Chief (Sir) Don Ubani; KSC, JP[/size][size=8pt]
(Okwubunka of Asa) Umuiku-Isi-Asa Ukwa-West
E-mail: Ubanidon@yahoo.com
P.M.B. 7048, Aba
Phone: 08035523360
12-07-2015.

THE NIGERIAN PRISON AS A WAITING-LODGE FOR EX-LEADERS
SCRIPTED BY CHIEF (SIR) DON UBANI

Naivety could be the only reason why one might be surprised that a very high percentage of Nigerian leaders have continuously exhibited unrestricted avarice and even, to a worrisome extent, kleptomania. According to clinical psychologists, kleptomania is the recurrent failure to resist urges to steal items that one may not necessarily have any need for. It is said to be a serious mental health disorder capable of causing much emotional pain to one and one’s loved ones, if left untreated. Simply put, kleptomania is an impulse control disorder.
Between May 29th, 1999 and same date in 2015, it is doubtful if there could be twenty percent of Nigerian politicians who occupied prominent public offices that did not suffer from this psycho-mental disorder. It has been looting upon looting of the public treasury! Of course, the result has been very clear. The Nigerian masses have been at the receiving end, with unprecedented and incomparable degree of poverty.
The sixth verse of the sixth chapter of the book of Genesis tells Christians that God regretted and equally grieved deeply for creating man. In the preceeding verse, God had noted that every imagination of the thought of man was only evil continually!
From the above religious revelation, it is clear that even in the originality of man, he is full of evil. If God could, as He did, regret creating man no sooner than the period of creation, no one should, therefore, be astonished by the atrocities of man. The above exposition notwithstanding, it should still have been expected that man having lived on planet earth over time and having freely subjected and conditioned himself to tenets of behavioural refinement and civility, that he should have appreciated the emptiness and vanity of worldliness and materialism.
With specific reference to the Nigerian state, section 14 of the constitution of the Federal Republic (1999) as amended, states that the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government. By simple interpretation, persons who strive to occupy public positions should do so with the aim of using such privileged offices for the betterment and ultimate advancement of the citizens of the country. Putting it mildly, the essence of holding a public office; by employment, promotion, election or appointment is not to create a platform for ruthless looting of the public treasury. Rather, it should be seen as an opportunity to develop the society. For the umpteenth time, civil society activists and social critics have continued to express worry and discontent over the attitudinal obsession of Nigerian top office-holders in handling the common wealth of the citizens. When the second republic headed by the first Executive President of Nigeria; Alhaji Shehu Shagari, was overthrown by General Muhamadu Buhari on 31st December, 1983, the reason the military junta gave was extreme corruption by officials of that republic. Even though subsequent military administrations became corruption personified, one would have taught that a period of sixteen years; 1983-1999, should have been long enough to have made the country’s so-called democrats have a re-think on their quest for materialism. Being conscious of the fact that the bane of democratic governments in Africa has, in most cases, been corruption in public offices, politicians in Nigeria should have, by now, learnt their lessons and turned born-again office holders.
Appraising it from a wider spectrum, what does a state governor, for instance, need gain looting his state’s treasury? The constitution under which the governor operates offers him the privilege of serving for a maximum of two tenures of four years each. During this period, the state takes care of almost every need of the governor and his nuclear family. The food his family eats, their medical bills, travelling allowances, including estacode, clothing, security and Sundry allowances are inextricably borne by the state. Besides, the governor enjoys a very unusually handsome salary. Plus or minus, the governor’s legitimate cumulative financial benefit in a month is higher than the cumulative of fifty serving professors in a Federal University put together. What does a governor with such incomparable streak of legitimate earning intend to achieve looting the government treasury? Given that he is a politician; he could devote forty percent of his gross income as governor to oiling his political machinery and ten percent as tithe. He could then use the remaining fifty percent as savings and solving of family problems. Our experience from 2015 general election has clearly shown that it is only goodwill that can determine electoral success. Goodwill in this context implies the quantifiable level of transparency inherent in an administration, financial ingenuity and management, visible achievements of the administration, vision of government and substantiable application of equity, justice and fairness lucidly exhibited by the governor. Goodwill can not be acquired by excessive stealing of the people’s wealth. Rather, once the masses are convinced that an occupant of public position has proven himself a kleptomaniac, the electorate would manage to exercise all the patience they can muster only for them to vote against the official and his political party in the next election, even in the official’s polling booth. This humiliating experience was common during the election of 28th March and that of 11th April, 2015. Many notable politicians witnessed their political parties fail openly and woefully in their polling units, in their own very presence. Enough lessons should, long before now, have been learnt by Nigerian politicians. To say it unequivocally, experience has shown that many public officials who accumulated much wealth by virtue of their positions and used same to erect what they considered to be beautiful edifices in the first republic later realized that such mansions even lost their beauty while they were still alive. Above all, it was evident that their children, when they grown up, had no interest in such bogus buildings. One may still remember the People’s Palace of Arondizuogu. As attractive as it was when it was built in the first republic, it is doubtful if any meaningful living is taking place in it today.
Currently-speaking, at least five former governors and a former Head of Service of the Federation are either in prison Custody or on stringent bail conditions on allegations of criminal embezzlement of public fund. The most disheartening and shameful is that the allegations against them by the Economic And Financial Crimes Commission also involve some close members of their families. The former governor of Adamawa State; Vice Admiral Murtala Nyoko (Rtd) and his son; Abdulaziz Nyako who is a serving Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, are facing trial in a Federal High Court in Abuja, presided over by Justice Evoh Chukwu over a 37-count charge, bordering on corruption and money laundering involving well over fifteens billion naira. Timipre Sylva of Bayelsa State is having integrity questions to clear with the anti-graft agency. Ex-Governor Chimaroke Nnamani of Enugu State is having a running battle with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission over allegations of corrupt practices while in office as governor. Former Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State and two of his sons, Aminu and Mustapha, have just been reprimanded at the Federal Prison in Kano over an allegation of receiving a Kick-back of N1.35b from a government contractor. In his own case, Mr Ikedi Ohakim; former governor of Imo State, has managed to secure a N270m bail for a correspondent N270m fraud allegedly perpetrated in 2008. An erstwhile Head of service of the federation; Mr Steve Osagide Orosanye, is currently facing a 24-count charge bordering on fraud and money laundering amounting to N1.9b before Justice Gabriel Kolawole.
These instances are a disgrace and shame to Nigeria’s democracy. Even though they have not been pronounced guilty by the respective courts of competent jurisdiction handling their trials it is embarrassing that our ‘leaders’ could box themselves into the ridiculous extent of being, in the first instance, suspects. In their pomposity and arrogance, these former governors had gone by the spurious title of ‘Your Excellency’ without knowing the implication of such an appellation. If one is excellent, it means that such a person is urbane, meticulous, decent, diligent, frank and uncompromisingly transparent. Anyone with the afore-mentioned qualities can not condescend to the very low and demeaning level of being a thief of public treasury. Fraudulent public officials are not only a disgrace to themselves but are to their immediate families, communities and even tribes.
It is painfully a sharp contradiction that ‘leaders’ who had been addressed as ‘Your Excellency’ and having been immersed in all the paraphernalia of power should, after four or eight years of such colourful euphoria, end up having the prison as their waiting-lodge. In other political climes, the axiom ‘Once bitten, twice Shy’ makes a lot of sense. People learn from the mistakes of their past and build a very virile society therefrom. Since Flt.Lt. Jerry John Rawlings of Ghana revolutionized and sanitized the Ghanaian polity in 1979, Ghana, both private and public Sectors, became a beautiful place to behold. The economy of Ghana that had been shattered because, as Ayi Kwei Armah would put it, the beautiful ones were not yet born, had been revitalized and made very internally buoyant and externally attractive. When the economy was in the woods, Ghanaian professionals; teachers, medical doctors, architects and many others ran to Nigeria and the ‘Ghana Must Go bag’ became very popular in Nigeria. True to optimistic prophecy, Ghanaians later went back home. Today, Ghanaians that were economic refuges in Nigeria some years ago are now proud hosts of Nigerians who troupe into Ghana as students, tourists, business men and economic migrants. Ironically, the bag that is popular in Ghana today is ‘Nigeria Must Come’. What a shame!
While the nomenclature ‘Ghana Must Go’ was prophetically assured, the label ‘Nigeria Must Come’ is an aspersion that calls to question the collective integrity and transparency of Nigerian leaders, intelligentsia, elites, the electorate and all.

Chief (Sir) Don Ubani.

Ok, anyone found guilty of a crime. Should serve the metted time in jail. Irrespective of your status. If a 94 year old German could be tried for a crime committed in the 1940s, then these fellows should have their spaces in jail if found guilty.

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