₦airaland Forum

In the masterpiece, satiric comedy, The Trials of Brother Jero, Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka, captured religious hypocrisy in the form of a con, or fraud, named Brother Jero, who preaches to his followers on Bar Beach in Lagos. Brother Jero was an energetic rascal that mastered the art of manipulating his followers in an obedient position by simply convincing them that their quest for money, social status and power will be fulfilled “now”. This play that goes back to 1960s captured the exact replica that is being played out by the fraud and con politician named Atiku Abubakar.  

The political rascal Atiku have been attempting to convince Nigerians that if elected President, he will feed us from the nose while we relax at the foot of Adamawa mountain. After his selection as the PDP presidential candidate, the con artist wasted no time scouting for endorsement to boost his tattered integrity. His attempt to woo Soyinka and get an endorsement failed. The fraud politician quickly conned Rev Kukah and Sherik Gumi in the “reconciliation” with another rogue, Obasanjo where he manipulated them to be seen to have endorsed the presidential bid.

[b]As to Bishop David Oyedepo’s role, I don’t believe he was conned. His appearance was out of pure desperation and corruption. After watching the pictures of David Oyedepo celebrating the reunification of dangerously corrupt men, I wept for Nigeria. It is corruption when Bishops surrenders their integrity, a sense of wholeness and moral character, and basic humanity for the sake of money and power. Bishop David Oyedepo in desperation to regain influence of Nigerian Presidency embraced corrupt Atiku. This demonstration of crude acceptance of corruption should be a source of concern to every Nigerian that is interested in this fight against corruption.  

Atiku Abubakar’s campaign strategy is to conjure up images of a man who after corruptly enriching himself, invested the embezzled public resources to create jobs. Take, for example, Atiku recently claimed that unlike Buhari, he is “an expert job creator who has founded many successful and thriving businesses including the American University of Nigeria, Yola.” What Atiku intentionally left out was that the reason he cannot go to America is the millions of Dollars he laundered to America for a direct license to use the franchise of the American University.
[/b]
Under Atiku and Obasanjo’s watch, public universities collapsed. Atiku, Obasanjo and the likes of Bishop Oyedepo quickly filled the vacuum by establishing private universities that are beyond the reach of poor Nigerians. Corrupt, short-term gains might be huge, but the human costs of this corruption emerged later when children of rich parents started sending their kids to private schools following the near collapse of public schools. Sadly, the resulting poverty and uneven educational development between the rich and the poor has sharpened the incentives for further corruption.

The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires but in his integrity. Atiku knows clearly well that his integrity is rotten. As a con artist, therefore, he attempted to buy integrity by appointing Peter Obi as his VP. The problem with Peter Obi is that he is a hypocrite that lies with sincerity, but that’s a matter for another day. The unfortunate thing is that many Nigerians, especially the youths that have been lamenting bitterly about the endemic corruption in our polity are suddenly willing to excuse the con artist Atiku from a test of integrity. Their reasoning, all politicians are the same (corrupt) so let’s make sure our side wins. Atiku might be a corrupt idiot, but he’s our corrupt idiot. 

Ndigbo have a saying that not asking questions before eating causes death without illness. Some Nigerians might reason, why should all this corruption matter to me? One reason is that corruption's connections to poverty are far more numerous and pervasive. Beyond the effect on incomes, corruption undermines outcomes in education, health, public investment, and income equality. It thwarts development, including undermining public finances.

So, how bad will the effect of Atiku-era corruption be if elected president? The best guess is worse than you can possibly think. If Atiku and his Intels can withhold billion of Naira of revenue from Nigerian Port Authority (NPA) under Buhari, imagine, just imagine what Atiku will do to one of the biggest non-oil revenue agency in the country. And who’s going to check the established greed of Atiku when his Intels, as expected, starts defrauding NPA? Peter Obi? Don’t be silly.

To the extent that corruption undermines revenue, it adversely affects government efforts to reduce poverty. Money that leaks out of the budget because of corruption will not be available to lighten the burden of the poor. Corruption damages society. Corruption matters because corrupt people corrupt other people. Corrupt Bishops and pastors corrupt the congregation and the entire society. Corruption breeds mistrust. And when citizens don’t trust their government, they stop being interested in it, stop participating in it, stop voting and stop demanding that it get better. And that makes government less efficient, less responsive and less effective for all of us.

A strategic and sustainable response to corruption is public integrity. Integrity is one of the key pillars of political, economic and social structures and thus essential to the economic and social well-being and prosperity of individuals and societies. Atiku has been facing serious credibility problems especially in relation to integrity. He knows that his corrupt past and lack of integrity is harmful to a country’s economy, society, politics, and the overall environment. A President like Atiku Abubakar who lack this basic sense of integrity will undermine the fabric of our society and do great damage to our democracy.

Yesterday, a primary school social studies teacher decided to test his students’ awareness of political development in the country. What is 1 +1? The teacher asked Aisha. Two, responded Aisha. Good, said the teacher. What is the sum of Buhari + Osinbajo? Slow but steady, responded the student. The teacher then asked, what of Atiku + Peter Obi? Corrupt dude trying to buy integrity said Aisha. What? Asked the teacher. What is rotten is rotten, you can’t buy integrity, Aisha said, without a flinch. The moral of this exchange is that even primary school pupils know that if you don't have integrity, you have nothing. They know that integrity cannot be bought. As adults, eligible to vote in the 2019 election, we should not let these kids down.

So, as a Nigerian, I cannot in good conscience support Atiku even if he adds David Oyedepo and Apostle Peter as his VPs. Atiku is terribly corrosive and a master in the democratization of corruption that inclusion of Peter Obi in his ticket is irrelevant and deceptive. Do you believe Peter Obi can do what Obasanjo and the United States government could not? Think about it, deeply. You see, even “Saint” Peter Obi cannot restore Atiku’s battered integrity. What is rotten is rotten.

Buhari's palpable panic about the outcome of the forthcoming 2019 general election keeps manifesting by the day. Even though the presidential Executive Order was promulgated a few months back, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar emergence as the PDP presidential flag bearer further jolted President Buhari to exploit extraneous option to truncate Atiku's victory at the polls.

The adage of my nativity is President Muhammadu Buhari/APC Kalmar: "behind the door's closest can't save the murderer". The All Progressives Congress (APC) and its presidency has murdered democracy; adopted rule of the thumb, aborted her own electoral premises, dramatizes unremitting failure, as much as introduced primitive nepotism and archaic bigotry.

Shockingly, how President Buhari and his minders railroaded themselves into that unforgivable tragic outing remains a study for political scientists — after the near revolutionary momentum that ushered to power in 2015. President Buhari and the APC are the regrettable examples of how not to lead or mislead multiethnic nation as Nigeria.

Buhari's palpable panic about the outcome of the forthcoming 2019 general election keeps manifesting by the day. Even though the presidential Executive Order was promulgated a few months back, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar emergence as the PDP presidential flag bearer further jotted President Buhari to exploit extraneous option to truncate Atiku's victory at the polls.

Nigerians across board have no problem with the Executive Order 06 but its implementation must not be used as political tools to punish opponents like the infamous and draconian Decree No. 4 of 1984 which was cruelly pursued and enforced by the incumbent President as a Military Head of State.

The President's Executive Order 06 — strictly speaking — should be a welcome development — if it's not meant to witch hunt and scapegoat political enemies on the other side of the political divide. If not, what qualified 50 persons with N50 million like Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, IBB, Atiku or Saraki to be banned from traveling out of the country will only resonate with the electorate if it includes doyens of corruption across the political spectrum.

For the APC/Buhari presidency to take itself seriously, it should disclosed to Nigerians the full list/names of the 50 banned from stepping out of Nigeria. The electorate hope to see the ban extended to the likes of Adams Oshiomhole, Rotimi Amaechi, former SGF Babachir Lawal, Buhari's Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, his former Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun, Lai Muhammed, former DSS boss Lawal Daura, GMD of the NNPC, Dr. Maikanti Baru and the Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu who skipped the mandatory NYSC service.

Nigerians are particularly expectant to have President Buhari include his wife's name on that list for the inexplicably way she got N2.6 billion that was stolen by her ADC.

Also, for President Buhari to show his determination to fixing Nigerian's unresolved financial misdemeanor, he should truthfully tell Nigerians what happened to the report on the US$43 million discovered in an apartment at Osbourne Towers, Ikoyi, Lagos. Nigerians are still waiting to know what happened to the allegation of award of US$25 billion contracts without following due process made against Dr. Maikanti Kacalla Baru, the Group Managing Director of Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) by Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, Minister of State, Petroleum Resources?

The electorate are gazing constantly in the direction of Aso Rock with the expectation that the presidency might tell Nigerians what happened to the Department of State Services (DSS) indictment for corruption of Ibrahim Magu, the Acting Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Mr. Abubakar Malami, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Investigative Panel set up by the President Muhammadu Buhari?

Alhaji Lai Muhammed, the Minister of Information and Culture is yet to tell Nigerians the owner of LEGICO Shopping Plaza, Ahmadu Bello Way, Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria, inside which the EFCC claimed that it found US$448.8 million cash. Neither is he forthcoming with the names of the persons who brought the five sacks in which the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) claimed that it found N49 million cash at the Kaduna Airport.

The electorate are certainly waiting to know what has happened to the Probe Panel on the alleged N500 million bribery said to have been paid to the Chief of Staff (COS), Aso Rock Presidential Villa, Abba Kyari by MTN. Again, what has happened to the report submitted on the fraudulent reinstatement of Abdulrasheed Maina, "The Pensions Thief"? When will President Muhammadu Buhari sign another "Executive Order" to deal with these issues?

Those who still believe that President Muhammadu Buhari and the deceptive APC might redeem itself and salvaged Nigeria after 2019 — four years already wasted — must be residing outside this planet. We will be hoping against hope to assumed that a Buhari's damaged Presidency — ethnically and corruptly dead, has any hope of redemption.

http://saharareporters.com/2018/10/16/buhariapc-your-problems-are-nepotism-and-aborted-change-not-order-06-erasmus-ikhide[/b]

The moral outrage over Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun’s obviously forged National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) exemption certificate, which the Nigerian presidency has chosen to strategically ignore in hopes that it will peter out, dramatizes, in more ways than one, the spuriousness of President Muhammadu Buhari’s self-serving claims to embodying “integrity.”

Any person who is obsessed with proclaiming his “integrity” at the slightest opportunity but won’t investigate, much less fire, shady characters he has appointed to work with— and for— him can’t possibly be truly a person of integrity.

From PTF to The Buhari Organization (TBO), Buhari has consistently protected corrupt close aides from the consequences of their ethical and legal infractions.

This attitude of mollycoddling corrupt but loyal aides and appointees while pretending to be a man of “integrity” who is “fighting” corruption is getting worse by the day and indicates that, in spite of self-righteous declarations to the contrary, Buhari is himself morally indistinguishable from his crooked cronies.

This reality manifested from the very nascence of the Buhari presidency. About three months into his administration, Buhari appointed William Babatunde Fowler as Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).

In announcing his appointment, presidential spokesman Femi Adesina said Fowler had an honorary doctorate from “Irish International University.” This immediately set off scam alarms in my head and, within 20 minutes of the announcement, I researched and found that the honorary doctorate was a scam. I shared my findings on Facebook, which went viral at the time.

Fowler quickly edited his online public profiles within hours of my exposing him and removed all references to his fake doctorate. (Read my August 29, 2015 column titled “On Fowler’s Fake Doctorate and Integrity Deficit.”)

The last sentence in the column was, “I won’t be comfortable with that sort of person as my country’s chief tax collector. But the choice is ultimately President Buhari’s to make.”

Buhari ignored the scandal as if it never happened. As I predicted, Fowler’s FIRS has become a byword for reckless untowardness. Scores of people from the organization share many things with me that I haven’t shared—and won’t, for now, share— with the public because I haven’t independently verified them.

But in a widely publicized June 15, 2016 news report—complete with unassailable documentary proofs—Sahara Reporters found that “the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), headed by Mr. Babatunde Fowler, a protégé of Bola Tinubu,…has been found to have overseen recruitment exercises in violation of Nigeria's rules of public advertisement.” He illegally employed 349 cronies to top-level positions. The trend hasn’t abated, and Buhari has ignored it because he is himself a beneficiary.

On October 26, 2016, Premium Times reported that Buhari’s Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Usani Usani, “was charged with fraud 15 years ago, after he was indicted in 2000 by the government of Cross River State where he served as a commissioner.”

His indictment “is documented in a state government White Paper,” according to the paper. That’s as indisputably verifiable as it can get. Yet the minister has neither been investigated nor fired— in a government that fancies itself as “fighting corruption.”

A certain Louis Edozien who was fired in 2014 as Executive Director at the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) for failure to produce authentic credentials, including an NYSC certificate, during an audit, was reinstated and promoted to the position of Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Works, Power and Housing in November 2016. NDPHC’s General Manager in charge of audit and compliance by the name of Mrs. Maryam Mohammed who audited Edozien’s credentials and recommended his firing was unjustly fired in apparent retaliatory vendetta.

The position of Permanent Secretary is normally the crowning accomplishment of career civil servants, but Edozien isn’t a career civil servant and shouldn’t be a permanent secretary, according to the Daily Trust of October 20, 2017, which said “highly placed officials in the presidency facilitated” this rape of justice. Sahara Reporters of October 12, 2017 was blunter: “Mr. Edozien is a friend and business partner to Mr. [Abba] Kyari,” it wrote. “The Chief of Staff's daughter also worked directly under Mr. Edozien.”

It gets worse. On September 20, 2016, Sahara Reporters reported that this same Abba Kyari “took N500m from operators of MTN to help the telecommunications giant mitigate the fine imposed on it by the federal government.” About three months after this expose, MTN fired its top staffers who facilitated the bribe in order “to avoid scrutiny by the United States government over bribes offered to Abba Kyari, Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari,” according to Sahara Reporters. The presidency, as usual, intentionally ignored the story.

President Muhammadu Buhari’s personal complicity in the illegal reinstatement and promotion of indicted fugitive Abdulrasheed Maina is well known.

“I sought audience with His Excellency, Mr. President on Wednesday, 11th October, 2017 after the FEC meeting where I briefed His Excellency verbally on the wide-ranging implications of the reinstatement of Mr. A. A. Maina, especially the damaging impact on the anti-corruption stance of this administration,” the Head of Service wrote in a memo to the President’s Chief of Staff, which was leaked to the press.

Buhari had pretended before then that he had not the foggiest idea that Maina had been reinstated and promoted. Again, the presidency ignored the bombshell from the Head of Service.

In 2016 when the national budget was “padded” by top civil servants in the executive arm of government, Buhari said in Saudi Arabia that, “The culprits will not go unpunished.” Well, they have remained unpunished to this day.

Investigations by the Economic Intelligence Magazine of November 6, 2016 showed that “officials who were sanctioned by their deployment outside Federal Ministry of Finance have since resumed duties in the same Ministry without the highly publicized punishment the President promised while speaking to Nigerians resident in Saudi Arabia.”

There is no point recalling Buhari’s overprotection of corrupt and disgraced former Secretary to the Government of the Federation Babachir Lawal. Buhari actually wrote in his personal capacity to exonerate Lawal of corruption charges, but was later forced to eat his own vomit by firing him. To this day, Lawal hasn’t been prosecuted, is still a regular visitor to the Presidential Villa, and is, in fact, the Adamawa State coordinator of the president’s reelection campaign!

Remember, too, that Chairman of Special Presidential Investigative Panel for the Recovery of Property by the name of Okoi Obono-Obla, who is one of the arrowheads of Buhari’s “anti-corruption fight,” has conclusively been found to have forged his secondary school certificate to gain admission to study law at the University of Jos.


According to the Daily Trust of June 6, 2018, WAEC’s deputy registrar, Femi Ola, told the House of Representatives that Obono-Obla’s WAEC certificate was “fake, not genuine.” More than one month after this revelation, the scammer still retains his job, and the presidency has, in keeping with its wont, ignored it.

So Finance Minister Adeosun’s brazen forgery of an NYSC exemption certificate, which she isn’t even qualified to get in the first place given that she got her bachelor’s degree in her early 20s, and the presidency’s shame-faced silence over the matter, are merely additions to a list that is getting scandalously long.

It is impossible to deploy the resources of logic to argue that Buhari has integrity. He doesn’t. Well, unless integrity means something to Buhari supporters other than what it actually means in the English language

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailytrust.com.ng/amplite/adeosun-s-nysc-certificate-is-as-fake-as-buhari-s-integrity-260912.html

CilicMarin:
In the masterpiece, satiric comedy, The Trials of Brother Jero, Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka, captured religious hypocrisy in the form of a con, or fraud, named Brother Jero, who preaches to his followers on Bar Beach in Lagos. Brother Jero was an energetic rascal that mastered the art of manipulating his followers in an obedient position by simply convincing them that their quest for money, social status and power will be fulfilled “now”. This play that goes back to 1960s captured the exact replica that is being played out by the fraud and con politician named Atiku Abubakar.  

The political rascal Atiku have been attempting to convince Nigerians that if elected President, he will feed us from the nose while we relax at the foot of Adamawa mountain. After his selection as the PDP presidential candidate, the con artist wasted no time scouting for endorsement to boost his tattered integrity. His attempt to woo Soyinka and get an endorsement failed. The fraud politician quickly conned Rev Kukah and Sherik Gumi in the “reconciliation” with another rogue, Obasanjo where he manipulated them to be seen to have endorsed the presidential bid.

[b]As to Bishop David Oyedepo’s role, I don’t believe he was conned. His appearance was out of pure desperation and corruption. After watching the pictures of David Oyedepo celebrating the reunification of dangerously corrupt men, I wept for Nigeria. It is corruption when Bishops surrenders their integrity, a sense of wholeness and moral character, and basic humanity for the sake of money and power. Bishop David Oyedepo in desperation to regain influence of Nigerian Presidency embraced corrupt Atiku. This demonstration of crude acceptance of corruption should be a source of concern to every Nigerian that is interested in this fight against corruption.  

Atiku Abubakar’s campaign strategy is to conjure up images of a man who after corruptly enriching himself, invested the embezzled public resources to create jobs. Take, for example, Atiku recently claimed that unlike Buhari, he is “an expert job creator who has founded many successful and thriving businesses including the American University of Nigeria, Yola.” What Atiku intentionally left out was that the reason he cannot go to America is the millions of Dollars he laundered to America for a direct license to use the franchise of the American University.
[/b]
Under Atiku and Obasanjo’s watch, public universities collapsed. Atiku, Obasanjo and the likes of Bishop Oyedepo quickly filled the vacuum by establishing private universities that are beyond the reach of poor Nigerians. Corrupt, short-term gains might be huge, but the human costs of this corruption emerged later when children of rich parents started sending their kids to private schools following the near collapse of public schools. Sadly, the resulting poverty and uneven educational development between the rich and the poor has sharpened the incentives for further corruption.

The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires but in his integrity. Atiku knows clearly well that his integrity is rotten. As a con artist, therefore, he attempted to buy integrity by appointing Peter Obi as his VP. The problem with Peter Obi is that he is a hypocrite that lies with sincerity, but that’s a matter for another day. The unfortunate thing is that many Nigerians, especially the youths that have been lamenting bitterly about the endemic corruption in our polity are suddenly willing to excuse the con artist Atiku from a test of integrity. Their reasoning, all politicians are the same (corrupt) so let’s make sure our side wins. Atiku might be a corrupt idiot, but he’s our corrupt idiot. 

Ndigbo have a saying that not asking questions before eating causes death without illness. Some Nigerians might reason, why should all this corruption matter to me? One reason is that corruption's connections to poverty are far more numerous and pervasive. Beyond the effect on incomes, corruption undermines outcomes in education, health, public investment, and income equality. It thwarts development, including undermining public finances.

So, how bad will the effect of Atiku-era corruption be if elected president? The best guess is worse than you can possibly think. If Atiku and his Intels can withhold billion of Naira of revenue from Nigerian Port Authority (NPA) under Buhari, imagine, just imagine what Atiku will do to one of the biggest non-oil revenue agency in the country. And who’s going to check the established greed of Atiku when his Intels, as expected, starts defrauding NPA? Peter Obi? Don’t be silly.

To the extent that corruption undermines revenue, it adversely affects government efforts to reduce poverty. Money that leaks out of the budget because of corruption will not be available to lighten the burden of the poor. Corruption damages society. Corruption matters because corrupt people corrupt other people. Corrupt Bishops and pastors corrupt the congregation and the entire society. Corruption breeds mistrust. And when citizens don’t trust their government, they stop being interested in it, stop participating in it, stop voting and stop demanding that it get better. And that makes government less efficient, less responsive and less effective for all of us.

A strategic and sustainable response to corruption is public integrity. Integrity is one of the key pillars of political, economic and social structures and thus essential to the economic and social well-being and prosperity of individuals and societies. Atiku has been facing serious credibility problems especially in relation to integrity. He knows that his corrupt past and lack of integrity is harmful to a country’s economy, society, politics, and the overall environment. A President like Atiku Abubakar who lack this basic sense of integrity will undermine the fabric of our society and do great damage to our democracy.

Yesterday, a primary school social studies teacher decided to test his students’ awareness of political development in the country. What is 1 +1? The teacher asked Aisha. Two, responded Aisha. Good, said the teacher. What is the sum of Buhari + Osinbajo? Slow but steady, responded the student. The teacher then asked, what of Atiku + Peter Obi? Corrupt dude trying to buy integrity said Aisha. What? Asked the teacher. What is rotten is rotten, you can’t buy integrity, Aisha said, without a flinch. The moral of this exchange is that even primary school pupils know that if you don't have integrity, you have nothing. They know that integrity cannot be bought. As adults, eligible to vote in the 2019 election, we should not let these kids down.

So, as a Nigerian, I cannot in good conscience support Atiku even if he adds David Oyedepo and Apostle Peter as his VPs. Atiku is terribly corrosive and a master in the democratization of corruption that inclusion of Peter Obi in his ticket is irrelevant and deceptive. Do you believe Peter Obi can do what Obasanjo and the United States government could not? Think about it, deeply. You see, even “Saint” Peter Obi cannot restore Atiku’s battered integrity. What is rotten is rotten.

http://saharareporters.com/2018/10/17/sorry-atiku-you-can’t-buy-integrity-what-rotten-rotten-churchill-okonkwo

jlinkd78:
Buhari has fought corruption please let's allow Atiku to fight poverty.

Lot13:
my brother, corruption breeds poverty. Sixteen years of PDP corruption brings us to where we are today and as such, every Patriots must not see Atiku as option to Buhari.

Switsex:
Please good people of nairaland! A sister is in dying need of help. I have been locked out of my apartment over failure to pay the house rent.
I've exhausted all possible means to raise up the cash but to no avail, I'm like a breadwinner in my family. Please help me no amount is too much. I've paid the rest remaining 35k. Please help a sister. Thanks,,, Account number: 0096918231. Diamond bank. Mary Nweze.