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Revisiting The "Abacha Never Stole" Stance Of President Buhari by jerrydelight(m): 10:00am On May 09, 2016 |
By Ochereome Nnanna
"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 crossed.
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!. |
Re: Revisiting The "Abacha Never Stole" Stance Of President Buhari by excellencyabia1: 10:23am On May 09, 2016 |
I once said this that the devil we know is better than our dear saint bubu yaya. Your wife is rich yet you beg. I often think between lia muhammed and buhari, who taught each other lies 1 Like |
Re: Revisiting The "Abacha Never Stole" Stance Of President Buhari by Chyluv1000(f): 10:23am On May 09, 2016 |
double face Nd mouth Buhari........ he should keep deceiving himself 1 Like |
Re: Revisiting The "Abacha Never Stole" Stance Of President Buhari by OreMI22: 1:53pm On May 09, 2016 |
For Buhari, a Fulani man from his own tribe stealing from Nigeria isn't theft. It is only theft when the thief is a non- Fulani. Talk about definition of hypocrisy! 1 Like |
Re: Revisiting The "Abacha Never Stole" Stance Of President Buhari by SSPX(m): 1:56pm On May 09, 2016 |
don't mind the hypocrite 1 Like 1 Share |
Re: Revisiting The "Abacha Never Stole" Stance Of President Buhari by stanech: 2:05pm On May 09, 2016 |
Nigerians are so easy to deceive. Gosh. Even after all the warnings they called us wailers. But Guess who's wailing now? 1 Like |
Re: Revisiting The "Abacha Never Stole" Stance Of President Buhari by BeardedMeat(m): 3:09pm On May 09, 2016 |
Let him continue in his hypocrisy. One day, his sins shall find him and he will start running even when no one pursues. |
Re: Revisiting The "Abacha Never Stole" Stance Of President Buhari by ElCount: 4:43pm On May 09, 2016 |
OP they are coming for you. Prepare to be tagged IPOB, wailer etc... Nice piece though, its not like we didn't know who Buhari was its just that Hypocrisy was too much for folks to accept the truth. |
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