“There's an evil in our land, And a
foe we must withstand, Let us be strong to fight the wrong………..”
Jennie Evelyn Hussey.
Nigeria
has been given over to an evil debased mind and culture. Evil now rules us and the wickedness that has
been sown is reaping a whirlwind of horrifying judgment that is shocking and
debilitating the nation.
Sadly,
we deserve what is coming by our individual and collective sins as a people who
have abandoned God for self.
There
is nothing hidden that will not be revealed (Luke 8:17), and we are now seeing
revealed the depths of viciousness and evil of the Corruption that have
assailed the land and eaten deep into our moral fabric. We’re also seeing the insane lengths to which
selfish and greedy politicians and civil servants, and their sycophantic,
hypocritical followers will go to sabotage and deride the change that is going
on. We have not seen anything yet; this
nation is going to pay dearly for its sins.
Such
is the case of the trial of the Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki and the
crisis the Nigerian Senate wants to plunge the whole country into, all
predicated on their own selfish, invidious and insidious interests, and with a
gross disregard for the sentiments of the people who elected them to make laws
and uphold the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
It
is only mischievous, evil-meaning and unpatriotic Nigerians who will see what
is going on in the nation’s Senate and the case of Senate President, Bukola
Saraki, as a political problem (And you don't have to agree with me on this)
I
contend that this is not about party politics. This is not about APC or PDP or
whatever party. This is not about the office of the Senate President; it is
about Saraki as an individual Nigerian, who MUST not be, or regard himself,
above the laws of the land. It is about a very small but powerful, selfish,
greedy, insensitive and corrupt section of the political class perpetrating
disrespect to the people, Constitution and government of Nigeria. It is about
perpetrating corruption and protecting their own, and their selfish interest.
It is about insisting on having their way at the expense of the political and
democratic progress of the country. It is about turning democracy on its head
and manipulating it.
Mr
Saraki has been on the corruption, fraud and deception carpet for a very long
time, but in fairness to him, he’s just like most of our ruling elites for the
past 50 years- Corruption begat them! The whiff of corruption and oppression
has followed him, undoubtedly from birth. The Societe Generale Bank fraud and
collapse with its resulting misery for thousands of depositors; the family
stranglehold on Kwara State politics; the alleged looting of the state’s
treasury; the Zimbabwean farmers’ fraud and hypocrisy; the betrayal of his
father, and his nifty manipulation to become Senate President. It is only in
our dear corruption-ridden and ignorant country that such impunity and
lawlessness can happen with the authorities, themselves corrupt, not batting an
eyelid and coming to the rescue of their own people from such unscrupulous
politicians. In saner countries, he would have ended being banned from holding
any political office, and to boot, be spending some time in jail.
Olukayode
Nathan further wrote: "What has been barbaric is the attempt
by senators to obstruct and prevent the trial of Bukola Saraki; the Senate
President is facing very serious allegations before a tribunal set up through
an act of the NA to prosecute certain crimes. What is really barbaric is an
attempt by a section of the Senate to usurp the powers of the law enforcement bodies
to investigate and prosecute crimes. The power of the Senate is vested through
the Constitution, to which they are sworn to uphold and never to breach. They
are there to make laws and not empowered to investigate or adjudicate. When
senators behave like criminals, they must be treated like criminals. The people
of Nigeria are the ultimate powers and reserve the rights to use all means
available to them to prevent criminal assault on them by criminal legislators.
If that means self-help, so be it! The advanced democracies of the world
including Britain and the USA have had occasions where the members of the
public were made to behead political office holders. To prevent this happening
in Nigeria, legislators must respect the laws of the land and respect the
people of Nigeria. Buying overpriced expensive vehicles for themselves at this
austere time when most Nigerians face horror of hunger is an invitation to
anger and chaos”.
Rotimi
Jacobs, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, involved in Saraki’s trial at the Code of
Conduct Tribunal has this observation in responding to the request by Kanu
Agabi, the lead Counsel to the Defence (Saraki), for a long adjournment because
"the defendant cannot always come to court everyday" on the excuse
that the Senate would sit.
He
said. "The Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is not the one on
trial, the senators are not the ones on trial, the idea of saying the Senate
President is on trial is abnormal, the Senate Presidency is not on trial, the
only person on trial here is Bukola Saraki, a Senator, the Senate can sit
without him; the Senators following him here don't have business here, they
should not be here, it is a disgrace that they leave their constitutional
duties to follow the defendant here, I think we should never hear anybody
saying that the Senate can't sit because an individual is on trial"
What
was said above made a lot of sense. But trust us, we refuse to accept the truth
of the matter, and decide to play hide and seek with the Truth, as we always
wont to do.
Unfortunately,
the 160+ million people in this country are too timid, too complacent, not
ready to leave their comfort (?) zone; divided amongst themselves along ethnic
and religious lines, too prone to corruption and other illegal inducement,
ignorant, primitive, befuddled, completely disoriented and mis-oriented and are
really not ready to fight their own corner, unless God comes down and fight it
for them. The whole country seem to have gone INSANE.....money has turned
everyone's head upside down, and you have some people defending this evil, in
fact promoting it.
Our
concerns remain with the ignorant few amongst us, who will always see this as an
ethnic, religious, sectional or political assault on their right to belong to
one camp or another. The essence of correcting this political absurdity is to
see the Senators' manoeuvre for what it is - sheer display of greed and disrespect
to the Constitution and the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
The
Nigerian society is not different from societies elsewhere. Perhaps our
tolerance limit is more elastic. And that is because of poor perception and low
self-esteem, caused by ignorance, illiteracy and poverty.
In
the past, labour unions, vibrant and mature students and academic bodies,
commodity moguls, insightful musicians and artistes etc., represented the
largely complacent populace and acted as the motivation to galvanise the
people.
Poverty
has a tendency of keeping people grinding at individual personal solutions than
turning to collective initiatives. Our unscrupulous politicians use this
peculiarity to exploit us.
The
appeal now is to mobilise the people through the press, social media and
platforms to refuse the insult and poor treatment from the rulers. And in doing
this, we must be helped to recognize our friends, lest we throw away the baby
with the bathwater!
I
have always wanted to tag with this knowledge, believing time would bring the
much needed and desired CHANGE, only when we are "mobilized" and have
matured politically to the point of "being mobilized". But this
change in the mind-set of both the rulers and followers seems to be taking
forever; sometimes, it seems to be not taking place at all, or regressing. From
this view, our mess is almost drowning us; we would need more than human hands
for our "salvation"!
There
is a point that cannot be easily over looked. The man from Maiduguri is
affected by the same problems that afflict the man from Lagos or Benin. So are
the man from Sokoto and the man from Makurdi, or Ikot Ekpene. These basic
problems are poverty, illiteracy, diseases, hunger and generally poor standard
of living in a country rich in natural resources but whose wealth has been
squandered for decades by visionless, greedy and selfish rulers and their
hangers-on.
Primordial
considerations do not allow us to see things in their proper perspective. See
the people who benefited from the money shared by the Office of the National
Security Adviser, and by other scandals – they shared the money without regards
to religion or ethnicity. It is all there for us to see and ruminate on.
Corruption is the problem in Nigeria, not where you are from or your religion.
Not even the political party you belong to or favour.
Ephesians
6:12 King James Version (KJV): “For we wrestle not against flesh and
blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the
darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places”
Telling
the Truth always has set me free!!!
Akintokunbo A Adejumo MSc, Dip Mngt, CIHM, MCMI, FITP
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