What DSS Report Says About Adams Oshiomhole

By Fredrick Nwabufo

The depth of filth in the APC primary election can contain a tsunami. The “inglorious” exercise and its resulting attrition betray the anti-corruption sloganeering of the Buhari administration.

*Adams Oshiomhole 

A lot has been said about the alleged involvement of Adams Oshiomhole, APC national chairman, in the corruption shin-dig.  But what is the position of the Department of State Security (DSS)? The secret police interrogated Oshiomhole, and really did ask him to resign over allegations of bribery.

Maina: Who is Fooling Who?

By Segun Adeniyi

In discussing the controversy around the reinstatement and promotion of the twice-dismissed former Chairman of the Presidential Task ForceTeam on pension Reforms, Mr Abdulrasheed Maina yesterday at our editorial board meeting, a member said something instructive. According to the person, while the former administration ‘democratised’ corruption, the current one has decided to ‘privatise’ it.

*Abdulrasheed Maina

If any proof was ever needed about that summation, readers only have to check out what members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in both the Senate and House of Representatives said on Tuesday in their contributions to the motion on how the former level-14 civil servant with enormous power and wealth suddenly got back his job with promotion and a N22 million bounty in arrears.

The President's Dining Table Of Corruption

By Nnaemeka Oruh

Nigeria's current president, Muhammadu Buhari, rode to power on a flaming horse of anti-corruption, wielding a blazing without-fear-or-favour sword. It was for that singular reason that most Nigerians voted for him. The Nigerian people, tired of several years of misrule and corruption wanted a change. Buhari was sold to them as that change, the messiah, who will bring about all the changes, and most importantly, defeat corruption, with his blazing sword. As events since his inauguration have shown, that image of Buhari was photoshopped!

*Buhari 

Here was a septuagenarian who had not the slightest clue of what leading a nation in the 21st century, and as a civilian leader, was all about. Yet his army of followers coached him on how to brainwash the people with truth-like lies, while promising them paradise. As a man who was only power hungry, he grasped the offer with both hands, and proceeded to recite(when he could remember) the words that he had been coached to recite. In the end, he said enough to deceive Nigerians and they gave him their mandate. But it is key to note that they gave him their mandate so that in addition to performing the miracles he promised, he would most importantly fight corruption without fear or favour, as he promised.

However, Nigerians had not reckoned with two things:

One, to rise to power, the man popularly known as Sai Baba needed money. So to get that, he leaned heavily on some poster-children of corruption, some governor, mostly from the South. who looted their states dry, to fund Sai Baba's election campaigns. By doing that, they forever bought Buhari's loyalty such that even when there are concrete proofs of their corrupt actions, Sai Baba closed his ears to them, and unintelligently continued to defend and shield them.

But what every discerning person immediately understood was that there was no way Sai Baba was going to fight the very corruption that made him President! So, naturally, the first seats around Sai Baba's table were taken by the poster-children of corruption, who have since then remained untouchable—out of the window goes the “favour” part of the without-fear-or-favour sword.

Fighting Or Celebrating Corruption?

By Egwuchukwu Hilary Ejikeme  

This country as it is presently organised does not hold any future, whatsoever, for our children. Never in the history of mankind has so much been owed so many by so few. Even though we were ignorant of it, the battle-line was drawn, ab initio, between the only two quasi-political parties I could distinguish in Nigeria: The very rich versus the poor masses, the leadership as against the people, the Bourgeoisie lined up against the Proletariat.

*President Buhari 

Whether as members of the Armed Forces or the business moguls or the politicians, leadership at once becomes a melting pot of sorts. At the very top, there is no tribe, no religion, no profession, and no division. The rest of us: Police, Army, Air Force, Navy, all other Nigerian workers – public/civil servants, artisans, drivers, petty traders and what not, must rise from our slumber and seek to change and redirect the course of governance for the benefit of our children.

What successive governments have done in Nigeria, including the present Muhammadu Buhari leadership, is to celebrate, rather than fight corruption. The issue of corruption in Nigeria is more fundamental than just inundating the pages of our national dailies and plaguing the air waves with individual cases of brazen misappropriation or looting of public funds. The leadership is only playing to the gallery.

Corruption has become like an alternative source of energy in Nigeria. My friend used to complain a lot about the noise pollution and the attendant fumes of his neighbour’s generating set, but that was until he was able to buy his own generator. Today, my friend’s generator is on, almost right round the clock, regardless of what his neighbours are passing through. That is the case of leadership and corruption in Nigeria. Now former President Olusegun Obasanjo doubled as the President and the Minister of Petroleum: There was then no Nigerian, good or trustworthy enough, to fit into that position. Probably because this continued throughout his eight years in office, our own Buhari, the darling and toast of The Fourth Estate of The Realm, has unwittingly stepped into the same unwieldy shoes. But can two wrongs ever make a right?

Corruption is corruption: Any time or anywhere. When we sacrifice competence and meritocracy at the altar of mediocrity and/or federal character/quota system, it is corruption: Pure and simple. Nigeria is basically designed to fail, from the beginning. No team can ever win a match if it refuses to field its best players.