FEATURE ARTICLE

Leburah GanagoSunday, February 27, 2005
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Atlanta, GA, USA

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NIGERIA AS TERRIBLE EXAMPLE OF DEMOCRACY


"Unless there is a major change in course, Iraq is on track to become another corrupt, oil-rich quasi-democracy, like Russia and Nigeria"
-- Fareed Zakaria, (Newsweek, February 7, 2005)

nterestingly, there is one thing almost everyone in the world knows about Nigeria: that, it is about the most corrupt nation on the surface of the globe. It does not matter that the reigning bandits in that country hate to hear this.


When late last year, Transparency International (TI) published a report which classified Nigeria as the third most corrupt country in the world, they screamed and cried foul. But I find that rather amazing, considering the fact that what looks like some computational errors pushed the country down from its previous position of N0.2 to N0.3.

In fact, a more thorough research on corruption in that country would place Nigeria the topmost spot of world corruption scale. Corruption in that country is legendary It is even more serious than it looks from outside. It has permeated the fabric of the society- from the highest level of Government to the community level. We are so used to it out there that it does not make news to us anymore. It is something you are born into.

However, for the purpose of this piece, we are dealing with official corruption, no, organized robbery of the national treasury. As Nigerians, we are also used to this too. However, this time around it is so brazenly done like we have never seen before. Do not tell me of the late General Abacha. For this thing is progressing. Abacha and his gang may have surpassed Babangida's record in treasury looting. But like I submitted in my previous piece on this site, FROM ABACHA TO ABACHA, Obasanjo and his gang are likely to break the Abacha record. And I say this on good authority.

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The current bandits in Aso Rock are getting more money from oil sales than their predecessors. Obasanjo has seized the petroleum Ministry. He has refused to appoint a minister for that ministry. The other day I read in one of Nigerian dailies where Obasanjo was quoted as claiming that he had to retain the portfolio for the petroleum ministry because people have the belief that there is where the money is. In other words, the petroleum ministry is prone to corruption. This is laughable indeed. So is Obasanjo a better manager of money? Yet, under the care of this super hypocrite the petroleum ministry is so corrupt that no one ( except maybe Obasanjo himself) knows the exact figure of Nigeria monthly oil sale. The Nigerian government reportedly made N1.5 trillion from oil revenue in the first six months of last year. And the more revenue the government realizes the poorer the people becomes.

In a dubious attempt to impress or is it deceive, his western backers, Obasanjo has gone out to set up some phony commission such as the so-called Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. However, hardly any public officer gets reported to these commissions. Only a few unlucky ones who happened to cross path with this imperial president are reported. But it is even harder to see any of those reported that have been tried and punished. Those who are being threatened with the anti-corruption commission simply retrace their steps and cooperate with the president and they are left off the hook .

Take this from one of his serving Governors, Orji Uzor Kalu of Abia State,

"Yeah, the president knows very well that he is a very corrupt individual. I have challenged him to that effect because I have some of his account numbers and if he challenges me, I will publish them with the amount of money in each of them. He knows that I am not joking, that's why he kept quiet when I made the charge...Even the Western world knows that Obasanjo is very corrupt that's why they don't take him seriously when he rants about anti-corruption.".
- In an interview with Omoyele Sowore (Nigeria World, February 2, 2005).

This man loves to tell any idle soul who cares to listen to him that he is determined to fight corruption while he is actually promoting corruption. At this point I think I should state emphatically that it is not enough to tamely charge that Nigeria is a corrupt country. Treasury looting is the norm in public service. For the most part the motivation for seeking public office in Nigeria is for one to have access to the public coffers. This is no news anyway; only that the current Obasanjo led gang has elevated it to an art. We should be able to say exactly what we mean, that the most corrupt man in Nigeria is always the man who has the most access to the oil money, to steal. Today, that person is Olusegun Obasanjo.
However, Obasanjo and his friend Ibrahim babangida who are now multi-billionaires from stolen oil money have no drop of oil on their soil. Yet, those who produce the oil and who suffer the hazards of the oil industry like the minority ethnic groups of the Niger delta do not have access to the oil wealth. This is what we are determined to stop. And no amount of blackmail, bribery, intimidation, not even the on-going genocide against our people can break our resolve. It does not matter how long the struggle takes.

Nigerians may be the most optimistic people on earth. After all, a survey last year purportedly show the world's largest black nation as peopled by the happiest human beings around. And Nigerians may also have a world record in cooperating with their rulers; be they stone age military dictators or civilian-turned ex-military despots. If not, how can one explain a situation where someone like Justice Chukwudifu Oputa who headed a human rights violation investigation commission appointed by the Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo who turned round to dump the report and its recommendations again accept Obasanjo's appointment to participate in another sham of a process whose recommendations Obasanjo is most likely to either thrash outright or manipulate to suit his predetermined objectives? The Oputa commission sat for three years, three weeks and six days. All those man hours and the resources expended into it were wasted.

Every tyrant who rigs himself to power in Nigeria writes his own constitution. Abacha wrote his. Obasanjo wants to write his own version of the Nigerian constitution. However, one would not be surprised if the in-coming constitution contains a provision which prohibits the probe of past public office holders; something like Buhari's Decree 4 of 1984. But Obasanjo need not bother himself. Which past public thief in that country has ever been probed?

The Ogoni people, arguably the most abused and most exploited ethnic group in Nigeria today, who turned in over 80% of the total petitions at the Oputa Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission will not forget in a hurry how Obasanjo crashed their hope of getting justice or at least getting explanation for what happened to them in a country which has turned out to be their abattoir.

I understand that Obasanjo has erected road blocks on the way of the delegates he handpicked to his so called National Dialogue, carving out "no-go areas", that is, barring them from deliberating on what he considers to be sensitive issues which might lead to the break-up of the country. This is self-deceit. You do not solve a problem by running away from it. And the more you prevent aggrieved parties from airing out their feelings the more you bottle -up their anger and frustration. Then, one day, it will boil over and explode. Yet, it is not the pro-democracy and human rights or minority rights agitators whom Obasanjo has excluded from the charade called "National Dialogue" that threaten the unity of the country. It is rather the actions-criminal exploitation and suppression of the minority ethnic groups and the plundering of their God-given resources by ruling cabal like Obasanjo and members of his gang of bandits that are threatening to tear the country apart .

In Nigeria today Obasanjo is running a unique kind of "democracy" that brooks no dissenting views. He is a brutal stone age dictator. He is making Abacha look like a saint. Honestly, I hate to call this man my president or anybody's president for that matter. In that interview Governor Kalu also charged .. "the president is very vindictive, he doesn't like to be challenged and if you challenge him he will not forgive you. He will do anything to finish you" .

But if you are tempted to dismiss Governor Kalu's charge of vindictiveness against Obasanjo as that of another member of the reigning gang who has fallen out of favour then, you need to consider this soul wrecking barbaric treatment Obasanjo meted out to Chief Audu Ogbeh, the ejected National chairman of his party, the Peoples Democratic Party, as recounted by the Guardian newspaper : Under intimidation, blackmail and humiliation, Chief Audu Ogbeh, chairman of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP), relinquished his post on Sunday, January 9. The post-dated resignation takes effect from February 28, this year. The venue, drama and personae that attended the chairman's ouster bespeak another sad chapter in the unedifying story of thePDP.

According to various consistent accounts, Ogbeh resigned under duress, literally at gunpoint . On Saturday, he was reportedly visited at his Abuja residence by President Olusegun Obasanjo, who demanded to know why the chairman still had not quit. Ogbeh replied that he was still making consultations. When the President left, a security cordon was thrown around the residence of the party chairman who was now virtually under house arrest. Security operatives claiming that they were under instructions, turned away Ogbeh's daughter who came calling. Despite his identification of the visitor as his daughter, the security operatives demurred. They went a step further, informing him that after 6p.m nobody would be allowed in or out of the house.

On Sunday morning, President Obasanjo summoned Ogbeh to the Presidential Villa at Aso Rock. There, with the full paraphernalia of his office, the President extracted a hand-written letter of resignation from the party chairman. The letter had neither duplicate nor photocopy. Though addressed to the National Secretary, Chief Vincent Ogbulafor, it was the Presidency that received the letter for onward delivery to the secretary who was no where in the neighbourhood. It smacks of abuse of the office and privilege that the President acted the way he did in the circumstances of Ogbeh's formed resignation. That is not the kind of use to which state power should be put". ( The Guardian January 19, 2005)

I have gone at that great length to quote copiously from the Guardian publication for I couldn't have done better in buttressing the level of savagery Obasanjo has condescended in unleashing a reign of terror in Nigeria. Like the late Ken Saro Wiwa had noted what is going on in Nigeria is still "organized banditry that goes in the name of government".

Obasanjo has displayed an absolute zero tolerance for dissenting opinions or criticisms. His assaults on the press is reminiscent of the dark days of the General Abacha military junta. The Guardian of Wednesday September 16, in its editorial column ran a chilling commentary on the wanton assault on media houses by the Obasanjo regime. The paper commented inter alia : "In just five days between September 4 and 9, the State Security Service (SSS) came down hard on some media outfits in a manner suggestive of repression and disrespect to the Nigerian Constitution. In one instance, the SSS stormed the premises of the Insider Weekly magazine, arrested three of its staff and laid siege on it, effectively shutting it down. In another instance, on Thursday, September9, one Mr. Isaac Umunna, an editorial consultant to the Global Weekly Star, another weekly newspaper was reportedly arrested and detained since then.

The report continues: The reported scenario of the SSS action is worth re-enacting . On September 4, 2004, about 20 men of the Lagos State section of the SSS invaded the premises of the Insider Weekly magazine and that of its printers in Ogba, Lagos. During the raid, the men reportedly broke into16 offices, arrested the production officer, Mr.Raphael Olatoye; took away files and other documents from the corporate safe. Besides, the SSS impounded 15,000 copies of the magazine, all the production plates, computers, diskette, laptops, photographic equipment and N500,000 cash. The security agency locked the gates chain and returned the next day to arrest and detain two more of the magazine's staff". This is Obasanjo's version of democracy.

A fascist regime. This is how a high ranking opposition politician describes Obsanjo's democracy. The Daily Independent Online of Monday November 15, 2004 quoted the Deputy President-General of the People's Salvation Party (PSP) Dr. Suleima Kumo as describing the administration as a fascist regime that has thrown all known democratic principles to the wind. The opposition leader was further quoted as saying: "This is the biggest disaster that has ever been inflicted upon the Nigeria people for the past century. From colonial days to date the people of Nigeria have never found themselves in such a disastrous situation, the kind they are living in now". This is a government which represents nobody; it was not even elected, Obasanjo is just perching there being propped up by security operatives. As such, the man is running a fascist government".

Talking of banditry, under Obasanjo's reign of terror we have seen more cases ( more than the Abacha era) of obvious politically motivated assassinations in that country. But if you think these things happen behind the president's back, ask Governor Orji Kalu again. His response: "On top of that I believe the president is involved in some high level assassinations in the country, let me make it clear to Nigerians that the president knows those amongst his aides who assassinate people and he has not done anything to expose or eject them from the government. It is only logical to assert that he's a killer too".

Again, what often looks like Obasanjo's desperate attempts to cover-up those assassinations do not help his case. Obasanjo and his gang characterize all those obvious cases of state sponsored assassinations as armed robbery. When Chief A.K. Dikibo, the P.D.P Vice chairman for the South-South was assassinated on his way to attend a party meeting whose agenda ran counter to the 2007 political equation of Obasanjo's and his political sons, February 8, 2004 , the president made a hasty nation-wide broadcast , telling a bewildered nation that the party chieftain was killed by "armed robbers"; even before the police could settle down to do any investigation. Of course, the police "investigation" later reproduced Obasanjo's ready made answer, calling the assassination "armed robbery".

When a foremost opposition politician Dr. Marshall Harry was earlier assassinated in his bedroom in the nation's capital, Obasanjo's now deposed Inspector-General of Police Tafa Balogun paraded some miscreants on national television alleging their self-confession of taking part in the killing of the multi-millionaire politician- turned businessman. However, a twist was recently added to that grand fraud when the same Nigeria police reportedly ordered the arrest of another set of youth who were again alleged to have confessed being responsible for the murder of the late politician. The late politician had vowed to stop Obasanjo and his very loyal Governor of Rivers State, Dr. Peter Odili from winning re-election. But the man who dared the tiger was promptly dispatched to the world beyond before the elections.

Now, based on the new twist in his father's murder and the change of guards in the ever stinking Nigeria police force, I understand that the late Dr. Marshall Harry's son Mr. Sunny Harry has appealed to the new Inspector-General of Police to reopen his father's case and those of other victims of politically motivated assassinations, in the hope that justice would be done. I sympathize with Sunny and all members of the late Marshall Harry family, those of A.K. Dikibo, Bola Ige and the rest. However,. Any hope of fishing out the perpetrators of those assassinations under the present administration is misplaced. What we should understand about the killings is that they were obviously masterminded from the top most echelon of the administration. Tafa Balogun was just an errand boy carrying out orders from "above" and justifying his pay. His replacement does not change anything.

If Etim Iyang, arguably one of the finest cop to head the Nigeria Police could not fish out the murderers of Dele Giwa under Ibrahim Babangida no Inspector-General of Police under the present set up can resolve these officially sanctioned assassinations. And there is no hope anytime soon; even beyond Obasanjo, of bringing the murderers to justice. When Obasanjo hands over power to Babangida in 2007, the latter would be duty bound to cover-up the dirty tracks of his comrade at arms. It would simply be pay back time. Obasanjo has used his position under the guise of a Supreme court judgment to block the re-opening of the Dele Giwa case (as recommended by the Oputa panel) which would have exposed the involvement of Babangida in that novel case of parcel bomb assassination.

One more area where Obasanjo has excelled as a "civilian" president is hypocrisy. In fact he came into office on this note. When fellow retired army general and former military dictator General Yakubu Gowon declared his intention to contest election as a civilian president a few years Obasanjo sarcaistically asked what he had forgotten inside the Aso Rock (then Dodan Barracks) wardrobe. Meaning the retired General has no business seeking to govern the country again having done that previously (as a military Head of State). Yet, Obasanjo himself later returned to govern as a "civilian" president after handing over as a military dictator. And when he was advised not to go for a second term he scoffed at the suggestion, saying he was destined by God to rule.

Obasanjo is incessantly harassing the Anambra State Governor Dr. Chris Ngigie trying to force him to resign based on the admission of his (Obasanjo's ) agent provocateur, Chris Ubah, that he rigged the election for the governor to win. However, the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal has exposed Obasanjo as the worst election rigger in our recent history. The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal was told that in Obasanjo's home state of Ogun there was a smart attempt to re-enact the Maroko miracle of 1983. Remember Maroko?. That Lagos slum where the votes allocated to the N.P.N ( National Party of Nigeria) during the ill-fated 1983 general elections outnumbered the entire population of the area. It is not as if the rigging was restricted to Ogun State. My own state, Rivers may even fare worse. On a day that booms of gun shots and dynamites reportedly kept potential voters indoors throughout the voting period, Obasanjo and Governor Peter Odili were claimed to have won the state with over 2 million votes!

The Guardian of December 31, 2004 in its editorial column commented on the presidential election Obasanjo is purported to have won as follows: "Despite various interpretations attending the judgment of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal delivered some days back, one top lesson is that it confirmed widely expressed fear about the sham that was the presidential election of April 19, 2003. Expectedly the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) never agreed that there were anything wrong, at least not substantially, with the election. That position was at variance with reports of election monitors and observers at local and international levels.

If any doubt still existed about the deliberate sloppiness of the election, that doubt evaporated with the tribunal's unanimous annulment of the polls in Ogun State, the home state of the President. The tribunal, in annulling the election in the state, found that the votes recorded for Obasanjo were far higher than the registered voters, and that there were disparities in the results of the presidential and governorship elections. Said Justice Tabai, in the lead judgment: "In absolute terms, the respondent (Obasanjo) received over 600,000 votes more than the governorship candidate on the same date, time and same polling units. The presidential election results in Ogun State were manipulated and are hereby cancelled."

The dissenting judge, Nsofor was more critical. He annulled the entire election in the country, noting that INEC officials did not certify the materials used in the election and that the president did not win two-thirds of the total votes cast in the states of the federation. Perhaps more of the election's shortcoming will be analysed at the Supreme Court to which Buhari has indicated he would appeal. For now, there is enough for everyone to chew and digest. When elections are so found to be fraudulent and irregular, it leaves a credibility problem for the declared winners as is already happening in some areas.

For President Obasanjo in particular, the judgment is a major burden as he had been in the forefront of the fight against fraud in any form. The question is: What did the president know, and when did he know it? If he did not know of the widespread irregularities that characterised his victory at the polls, he ought by now to be persuaded that some people must have perfected the acts to ensure that he won. But that will not reduce his credibility problem, for he can no longer in good conscience moralise against some governors believed to have directly or indirectly manipulated polls in their favour.

The challenge before the president is even more daunting if the hope of Nigerians on democracy is not to be totally eroded.

Going by the revelations of such a scandalous level of election rigging which returned him to office, Obasanjo ought to have resigned on his own or be forced to do so. These revelations have made the illegitimacy of the Obasanjo led government in Nigeria very glaring. Yet, Nigerians ought to borrow from the example of the people of Ukraine who poured out to the streets to protest their stolen mandate . The heroic action of Ukrainians led to the cancellation of the presidential election which was ordered re-conducted by the country's supreme court. And the repeated election returned the rightful winner.

Obasanjo even thinks that he can mock God. But he needs to listen to what the Holy Book says: " God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man sows so shall he reap". A few weeks ago my wife called me out of the shower and asked me to watch "your" president on the television. I watched and saw Obasanjo standing beside the American miracle performing preacher Benny Hinn. He looked humble and subdued, removing his cap and barring his bald head, as the Minister prayed. The Nigerian President has officially invited Benny Hinn to Nigeria. So the miracle preacher would be in Lagos by April ending on Obasanjo's invitation. Surely, Obasanjo needs to seek the face of God. But I doubt if this man is wholly convinced that he needs God in his system. So far there is nothing Godly about Obasanjo's utterances and actions as President . This ruthless and brutal dictator is carrying on as an all-knowing super land-lord of Nigeria and Africa. He is repulsively arrogant, decidedly crude and utterly mean. I could imagine Obasanjo saying what the legendary German Physicist, Albert Eistein, once said " I have no need of God in my system". However, it would take a miracle to give this dreaded tyrant the milk of human kindness.

"This boy is evil". That was Alao Aka-Bashorun, reacting to an attempt by Babangida to bribe him with his presidential golden pen when the then N.B.A (Nigeria Bar Association) President led a delegation to Dodan Barracks in 1989. Babangida and Obasanjo are twin evils Nigeria can ill afford. Ibrahim Babangida is now angling to seize power for the second time. Only in Nigeria can this oddity take place. Here is a man who should either be executed or made to spend the rest of his evil life in prison. But Nigeria is a country overrun and ruled by horrible criminals-murderers and treasury looters.

And this brings us to the very touchy issue of the grand conspiracy by retired army generals who have conquered the country and have ensured that they perpetuate themselves in power so no body would be able to expose their heinous crimes against the people-treasury looting and multiple murders Nigerians most rise and reclaim their country from the vicious and rapacious and gang of retired army generals and their collaborators. What we need at this stage is mass action. It worked in the Philippines , Cote' de Voire , and most recently Ukraine. Or by the time Obasanjo and Babangida are done with Nigeria we may no more have a country in one piece.