Former Governor Saminu Turaki Writes Mr. Olusegun Adeniyi, President Yar’Adua’s Spokesman


Dear aboki Shaygun Adeniyi,

Walahi talahi I am not haphy with you at all. Kai, Shaygun, walahi you do me bad! Ba resfekt! You no get am por resfekt at all at all. You will recall that some of us in the inner caucus of the northern Feudocracy were unhappy when your oga at ThisDay muscled you into President Yar’Adua’s government. We had good reason to be wary of your appointment. For nine years, the position you now hold spewed brash and insulting Yorubawa from the tongues of the likes of Doyin Okupe, Oluremi Oyo, and that rude boy, Femi Fani Kayode. Our opposition to your appointment was nothing personal. Our logic was, in fact, very simple: now that Federal power has returned to its natural and ancestral home in the North, why should its tongue remain in the Southwest? You are the tongue of the presidency. Why should Hausa power continue to speak Yoruba as if Okupe, Oyo, and Fani Kayode were still in charge? We did not hurry the national cake out of Lagos to Abuja only to have southerners hold on to the tongue to spite the face. That is not what the original members of the Kaduna mafia envisioned.

President Yar’Adua prevailed on us. Your oga at ThisDay, he claimed, has been a reliable ally of the Northern power cabal for a very long time. He is a southerner in whom we are well pleased. Zat Obaigbena is a very good boy walahi! Mr. President argued that we had to reward and nurture his loyalty by giving you the appointment so he could boast of at least one protégé in Aso Rock. We agreed reluctantly with the President but I warned him that you were likely to come to Aso Rock and play the characteristic Yoruba game of tribalism, nepotism, and disrespect for northern leaders. Walahi, I’ve been vindicated! The game is up. Your yansh don open!

I read with great sadness and anger reports of the breakfast meeting you organized recently between President Yar’Adua and publishers/owners of major newspapers and electronic media in the country. The man who claims to have pushed you to organize the meeting, Sam Nda Isaiah, published a very colourful account of the proceedings in his Leadership newspaper column. The part of his narration that got my attention is the list of people you invited to drink hot chocolate and orange juice with the President. Here is an excerpt from Mr. Isaiah’s account:

“I told Segun I wanted to spend an entire day with the president. I wanted to watch him work and meet his people. I had even planned the title of the article, "A working day with the president". Segun told me to give him a few days. When he finally got back to me, he said he had decided instead to organise a breakfast meeting between the president and the nation’s newspaper publishers and owners of electronic media houses. That was fine, I thought, except that I would not be able to ask the president some of the questions I intended to engage him with for obvious reasons. Most of those invited were there: Chief Ajibola Ogunsola, the chairman of Punch who is also the president of the Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN); Kabiru Yusuf, chairman of Media Trust Ltd; Sam Amuka, chairman of Vanguard Newspapers, whom we all respect and fondly call Uncle Sam; Nduka Obaigbena, chairman of ThisDay Newspapers Group; Comfort Obi, chairman of The Source magazine; Ray Ekpu, CEO of Newswatch Communications; Nosa Igiebor, publisher of TELL Communications; Bayo Onanuga, publisher of TheNews magazine; and James Ibori, former governor of Delta State and publisher of Independent Newspapers. Also present were Chief Raymond Dokpesi, chairman of DAAR Communications (AIT, RayPower and National Interest); John Momoh, chairman of Channels; Osa Sonny Adun, chairman of DBN Television; and Chief Mike Ajegbo, chairman of Minaj Broadcasting International. Guardian Newspapers was not represented because Mrs Maiden Ibru was out of the country and no representations were allowed.”

Now, Shaygun, take a second hard look at your list of invitees. Something fishy is going on here. Something odd! And please don’t insult my intelligence. Don’t patronize me. Don’t tell me that my fellow former governor and brother, Chief Doctor James Ibori of Delta state, was included in this list only because he owns a newspaper! We both know that a lot more is going on here. We both know that you are guilty of something sinister. You know why you invited him! Ever since President Yar’Adua decided to turn Aso Rock into a jacuzzi and vacation resort for disgraced treasury looters and indicted politicians, I have always suspected that the procedure of access to the President by his corrupt friends and sponsors will, in turn, be corrupted. There is nothing we cannot corrupt in Nigeria. We can corrupt corruption and that is exactly what is going on here. Once we agreed that all corrupt and indicted former governors are to enjoy unfettered presidential access in order to eat suya and goro with President Yar’Adua, shouldn’t we have worked out a civilized way to democratize that system of access in order to ensure that no corrupt former governor is left behind?

Apparently not in Nigeria! Just look at the list of corrupt and indicted former governors who have strolled directly from police incarceration to drink tea with President Yar’Adua in recent times: Orji Uzor Kalu, Lucky Igbinedion, and James Ibori. When people complained about Kalu’s visit, you, Shaygun, even rationalized things that he was received by the president as a party leader and an elder statesman. Anyway, that is not my problem. My problem now is the undemocratic and nepotistic way you have been managing and distributing presidential fellowship to corrupt and indicted former governors. James Ibori has been particularly favoured at the expense of all corrupt former governors. Some of us suspect that he even has a guest room permanently reserved for him in Aso Rock. Didn’t he enjoy President Yar’Adua’s company in the United Nations last year? There were even rumours at the time that only Secret Service clearance difficulties prevented President Yar’Adua from inviting James Ibori to come along for his White House meeting with President Bush. President Yar’Adua desperately wanted his friend Ibori to witness that special day he would never forget in his life.

Shaygun, walahi you have not only corrupted this system of access to the President, you have skewed it against the north. This is unacceptable tribalism and nepotism. Why is it that only southern treasury looters like Kalu, Igbinedion, and Ibori have been given complimentary keys to President Yar’Adua’s living room in Aso Rock? How many indicted former governors of northern extraction have enjoyed the privilege of strolling casually from court to share tuwo shinkafa with the President? If this is not tribalism, I don’t know what tribalism is.

By the way, Shaygun, what have these corrupt southern governors done that we have not done in the north? In fact, we have a much longer history of rich contributions to national imagery and lore. After all, corrupt southern governors only began to gain international recognition during the Obasanjo dispensation when my brother, Alamsco, dressed like a woman to escape from London police custody. Way back in the 1980s, our brother, Barkin Zuwo, justified his habit of keeping cartons of stolen raw cash in government house with this immortal declaration to the police: “government money in government house, what is the phroblem?” Is this not a northern contribution to national and international imagery? Not even Chinua Achebe could come close to this brilliant spark of imagination. Yet you are treating northern governors like inferior people.

Mr Shaygun Adeniyi, we are not inferior to southern governors. How much did my brother Ibori steal sef that is shaking you like this? Only $35 million dollars in cash. And a brand new plane. And a Rolls Royce. And a Maybach. And a Bentley. And a few mansions in London, Johannesburg, Bermuda, and America. That does not make him superior and shouldn’t guarantee him more access to the President than the rest of us. After all, I stole 40 billion naira and I have mansions stretching from Riyadh to Dubai. Check my curriculum vitae with the EFCC if you doubt my claim. You may argue that 40 billion naira is the younger brother of 35 million dollars. Don’t forget that I stole from poor, land-locked Jigawa state while Ibori stole from oil-rich Delta state. Furthermore, I stole in naira, rather than dollars, out of patriotic zeal. Viewed from this angle, I am a far more industrious thief than Ibori. And please don’t forget a significant achievement I recorded as an incumbent state governor in Nigeria: I successfully forged and used a fake diplomatic passport of the Republic of Burkina Faso. A first in the whole of Africa. Or are you aware of any elected official in Africa who has ever forged and used the diplomatic passport of another African government? I have also recently flagged off a campaign for President Yar’Adua’s third term. Plans are also afoot to establish a Saminu Turaki International Institute for Leadership, Probity, and Integrity Studies in Dutse, the capital of Jigawa state. What else do you want me to do, Shaygun Adeniyi, to merit the attention you and the President shower on Ibori?

So, Ibori recently disappeared a plane into the black hole and made Nigeria proud in the international scientific community. Does that even come close to the achievement of my brother, Ahmed Sani Yerima, the former governor of Zamfara state who, in addition to massive treasury looting, successfully rubbished the constitution of the Federal Republic and introduced sharia law, only to be rewarded with a seat in the Senate? Is it easy to defy the constitution and impose sharia in a land dripping with noise making Christian infidels like Nigeria? When are you going to invite Yerima for breakfast with the President?

And what about my brother, Joshua Dariye, the former governor of Plateau state? He stole as much as Orji Uzor Kalu and Lucky Igbinedion. He also successfully escaped from British police custody when he was arrested in London for money laundering. He has even performed the obligatory ritual of every corrupt Nigerian politician in distress by convening a press conference to declare that he has forgiven Nigeria and Nigerians. Yet you have not granted him the benefit of presidential cosiness. That is why I suspect an anti-north agenda in your distribution of privilege. There is something awfully wrong here. You need to help Mr President get things right. He needs to embrace all corrupt and indicted politicians on an equal basis. There should be no discrimination or nepotism in the granting of presidential access to known criminals. The process should be guided by the rule of law and citizen diplomacy. Magana ya kare.

Yours in service to Nigeria,

Alhaji Doctor (honoris causa) Saminu Turaki, OFN, MON, GCON, OFR, etc, etc.

http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/articles/pius-adesanmi/former-governor-saminu-turaki-writes-president-yar-adua-s-spok.html

Hah