?
It is the same way that government officials
benefit from crises such as insurgencies. Buhari’s officials that are feeding
off the Boko Haram insurgency do not want it to end.
It is the same way that military officers who
are deployed to stop restiveness in the Niger Delta become billionaires after
they get there. Instead of stopping pipeline vandalism and the theft of crude oil, they become
the lynchpins for these activities.
On their watch, impounded ships loaded with
crude vanish. Or they brazenly vandalise and steal the property of those
accused of sponsoring restiveness in the Niger Delta.
It is the same way that government officials
live off their yearly budgets. They vote money to buy items they bought the
previous year.
How do furniture, kitchen utensils, computers
wear themselves out in a year that they warrant being changed?
Since other citizens like the Shiites are
outraged at the incredibly huge cost of feeding El-Zakzaky, it is incumbent on
the government to disabuse them of the suspicion of its complicity.
But we take cognisance of the robust
possibility of the expectation of an unimpeachable investigation remaining an
illusion since the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) would hide
under the excuse that it has not got a petition and thus it cannot probe the outrageous
cost of feeding El-Zakzaky.
But the EFCC should be reminded that the
unvarnished indignation of the citizens is enough petition to it to probe and
tabulate before the public the eating proclivities of El-Zakzaky before he was
arrested and now that he is in custody and why Nigerians should not be
surprised.
But since the EFCC, DSS, the Independent
Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and the police
would look away because it is those who are in government who are being accused
of corruption, officials of Buhari government would continue to feed fat off
citizens they have muzzled through detention and other forms of impunity.
*Dr.
Onomuakpokpo is on the Editorial Board of The
Guardian
Lai
Mohammed: An Unmanageable Mistake!
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