The Criminal Buhari and Petroleum Trust Fraud

There were more sordid revelations. The Afenifere did an analysis of the siting of the projects. The consumption of petroleum products by the South was 70% while that of the North was 30%. However, the distribution of the PTF projects was a reversal of the consumption pattern: 70% to the north and 30% to the south. All southern states had 4,440.43 kilometres of roads rehabilitated (24%) while states in the north had 13,870.47 kilometres rehabilitated (76%). Teaching Hospitals’ rehabilitation: South 38%, North 62%; Specialist hospitals: South 29%, North 71%; Food supply: South 17%, North 83%; National Health and Educational Rehabilitation Programme (NHERP): South 0% and North 100%; Vocational Programme: South 3%, North 97%; Primary School rehabilitation: South 12%, North 88%. Haroun Adamu acknowledged the gross imbalances in the sharing of the projects but regretted that his committee could not do much to remedy the situation since by the IMC mandate they could not embark on new projects.

From the findings there was massive fraud in PTF,......

read more here: https://t.guardian.ng/opinion/petroleum-trust-fraud/?fbclid=IwAR1RxOUmPS1h_Ztmsl_V_G2G5rqK8l6TrvM9nui5dWzXnZ5nQdmrNIxQAs8

the north I hail thee

Just reminding you...

teufelein:
We must investigate why Fulani and their Northern allied politicians hold 83% of all oil blocks and leases awarded to Nigerian citizens despite their region not producing a drop of crude oil or natural gas.

Stop wailing Feb 16 is nearer

teufelein:


Only those of unthinking populace from the british Jungle would not see that Buhari is a notorious CRIMINAL.

God bless you and your generation sister, may you never face any harm, may your days on earth be successful. Amen!

Hopefully by then that tiny speck of sand you call a brain would have started functioning.

Afamed:

Stop wailing Feb 16 is nearer

Onechancearmy:

Hopefully by then that tiny speck of sand you call a brain would have started functioning.

I tot you agreed Atiku should sell the remaining 17% to his Fulani friends again ?!

teufelein:
We must investigate why Fulani and their Northern allied politicians hold 83% of all oil blocks and leases awarded to Nigerian citizens despite their region not producing a drop of crude oil or natural gas.

Parada:
I tot you agreed Atiku should sell the remaining 17% to his Fulani friends again ?!

I shall not validate a crime with my votes; that's tantamount to aiding and abetting the crime! Aiding and abetting a crime is corruption; and we are fighting corruption, ain't we?

The crimes of Buhari-Wole Soyinka
THE NIGERIAN NATION AGAINST GENERAL BUHARI By Wole SOYINKA

This intervention has been provoked, not so much by the ambitions of General Buhari to return to power at the head of a democratic Nigeria, as by declarations of support from directions that leave one totally dumbfounded. It would appear that some, myself among them, had been overcomplacent about the magnitude of an ambition that seemed as preposterous as the late effort of General Ibrahim Babangida to aspire yet again to the honour of presiding over a society that truly seeks a democratic future. What one had dismissed was a rash of illusions, brought about by other political improbabilities that surround us, however, is being given an air of plausibility by individuals and groupings to which one had earlier attributed a sense of relevance of historic actualities. Recently, I published an article in the media, invoking the possible recourse to psychiatric explanation for some of the incongruities in conduct within national leadership. Now, to tell the truth, I have begun to seriously address the issue of which section of society requires the services of a psychiatrist. The contest for a seizure of rationality is now so polarized that I am quite reconciled to the fact it could be those of us on this side, not the opposing school of thought that ought to declare ourselves candidates for a lunatic asylum. So be it. While that decision hangs in the balance however, the forum is open. Let both sides continue to address our cases to the electorate, but also prepare to submit ourselves for psychiatric examination.


The time being so close to electoral decision, we can understand the haste of some to resort to shortcuts. In the process however, we should not commit the error of opening the political space to any alternative whose curative touch to national afflictions have proven more deadly than the disease. In order to reduce the clutter in our options towards the forthcoming elections, we urge a beginning from what we do know, what we have undergone, what millions can verify, what can be sustained by evidence accessible even to the school pupil, the street hawker or a just-come visitor from outer space. Leaving Buhari aside for now, I propose a commencing exercise that should guide us along the path of elimination as we examine the existing register of would-be president. That initial exercise can be summed up in the following speculation: “If it were possible for Olusegun Obasanjo, the actual incumbent, to stand again for election, would you vote for him?”

If the answer is “yes”, then of course all discussion is at an end. If the answer is ‘No’ however, then it follows that a choice of a successor made by Obasanjo should be assessed as hovering between extremely dangerous and an outright kiss of death. The degree of acceptability of such a candidate should also be inversely proportionate to the passion with which he or she is promoted by the would-be ‘godfather’. We do not lack for open evidence about Obasanjo’s passion in this respect. From Lagos to the USA, he has taken great pains to assure the nation and the world that the anointed NPN presidential flag bearer is guaranteed, in his judgment, to carry out his policies. Such an endorsement/anointment is more than sufficient, in my view, for public acceptance or rejection. Yar’Adua’s candidature amounts to a terminal kiss from a moribund regime. Nothing against the person of this – I am informed - personable governor, but let him understand that in addition to the direct source of his emergence, the PDP, on whose platform he stands, represents the most harrowing of this nation’s nightmares over and beyond even the horrors of the Abacha regime. If he wishes to be considered on his own merit, now is time for him, as well as others similarly enmeshed, to exercise the moral courage that goes with his repudiation of that party, a dissociation from its past, and a pledge to reverse its menacing future. We shall find him an alternative platform on which to stand, and then have him present his credentials along those of other candidates engaged in forging a credible opposition alliance. Until then, let us bury this particular proposition and move on to a far graver, looming danger, personified in the history of General Buhari.


The grounds on which General Buhari is being promoted as the alternative choice are not only shaky, but pitifully naive. History matters. Records are not kept simply to assist the weakness of memory, but to operate as guides to the future. Of course, we know that human beings change. What the claims of personality change or transformation impose on us is a rigorous inspection of the evidence, not wishful speculation or behind-the-scenes assurances. Public offence, crimes against a polity, must be answered in the public space, not in caucuses of bargaining. In Buhari, we have been offered no evidence of the sheerest prospect of change. On the contrary, all evident suggests that this is one individual who remains convinced that this is one ex-ruler that the nation cannot call to order.

Buhari – need one remind anyone - was one of the generals who treated a Commission of Enquiry, the Oputa Panel, with unconcealed disdain. Like Babangida and Abdusalami, he refused to put in appearance even though complaints that were tabled against him involved a career of gross abuses of power and blatant assault on the fundamental human rights of the Nigerian citizenry.

Prominent against these charges was an act that amounted to nothing less than judicial murder, the execution of a citizen under a retroactive decree. Does Decree 20 ring a bell? If not, then, perhaps the names of three youths - Lawal Ojuolape (30), Bernard Ogedengbe (29) and Bartholomew Owoh (26) do. To put it quite plainly, one of those three – Ogedengbe - was executed for a crime that did not carry a capital forfeit at the time it was committed. This was an unconscionable crime, carried out in defiance of the pleas and protests of nearly every sector of the Nigerian and international community – religious, civil rights, political, trade unions etc. Buhari and his sidekick and his partner-in-crime, Tunde Idiagbon persisted in this inhuman act for one reason and one reason only: to place Nigerians on notice that they were now under an iron, inflexible rule, under governance by fear.

The execution of that youthful innocent – for so he was, since the punishment did not exist at the time of commission - was nothing short of premeditated murder, for which the perpetrators should normally stand trial upon their loss of immunity. Are we truly expected to forget this violation of our entitlement to security as provided under existing laws? And even if our sensibilities have become blunted by succeeding seasons of cruelty and brutality, if power itself had so coarsened the sensibilities also of rulers and corrupted their judgment, what should one rightly expect after they have been rescued from the snare of power” At the very least, a revaluation, leading hopefully to remorse, and its expression to a wronged society. At the very least, such a revaluation should engender reticence, silence. In the case of Buhari, it was the opposite. Since leaving office he has declared in the most categorical terms that he had no regrets over this murder and would do so again.


Human life is inviolate. The right to life is the uniquely fundamental right on which all other rights are based. The crime that General Buhari committed against the entire nation went further however, inconceivable as it might first appear. That crime is one of the most profound negations of civic being. Not content with hammering down the freedom of expression in general terms, Buhari specifically forbade all public discussion of a return to civilian, democratic rule. Let us constantly applaud our media – those battle scarred professionals did not completely knuckle down. They resorted to cartoons and oblique, elliptical references to sustain the people’s campaign for a time-table to democratic rule. Overt agitation for a democratic time table however remained rigorously suppressed – military dictatorship, and a specifically incorporated in Buhari and Idiagbon was here to stay. To deprive a people of volition in their own political direction is to turn a nation into a colony of slaves. Buhari enslaved the nation. He gloated and gloried in a master-slave relation to the millions of its inhabitants. It is astonishing to find that the same former slaves, now free of their chains, should clamour to be ruled by one who not only turned their nation into a slave plantation, but forbade them any discussion of their condition.


So Tai Solarin is already forgotten? Tai who stood at street corners, fearlessly distributing leaflets that took up the gauntlet where the media had dropped it. Tai who was incarcerated by that regime and denied even the medication for his asthmatic condition? Tai did not ask to be sent for treatment overseas; all he asked was his traditional medicine that had proved so effective after years of struggle with asthma!


Nor must we omit the manner of Buhari coming to power and the pattern of his ‘corrective’ rule. Shagari’s NPN had already run out of steam and was near universally detested – except of course by the handful that still benefited from that regime of profligacy and rabid fascism. Responsibility for the national condition lay squarely at the door of the ruling party, obviously, but against whom was Buhari’s coup staged? Judging by the conduct of that regime, it was not against Shagari’s government but against the opposition. The head of government, on whom primary responsibility lay, was Shehu Shagari. Yet that individual was kept in cozy house detention in Ikoyi while his powerless deputy, Alex Ekwueme, was locked up in Kiri-kiri prisons. Such was the Buhari notion of equitable apportionment of guilt and/or responsibility.


And then the cascade of escapes of the wanted, and culpable politicians. Manhunts across the length and breadth of the nation, roadblocks everywhere and borders tight as steel zip locks. Lo and behold, the chairman of the party, Chief Akinloye, strolled out coolly across the border. Richard Akinjide, Legal Protector of the ruling party, slipped out with equal ease. The Rice Minister, Umaru Dikko, who declared that Nigerians were yet to eat from dustbins - escaped through the same airtight dragnet. The clumsy attempt to crate him home was punishment for his ingratitude, since he went berserk when, after waiting in vain, he concluded that the coup had not been staged, after all, for the immediate consolidation of the party of extreme right-wing vultures, but for the military hyenas.


The case of the overbearing Secretary-General of the party, Uba Ahmed, was even more noxious. Uba Ahmed was out of the country at the time. Despite the closure of the Nigerian airspace, he compelled the pilot of his plane to demand special landing permission, since his passenger load included the almighty Uba Ahmed. Of course, he had not known of the change in his status since he was airborne. The delighted airport commandant, realizing that he had a much valued fish swimming willingly into a waiting net, approved the request. Uba Ahmed disembarked into the arms of a military guard and was promptly clamped in detention. Incredibly, he vanished a few days after and reappeared in safety overseas. Those whose memories have become calcified should explore the media coverage of that saga. Buhari was asked to explain the vanished act of this much prized quarry and his response was one of the most arrogant levity. Coming from one who had shot his way into power on the slogan of ‘dis’pline’, it was nothing short of impudent.

Shall we revisit the tragicomic series of trials that landed several politicians several lifetimes in prison? Recall, if you please, the ‘judicial’ processes undergone by the septuagenarian Chief Adekunle Ajasin. He was arraigned and tried before Buhari’s punitive tribunal but acquitted. Dissatisfied, Buhari ordered his re-trial. Again, the Tribunal could not find this man guilty of a single crime, so once again he was returned for trial, only to be acquitted of all charges of corruption or abuse of office. Was Chief Ajasin thereby released? No! He was ordered detained indefinitely, simply for the crime of winning an election and refusing to knuckle under Shagari’s reign of terror.

The conduct of the Buhari regime after his coup was not merely one of double, triple, multiple standards but a cynical travesty of justice. Audu Ogbeh, currently chairman of the Action Congress was one of the few figures of rectitude within the NPN. Just as he has done in recent times with the PDP, he played the role of an internal critic and reformer, warning, dissenting, and setting an example of probity within his ministry. For that crime he spent months in unjust incarceration. Guilty by association? Well, if that was the motivating yardstick of the administration of the Buhari justice, then it was most selectively applied. The utmost severity of the Buhari-Idiagbon justice was especially reserved either for the opposition in general, or for those within the ruling party who had showed the sheerest sense of responsibility and patriotism.


Shall I remind this nation of Buhari’s deliberate humiliating treatment of the Emir of Kano and the Oni of Ife over their visit to the state of Israel? I hold no brief for traditional rulers and their relationship with governments, but insist on regarding them as entitled to all the rights, privileges and responsibilities of any Nigerian citizen. This royal duo went to Israel on their private steam and private business. Simply because the Buhari regime was pursuing some antagonistic foreign policy towards Israel, a policy of which these traditional rulers were not a part, they were subjected on their return to a treatment that could only be described as a head masterly chastisement of errant pupils. Since when, may one ask, did a free citizen of the Nigerian nation require the permission of a head of state to visit a foreign nation that was willing to offer that tourist a visa.?


One is only too aware that some Nigerians love to point to Buhari’s agenda of discipline as the shining jewel in his scrap-iron crown. To inculcate discipline however, one must lead by example, obeying laws set down as guides to public probity. Example speaks louder than declarations, and rulers cannot exempt themselves from the disciplinary strictures imposed on the overall polity, especially on any issue that seeks to establish a policy for public well-being. The story of the thirty something suitcases – it would appear that they were even closer to fifty - found unavoidable mention in my recent memoirs, YOU MUST SET FORTH AT DOWN, written long before Buhari became spoken of as a credible candidate. For the exercise of a changeover of the national currency, the Nigerian borders – air, sea and land – had been shut tight. Nothing was supposed to move in or out, not even cattle egrets.


Yet a prominent camel was allowed through that needle’s eye. Not only did Buhari dispatch his aide-de-camp, Jokolo – later to become an emir - to facilitate the entry of those cases, he ordered the redeployment – as I later discovered - of the Customs Officer who stood firmly against the entry of the contravening baggage. That officer, the incumbent Vice-president is now a rival candidate to Buhari, but has somehow, in the meantime, earned a reputation that totally contradicts his conduct at the time. Wherever the truth lies, it does not redound to the credibility of the dictator of that time, General Buhari whose word was law, but whose allegiances were clearly negotiable.

http://saharareporters.com/2007/01/14/crimes-buhari-wole-soyinka

Buhari may be a looming danger to this country. As much as we all believe that he can fight corruption, will this nation still be free? What about OIC? Will we still have the freedom to worship our God? Maybe we should just have a re-think. I was considering him earlier, but with this reminder, I'm back in my shell. Thanks to History(This should really be a compulsory subject for all University Undergraduates.

April 2002.

Buhari formally joined partisan politics and registered as a member of the defunct All Peoples Party (APP) which later became All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP). From that moment, I became a staunch and die-hard Buhari follower and supporter.

Regrettably, since assuming office on May 29, 2015, things started unfolding, and I began to notice another part, another colour of Buhari hitherto unknown to me and contrary to the picture I held or what was sold to me. For instance, it took him six months, yes six months, not six weeks, to constitute his cabinet. General Murtala Mohammed of blessed memory was only in office for six months, two weeks and wrote his name in gold on the sands of time. Yet, I kept faith with Buhari, excusing all his failures because he was my hero, my star who is infallible and does no wrong at all.

Unfortunately, Buhari, my hero, my star, my idol, would travel abroad and talk down on Nigerians by describing them as criminals. For instance, on February 5, 2016, he told UK Telegraph that: “Some Nigerians claim is that life is too difficult back home, but they have also made it difficult for Europeans and Americans to accept them because of the number of Nigerians in prisons all over the world accused of drug trafficking or human trafficking”. Chai! I am yet to see any President of a country who would travel abroad to de-market his citizens and tarnish the image of his country, never.

Buhari sees himself as the only righteous human being in Nigeria, all of us are condemned criminals. This narrative he repeated on at least three occasions-all in a foreign land, including the infamous #LazyNigerianYouths of last year. We are a nation of about 200 million people and I can bet that 199 million are sincere, honest and hardworking people who are struggling and working hard to survive under harsh conditions. It is, therefore, utterly despicable for anybody to suggest or insinuate anything to the contrary, let alone our own president for that matter. Unfortunately, Buhari, my hero, our globetrotting president, travels abroad and presents himself to world leaders and the international community as the only righteous man remaining in this part of the world.

It was heartbreaking for me as things kept moving from bad to worse under the watchful eyes of Buhari, my hero. From removal of fuel subsidies, re-introduction of fuel subsidies, refusal or failure to constitute economic management team, naira devaluation which saw to the crashing of the value of Naira from N180 to N530 to a US dollar, creating serious economic crisis and hyper inflation. Loss of about 10 million jobs which forced parents to withdraw their children from schools both home and abroad, middle businessmen and petty traders couldn’t procure forex to import and then you hear of how some very few individuals were being allocated forex at the expense of the hapless masses and they make hundreds of billions while resting within the four walls of their bedrooms. It took the intervention of Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, who busted the racket. Yet, I kept faith with Buhari, hoping this will change some how and excused his failures.

Sadly too, his lopsided appointments continued unabated especially in the security sector which gave the north most of the positions. We have six geo-political zones and the convention has been that these positions are spread among the six zones, which is in accordance with the provisions of the 1999 Constitution which provides that appointments into government of Nigeria or any of its agencies shall be done to reflect the federal character of Nigeria so that there shall be no dominance of one ethnic group or religion over others and to create a sense of belonging and patriotism among the citizens but again my hero, my star Buhari failed, yet, I excused his failure.

As time passed by, Buhari failed to make simple appointments to fill hundreds of vacant positions in agencies, or replace ministers whose positions became vacant on time. He also failed to fire or penalise appointees whose failures or indiscretion were visible even to the blind. Yet, I kept faith with Buhari in the hope that things will change.

Buhari fell ill and travelled to London for treatment not once, not twice, contrary to what he preached and castigated former leaders for doing. As the President of Nigeria, there is no medical equipment or physician that he cannot procure. I expected that as a man of integrity, he would not thread the path of those he loathed, condemned, castigated and derided. But unfortunately for me, Buhari failed me again. Yet, I kept praying for his recovery day and night and remained hopeful that somehow, things will change.

In his inaugural speech, Buhari promised to check abuse and diversion of local government funds, yet, as I write this, that was the last he ever said or mentioned about it. Again, he failed me, but I still kept faith with him, hoping things will change some how.

Before his inauguration, Buhari vowed to probe the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, reform the sector, forward the PIB to the National Assembly and institute culture and regime of transparency in the nation’s oil and gas sector. Again, Buhari failed woefully. He didn’t forward a single Bill to the MPs in this regard, NNPC continued doing business as usual and even awarded $25 billion oil contract without competitive bidding or even advertisement as required by law and some even said the companies in question didn’t possess the basic minimum requirements. Rather, he even vetoed the PIBG passed by the National Assembly. Yet, I kept faith with Buhari, hoping that things will change.

Insecurity engulfed almost every part of this country- from armed robbery, kidnapping for ransoms, herdsmen attacks, ethnic clashes, and then the Boko Haram insurgents became even stronger despite claims that they have been “technically” defeated or decimated. In all these, Buhari appeared completely detached and disconnected from the plight of the people. He would not visit victims of killings, and in some cases, even simple three paragraph statement to condole, console with the victims and show them empathy were either not issued or done after nationwide outcry and condemnations and it stopped at that.

The 200 kilometre Abuja-Kaduna road which, years back, I used to ply every other weekend even at odd hours became a danger zone due to activities of kidnappers. On daily basis, people are still being kidnapped and killed on the road and travelers now say their last prayers when plying that road. Yet, my fellow Buharists would not blame him even though he is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. The mass murder of Muslim of the Shiites sect in December 2015 in Zaria where about 500 of them were killed, and hurriedly buried in a mass grave overnight remains unresolved and keeps haunting the Buhari administration.

The worst of it was Buhari’s divisive comments when he visited Plateau State after about 230 people were killed last year. He first said he shouldn’t be blamed for the killings simply because he looks like Fulani herdsmen and then he dropped the bombshell when he said “more people are killed in Zamfara than in Benue and Plateau State combined”. Sad. I was taken aback when I heard that. Questions over questions kept popping up in my mind over this reckless, divisive, insensitive and insulting statement coming from no other person but the President and commander-in-chief who supposedly is the father, leader and saviour of all Nigerians be they Christians, Muslims, Pagans or atheists. Whether they are Tivs, Beroms, Fulanis, Yorubas, Igbos. Kanuris etc., what message was he sending, what was his aim? What happened to his humanity? Where is his sense of empathy as a father, leader and president? What message was he sending to the families of the victims and the injured? Is it now about figures and numbers and not human life? Unfortunately, even as I write this, mass murder and genocide continues in Zamfara State and elsewhere and just last week, not fewer than 40 people were killed but the president only gave a phone call to Emir of Maradun, Alhaji Garba Tambari and flew to Uyo, Akwa Ibom State to flag off his re-election campaign.

All said and done, it was in January 2018 that I finally parted ways with Buhari. It was when I came to terms that here is a President whose appointments are openly and brazenly lopsided against majority of the country.

He was accused of being clannish and nepotistic in his appointments abinitio and did nothing to address that or even allay fears expressed by other sections of the country, ethnic or religious groups. Rather, more and more of those appointments were being made day-in, day-out sowing serious seeds of discord, division and disunity in a country that has so many fault-lines.

The scandal that rocked the spy agency, the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) in 2017, which saw to the ouster of the then director general and appointment of the most senior deputy director general, Mr Arab Yadam as acting DG and then Ambassador Muhammed Dauda, to head the agency, was still fresh on my mind.

I had expected that the least Buhari would do was to confirm Mr Yadam or Dauda since they were in the service of the agency. But to my utter shock, Buhari surprised Nigerians when he appointed his kinsman, Ahmed Rufai Abubakar to replace Dauda. He neither trust a Yadam nor Dauda both of whom are northerners at a time another of his kinsman, Lawal Daura, was heading the DSS and he was accused of concentrating the security appointment to favour his kinsmen.

To my best recollection, there was no president who concentrated these two key positions in his state of origin at the same time. Not even Goodluck Jonathan whom we vilified and characterised as the most clannish and nepotistic president ever.

For three days, I had a conversation with myself and deeply reflected over my 16 years support and followership of Buhari and nearly 30 years of my idolisation of him and kept asking myself: Is this the Buhari I was told is just, fair, honest, sincere, righteous, upright? Is this the man whom I adored, revered, and almost worshipped all these years? What has happened to him? Definitely he is not Jubril from Sudan. What happened to that solemn declaration he made on May 29, 2015- I belong to everybody? Does that mean he actually belongs to some people? I then remembered him saying in far away United States of America that in all honesty, his appointments and other political considerations would follow the same voting pattern of 2015: 97-5 percent. But even at that, these appointments didn’t in anyway satisfy or conform with that infamous formula in all honesty since a large percentage of the 97 percent fell between the cracks and effectively left out.

From that moment onward, my eyes were miraculously opened, I regained my consciousness and was delivered from the spiritual indoctrination, collective insomnia, exorcised from the dogmatic hallucinating spirit that had blinded my senses and the chains that caged me were let loose and I heaved a sigh of freedom and I began to see Buhari in his real and true colours of who really and truly he is and not the dummy that has been sold to me for nearly three decades and finally liberated from “mass idiocy and frightening deadening of moral sensibilities”, to borrow from Prof Farooq Kperogi. The scales has truly fallen off my eyes.

The Cable