Where Did David Mark Get the Funds for His Private
University?
18.05.2013, 9:12 Features
David Bonaventure Alechenu Mark, Nigeria's Senate
President, is one of those extremely wealthy rogue soldiers
produced by Ibrahim Babangida's settlement philosophy.
Fate has blessed him with an illustrious looting career.
He has been stealing money from the Nigerian people for a very
long time. When he got tired of stealing money, he graduated to
loftier preoccupations: stealing elections. Thus, in one of those
only in Nigeria self-destructive travesties, the occupant of the
third highest office in the land actually never won any of the
elections that got him to the National Assembly. Like others, he is
a beneficiary of the PDP's phenomenal rigging machine. He is
openly pretending not to eye the presidency in 2015 but, deep
down, he won't mind adding tenancy in Aso Rock to his personal
legacy of rigged elections. In the meantime, David Mark has
graduated from stealing elections to being lucky.
Luck, for David Mark, is not about your head auspiciously making
you the number two man to bosses destined to run into trouble
or die along the way. Luck, for the Senate President, comes in the
shape of a succession of overwhelming national tragedies which
makes the personal transgressions of Nigeria's political rapists
pass unnoticed. Such has been the harvest of corpses lately in
Nigeria, from Baga to Bama to Nassarawa and counting, that it
would have been politically incorrect for anybody to pay attention
to the regular but less violent ways in which the political class
continues to kill more Nigerians than Boko Haram or armed
robbers combined.
Nigerians.
Like most Nigerians, I nearly missed the news, partly because only
one newspaper (Nigerian Tribune) considered it newsworthy and
partly because I was distracted and anguished by other national
tragedies associated with Boko Haram. Although, somehow, the
editors of Nigerian Tribune did not consider it front page
material, they still displayed enough critical acuity to give it an
appropriately ominous headline in the Sunday, 12 May 2013
online edition of the newspaper. "3 Policemen, 5 Others Injured
Over Proposed David Mark University", screamed Nigerian
Tribune.
Now, that caught my attention. Wait a minute, I thought, David
Mark, a sitting Senate President, is building his own private
University? How on earth did Sahara Reporters and Premium
Times miss this story and the attendant necessity of investigating
how David Mark is funding his University? The opening paragraph
of the Tribune story confirmed my worst fears. Says Tribune: "No
fewer than eight people, including three policemen, were said to
have been injured in a clash between youths in Asa community
area of Otukpo town inOtukpo Local Government Area of Benue
State over the location of a private university owned by the
Senate President, Senator David Mark.
The youth were said to have converged on the Otukpo-Oju federal
highway mid-week to protest what they described as unlawful
acquisition of their land by the Senate President, while the
policemen drafted to the area were said to have received stiff
resistance from the youth. Efforts by policemen to disperse the
youth were rebuffed, which reportedly left eight people, including
three policemen, injured." Like most things Nigerian, this piece of
bad news comes in tangled layers. Tragic trees always fall on
tragic trees in our situation and it is always a very difficult task
determining which to remove first. So, we shall pretend not to
notice that David Mark is also apparently involved in a messy land
grab that has now caused injury to fellow Nigerians (poor Benue!
When they are not robbed blind via contract rackets by Doyin
Okupe, they are robbed silly by one of their unelected
representatives in the Senate) and focus on the more sinister
news of a salaried Senator funding a private University.
There is a sense in which David Mark's venture into higher
education (my dear brother, Tade Aina, Program Director of
Higher Education in Africa for the Carnegie Corporation, must be
gnashing his teeth in agony over the new meaning that politicians
in his country are giving to higher education) reminds me of ace
British colonialist empire builder, Cecil Rhodes.Starring at the
heavens from his compound in South Africa onebeautiful
evening, Rhodes famously exclaimed: "I would annex the planets
if I could." Just as Rhodes wanted no part of the solar system left
uncolonized by the British, no part of our national life is left
uncolonized by the loot of the political class.
For members of Nigeria's political class, looting the treasury is no
longer just about stealing money to rival the material acquisitions
of Arab oil sheikhs in choice locations all over the world; it is no
longer just about aping the glamorous lifestyle of Hollywood
royalty, it has now acquired a psychological dimension with a
tinge of impunity.
Beyond material acquisition, loot creates the desire in the rapists
of Nigeria to invade and make their odoriferous presence felt in
those areas of national life which still provide some form of
psychological cushion for the people. Thus, when the Nigerian
politician or government official has acquired enough property in
Abuja, Lagos, Dubai, Johannesburg, London, Washington, and
Toronto; when he has acquired a private jet; when his fleet of
expensive exotic cars in Nigeria makes his compound look like a
car dealership; when he boasts a permanent year-round reserved
room in Sheraton or Nicon Hilton, agony and restlessness set
in.What to do next? Ah, yes, let me colonize other areas of life of
Nigerians. Let me take my loot into other zones, other spaces
that ordinarily ought to be inviolable.
This is the point at which they begin to invade and colonize faith.
Thus far, only the traditional religions are safe from their
depredations. They are not building ultramodern shrines yet
forBabalawos and Dibias. Nigerian Christianity and Islam, on the
other hand, have been very badly hit as I indicated in my open
letter to John Cardinal Onaiyekan and Pastor Tunde Bakare.
The loot of politicians and government officials has invaded
Nigerian faith. They build churches (and mosques but mostly
churches) and donate such glamorous buildings with fanfare. The
Body of Christ in Nigeria has learnt that talking while eating from
the hands of corrupt politicians is bad table manners. Thus,
nobody asks any questions about the source of the funds when a
politician builds and donates a church to a congregation. I am
still waiting for the Nigerian Anglican Communion, especially the
Anglican clergy, to ask Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu,
where he got the money to build a flamboyant church for the
Anglican community in his village.
When they get tired of colonizing faith with their loot, they move
on to colonize higher education, mushrooming private
universities all over the place. The University idea ought to sue
Nigeria for what we are doing to it. Just like we bastardized
democracy, we are bastardizing the University idea. Every looter,
every crook in Nigeria wants to start a private University after
building a Church or a Mosque. Obasanjo built Bells University
and we asked no questions. Ibrahim Babangidastarted Heritage
University.
His license was withdrawn by the NUC not because of questions
over his sources of funds but because he delayed admitting
students. Atiku Abubakar bought a franchise of the American
University system while still in office as Vice President and we
asked no questions about the sources of his funds. Now, a sitting
Senate President has ventured into the same terrain and no
questions are asked, no eyebrows raised anywhere in Nigeria.
Next, a politician will wake up, create, and privately fund Nigeria's
37th state and there will be no questions asked.
This is precisely what worries me: our transition into a society
that no longer sees anything wrong with the bastardization of
ideals and the violation of national psychic spaces by the
criminals in the political class. Bring your loot into faith and try
to buy God and Allah, no problem, we the clergy will broker the
deal for you. Bring your loot into higher education and try to buy
inviolable ideals, no problem, we won't ask any questions about
how and where you got your money. We have thus created a
society in which there are no institutions primed to swing into
action the moment public servants display expenditure beyond
their determined salaries.
A US Congressman suddenly buying a Lamborghini or appearing
in Congress in choice Ferragamo loafers everyday is asking for
swift and immediate trouble with the IRS; a Canadian
parliamentarian who suddenly buys the latest Range Rover in a
country where most of his colleagues take public transport to
work is asking for immediate and swift investigation by Canada
Revenue Agency.
If word got out that the Speaker of the House in Canada (David
Mark's counterpart in Ottawa) was privately building and funding
a University in his village, Andrew Treusch, Commissioner of
Revenue and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Revenue Agency,
would have a heart attack.
However, in Nigeria, David Mark will steal the land he is busy
stealing.
And build his private University.

http://m.naij.com/news/34433.html

Gone are the days when people steal money and stash it away in a swiss bank. These days, they steal and invest it in a venture but that doesn't make it right. They're thieves nonetheless. What annoys be most is when ignorant NIgerians make statements such as "At least he used it to create employment".