“Nigeria is awaiting receipt from Swiss Govt.
of $320 million, identified as illegally taken
from Nigeria under Abacha” – Buhari @NGR
President, 5:09 PM – 27 APR 2016
WHEN Twitter-addicted Nigerians stumbled
on this posting on President Muhammadu
Buhari’s Twitter handle last week, the whole
Internet went abuzz, with most people
expressing their dismay at Buhari’s refusal
to call a spade by its correct name.
Before we go on
, let us try to reason out
the meaning of this statement, especially
against the backdrop of its nexus to our
history where Abacha and Buhari’s paths cr
ossed.
It is obvious why the President or the
operator of his Twitter handle chose to
describe this amount (which is over N100
billion, a third of what the Federal, State
Local governments shared in February 2016)
as money “identified as illegally taken from
Nigeria under Abacha”, rather than the usual
“Abacha loot”. The answer is simple.
Buhari, long before he was elected
president, stubbornly insisted that Abacha
“never stole”, and that he was not corrupt.
“Illegally taken from Nigeria” is a ploy to
sidestep the word: “stolen”. “Under Abacha”
portrays it as if other people, not Abacha
himself, committed the “illegality” without
Abacha’s knowledge.
Some unknown individuals were taking
money from Nigeria and lodging it in
Abacha’s Swiss bank accounts? For what
purpose? Perhaps, they knew that our
economy would be in trouble in the future
and decided to “save” for this rainy day for
us? If that is what President Buhari wants
to say, let him say so openly, so that we all
will join him in congratulating the Abacha
family for the sacrifices their patriarch made
for Nigeria.
In the past sixteen years, series of sums of
money in foreign currency have been
brought back from Western countries,
especially Switzerland, where former military
Head of State, the late General Sani Abacha
stashed funds which he looted from the
Nigerian treasury. These monies have
always been called “Abacha loot”. Abacha is
the only former ruler boldly ascribed, even in
official circles, to have “stolen” or “looted”
our public funds. He certainly was not the
only one who did so. And most of us believe
that he was probably not the biggest looter.
Then, how come it is only his loots that are
being “identified” and repatriated? Is it
because he is dead?
If he were still alive like most of his fellow
former rulers, would there be any such thing
as “Abacha loot”? I doubt it, since his
predecessors and successors who probably
took more have never even been officially
accused or made to return their own “loots”.
In fact, one of them majestically struts over
the landscape calling other people corrupt
without justifying his own obvious affluence
after his long stint in the Presidency. Are we
a nation of cowards and dastards, mobbing
Abacha and his estate simply because he is
dead?
More questions: if Abacha had not arrested,
tried and jailed General Olusegun Obasanjo
for his part in the 1995 coup attempt to
unseat him, would Obasanjo have launched
the campaign to recover Abacha loot? If
Abacha had not died and he played a role in
the election of Obasanjo as President in
1999 as Generals Ibrahim Babangida,
Abdulsalami Abubakar, Theophilus Danjuma
and their civilian Northern cohorts had done,
would Obasanjo have started the campaign
to retrieve the Abacha loot?
Still more questions: if Buhari had been the
one elected as the civilian president of
Nigeria in 1999, would he even be talking
about receiving money from Swiss
Government “illegally taken away” under his
regime since he maintains, against all
concrete evidence, that Abacha never stole
our money? So, is it only when a person
deals with us and dies that he becomes
corrupt, but when he treats us nicely (as
Abacha did to Buhari) he becomes a “saint”?
If Abacha had not rehabilitated Buhari after
being jailed by Babangida; If Abacha had
not appointed him as the Executive
Chairman of the defunct Petroleum Trust
Fund (PTF), where he was given unlimited
powers to spend billions of Naira between
1996 and 1998, would Buhari have stuck out
his neck for him and say he was not
corrupt?
Is this the mentality we take with us in
fighting corruption, making sure that those
who helped us are regarded as clean, while
those who wronged us are pursued with a
single-minded quest to retrieve their loot
and sent to jail? Is this our national standard
for integrity? How are we sure that retired
Col. Ja’afaru Isa, a close Buhari acolyte who
was reluctantly arrested, briefly detained by
the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission,EFCC, and released after a
couple of days for allegedly returning part of
his share of Col. Sambo Dasuki’s bonanza,
actually returned anything?
Everybody calls President Buhari a “man of
integrity”, in spite of certain things we read
and hear which do not add up to
conclusively justify that branding. Buhari
made his declared assets public. But he
never disclosed their financial worth, nor did
he let us know where they could be found
as late President Umaru Yar’Adua voluntarily
did. He never followed Yar’ Adua’s
exemplary footsteps of including the assets
of his wife. And from the look of things,
ever-smiling Madam Aisha Buhari is very
well-to-do, what with her reported donation
of N135 million to displaced persons in
Adamawa during the campaigns last year,
which has not been denied.
I still cannot reconcile the fact that Buhari,
as the presidential candidate of the All
Progressives Congress (APC) had to borrow
N25 million from banks to pay for his form
in October, 2014 when his wife could so
easily have given it to him from her own
resources. There were even some reports
that Buhari was once ejected from his
“rented” mansion, No 11, Queen Elizabeth
Drive, Asokoro, Abuja in 2012. That report
was never debunked. Elaborate efforts have
always been made to brand Buhari as a
retired general who lived on his military
pension before he became elected
President.
Yet, when he became President and the
foreign exchange crunch set in, he told
parents who have their children in foreign
schools that they should look for forex
wherever they could find it as the Federal
Government could no longer afford to
provide it. When reminded that he had his
own children in foreign schools, he simply
retorted:
“I can afford it”.
These conflicting signals about our
President and his true mindset on corruption
as well as his real standing financially, is
being noticed, and nobody is a dummy. Even
the younger generation of Nigerians are
watching, reading and taking note of this
confusion and wondering what “integrity”
actually means here in Nigeria.
It is not only the youth that are confused. I
am certainly no longer a youth, but I am
confused!
of $320 million, identified as illegally taken
from Nigeria under Abacha” – Buhari @NGR
President, 5:09 PM – 27 APR 2016
WHEN Twitter-addicted Nigerians stumbled
on this posting on President Muhammadu
Buhari’s Twitter handle last week, the whole
Internet went abuzz, with most people
expressing their dismay at Buhari’s refusal
to call a spade by its correct name.
Before we go on
, let us try to reason out
the meaning of this statement, especially
against the backdrop of its nexus to our
history where Abacha and Buhari’s paths cr
ossed.
It is obvious why the President or the
operator of his Twitter handle chose to
describe this amount (which is over N100
billion, a third of what the Federal, State
Local governments shared in February 2016)
as money “identified as illegally taken from
Nigeria under Abacha”, rather than the usual
“Abacha loot”. The answer is simple.
Buhari, long before he was elected
president, stubbornly insisted that Abacha
“never stole”, and that he was not corrupt.
“Illegally taken from Nigeria” is a ploy to
sidestep the word: “stolen”. “Under Abacha”
portrays it as if other people, not Abacha
himself, committed the “illegality” without
Abacha’s knowledge.
Some unknown individuals were taking
money from Nigeria and lodging it in
Abacha’s Swiss bank accounts? For what
purpose? Perhaps, they knew that our
economy would be in trouble in the future
and decided to “save” for this rainy day for
us? If that is what President Buhari wants
to say, let him say so openly, so that we all
will join him in congratulating the Abacha
family for the sacrifices their patriarch made
for Nigeria.
In the past sixteen years, series of sums of
money in foreign currency have been
brought back from Western countries,
especially Switzerland, where former military
Head of State, the late General Sani Abacha
stashed funds which he looted from the
Nigerian treasury. These monies have
always been called “Abacha loot”. Abacha is
the only former ruler boldly ascribed, even in
official circles, to have “stolen” or “looted”
our public funds. He certainly was not the
only one who did so. And most of us believe
that he was probably not the biggest looter.
Then, how come it is only his loots that are
being “identified” and repatriated? Is it
because he is dead?
If he were still alive like most of his fellow
former rulers, would there be any such thing
as “Abacha loot”? I doubt it, since his
predecessors and successors who probably
took more have never even been officially
accused or made to return their own “loots”.
In fact, one of them majestically struts over
the landscape calling other people corrupt
without justifying his own obvious affluence
after his long stint in the Presidency. Are we
a nation of cowards and dastards, mobbing
Abacha and his estate simply because he is
dead?
More questions: if Abacha had not arrested,
tried and jailed General Olusegun Obasanjo
for his part in the 1995 coup attempt to
unseat him, would Obasanjo have launched
the campaign to recover Abacha loot? If
Abacha had not died and he played a role in
the election of Obasanjo as President in
1999 as Generals Ibrahim Babangida,
Abdulsalami Abubakar, Theophilus Danjuma
and their civilian Northern cohorts had done,
would Obasanjo have started the campaign
to retrieve the Abacha loot?
Still more questions: if Buhari had been the
one elected as the civilian president of
Nigeria in 1999, would he even be talking
about receiving money from Swiss
Government “illegally taken away” under his
regime since he maintains, against all
concrete evidence, that Abacha never stole
our money? So, is it only when a person
deals with us and dies that he becomes
corrupt, but when he treats us nicely (as
Abacha did to Buhari) he becomes a “saint”?
If Abacha had not rehabilitated Buhari after
being jailed by Babangida; If Abacha had
not appointed him as the Executive
Chairman of the defunct Petroleum Trust
Fund (PTF), where he was given unlimited
powers to spend billions of Naira between
1996 and 1998, would Buhari have stuck out
his neck for him and say he was not
corrupt?
Is this the mentality we take with us in
fighting corruption, making sure that those
who helped us are regarded as clean, while
those who wronged us are pursued with a
single-minded quest to retrieve their loot
and sent to jail? Is this our national standard
for integrity? How are we sure that retired
Col. Ja’afaru Isa, a close Buhari acolyte who
was reluctantly arrested, briefly detained by
the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission,EFCC, and released after a
couple of days for allegedly returning part of
his share of Col. Sambo Dasuki’s bonanza,
actually returned anything?
Everybody calls President Buhari a “man of
integrity”, in spite of certain things we read
and hear which do not add up to
conclusively justify that branding. Buhari
made his declared assets public. But he
never disclosed their financial worth, nor did
he let us know where they could be found
as late President Umaru Yar’Adua voluntarily
did. He never followed Yar’ Adua’s
exemplary footsteps of including the assets
of his wife. And from the look of things,
ever-smiling Madam Aisha Buhari is very
well-to-do, what with her reported donation
of N135 million to displaced persons in
Adamawa during the campaigns last year,
which has not been denied.
I still cannot reconcile the fact that Buhari,
as the presidential candidate of the All
Progressives Congress (APC) had to borrow
N25 million from banks to pay for his form
in October, 2014 when his wife could so
easily have given it to him from her own
resources. There were even some reports
that Buhari was once ejected from his
“rented” mansion, No 11, Queen Elizabeth
Drive, Asokoro, Abuja in 2012. That report
was never debunked. Elaborate efforts have
always been made to brand Buhari as a
retired general who lived on his military
pension before he became elected
President.
Yet, when he became President and the
foreign exchange crunch set in, he told
parents who have their children in foreign
schools that they should look for forex
wherever they could find it as the Federal
Government could no longer afford to
provide it. When reminded that he had his
own children in foreign schools, he simply
retorted:
“I can afford it”.
These conflicting signals about our
President and his true mindset on corruption
as well as his real standing financially, is
being noticed, and nobody is a dummy. Even
the younger generation of Nigerians are
watching, reading and taking note of this
confusion and wondering what “integrity”
actually means here in Nigeria.
It is not only the youth that are confused. I
am certainly no longer a youth, but I am
confused!
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