President Buhari’s Double Standard Syndrome

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By Reno Omokri

Leadership matters in the development of nations. Today Aliko Dangote is worth less than half of what he was worth under former President Jonathan. He was worth $25 billion in 2014 and is now worth $12.4 billion today! Listen to the words spoken by Aliko Dangote about President Jonathan on Friday the 6th of September, 2013 in Nairobi while speaking to the political and business elite of Kenya: “As you all know, without good policies of government, there is no way a person like me from a big town like Kano can rise from a humble beginning to become the 25th richest person on earth. Without the policies of President Jonathan and also making sure that there is consistency in the policies of the government, this could not have happened”.

I wonder what Africa’s richest man would say about President Muhammadu Buhari behind closed doors. Hardly (or never) has a country deteriorated so speedily as Nigeria has under the stewardship (if you can call it that) of President Muhammadu Buhari. In just eighteen months, President Buhari has become the poster boy for the adage that it takes time to build but little or no time to destroy. And it is not just on the economic side that things have unraveled. Social justice, human rights and fundamental freedoms are all being rolled back under this administration.

Name your dog Buhari in today’s Nigeria and you will be diligently prosecuted but commit genocide in Southern Kaduna and you won’t even be charged! Openly behead a female evangelist and your case may be dismissed even if you are charged, but criticise a governor, who himself criticises wildly, and be speedily charged to court. Accuse PDP politicians and security forces arrest them before investigation. Produce proof of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation’s alleged corruption and the same forces are suddenly paralysed. Welcome to President Buhari’s new and improved Nigeria. Under President Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria practices a dual legal system where the All Progressives Congress politicians are innocent until proven guilty while the Peoples Democratic Party politicians are guilty until proven innocent. If you doubt me, then ask Rotimi Amaechi and Babachir Lawal who are attending Federal Executive Council to decide the fate of Nigeria while Femi Fani-Kayode and Olisa Metuh are in and out of court. Alas!

Corruption cannot kill corruption. When you fight corruption with double standard, it is not corruption you kill, but your integrity. And while the Southern Kaduna killings rage on and go seemingly unnoticed by our President, I was shocked to read that the Presidency had issued a statement condemning the recent death in police custody of Tochukwu Nnadi in South Africa. Not that I am happy that Tochukwu was killed. Far from it. I am sad. Very sad. But why condemn one death in South Africa and remain silent on genocide in Southern Kaduna? And then it finally hit me! If you are a Nigerian and you want the government of President Muhammadu Buhari to condemn your killing, you better make sure your killers kill you in Southern Africa and not in Southern Kaduna!

Still on Kaduna, I am particularly pained because I saw it coming. My grouse about the Christian Association of Nigeria which refused to heed the warnings of many of us who saw the direction the nation was and is still heading and gave strong warnings. I publicly warned the Body of Christ immediately after the killings of hundreds of Shiites (according to the official Kaduna White Paper on the killings which declared that over 300 Shiites were killed) that if we did not speak up for Shiites, our turn would come too. With what is happening now in Southern Kaduna, did I lie? You should not wait until injustice touches you before you speak up for justice! That is a lesson the world learnt from Germany when the SS kept on coming for one group or the other until there was no one left to talk again.

And the double standard continues to manifest themselves everywhere. For instance, it did not take the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the DSS this long to investigate and arrest PDP politicians. Why the foot-dragging on Babachir, the Baba of IDP funds? Why is he allowed to continue in office during his investigation, yet the same Presidency wanted accused judges to step down during theirs? Is there one rule for Babachir and another rule for the perceived enemies of President Muhammadu Buhari? One would think that a man accused of stealing from IDPs would be expeditiously investigated and tried. Or is it a case of when I see the broom I will pass over? When Stella Oduah and Barth Nnaji were accused of corruption (and a mere conflict of interest in the case of Nnaji), then President Goodluck Jonathan asked them to resign within weeks. Today, our so-called anti-corruption president, Muhammadu Buhari, is waiting for ‘further investigations’ before moving against the famous grass cutter, Babachir Lawal.With the likes of Rotimi Amaechi, who spent half a million hosting Wole Soyinka, I guess N270 million to allegedly clear grass for IDPs is no big deal to President Muhammadu Buhari! And the same government that arrested several newspaper publishers and proprietors and also forced them to refund monies that they received for public relations and media agency is now doing something similar in a case of do as I say, don’t do as I do.
The Buhari administration budgeted N180 million to ‘facilitate appearances with social media influencers’. This from a so-called anti-corruption regime! After ‘facilitating’ the Social Media influencers with these taxpayers’ millions, the same administration sends the EFCC to arrest its political opponents for ‘facilitating’ their own media associates! Apparently, this administration wants a monopoly on ‘facilitation’ and jealously guards the monopoly using law enforcement agents paid with our tax Naira. Even conservative global media houses now feel compelled to write about the double standard that exists in Nigeria under President Buhari because they are so glaring to the point of being blatant. Writing in December 2016 for instance, Bloomberg had this to say about Buhari’s Nigeria: “Out of 17 top positions in the army, navy, air force and other security agencies, (only) three are from the south.” This is coming from a foreign news medium! Look at the excuse the President gave for not attending the South-east Economic and Security Summit in Enugu. In an official statement, the Presidency said “stakeholders from the South- east came and advised him (the President) not go in view of the closeness of the date to Christmas; that given the sensitivity of the period to the people, a presidential visit may come with over exertion and possibly, be disruptive of Christmas.”

Even if you must lie, must the lie be so unintelligent? The President did not attend and did not send a representative because “of the closeness of the date to Christmas”, yet he still approved the military and paramilitary’ Operation Python Dance which made 2016 the worst year for South easterners since the civil war ended 47 years ago! And yet when the same President was compelled by bad weather to cancel his state visit to Bauchi State on December 29, 2016, he felt moved enough to tape a video message in Hausa, explaining to the people of Bauchi why he was unable to come and apologising to them profusely. You may recall that President Buhari got something like 97% of the votes of Bauchi State but only got less than 5% of the votes of the South-eastern states. Those who thought the President was joking in July 23, 2015 when he said “the constituents, for example, gave me 97% cannot in all honesty be treated on some issues with constituencies that gave me 5%” now know that our President was speaking the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Fellow Nigerians, brace up. Double standard is now an official state policy!

And Something Else

In two weeks, my friend, Philip Adekunle would be 50. Philip Adekunle is quite the unusual person. He has achieved much that should make a man proud and perhaps some men with such achievements would even want some form of adulation. Not Philip. He carries himself with modesty but certainty. Modesty about his achievements, and certainty that he can do even more. He was my first Arianna Huffington and Nigeria Village Square was my first Huffington Post. There are a very few Nigerians who would not take Philip’s phone call and fewer still who would not fail to call back if for some reason they could not take it when he called. Philip and NVS helped launch a number of individuals as front-line public intellectuals. He does not sensationalise or sex up the truth. He dishes it out, warts and all. Nigeria is a better place because of Philip and I am a better man because of him. Happy Birthday Philip.

 

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  • Ekenny

    No need to worry, the president’s got a bad ear. My worries is not that the president has a double standard, but with the graveyard silence of yesterday’s social crusaders and civil society guru. This pretense simply makes me sick. Nigeria surely need help. Keep on speaking Reno, do not be discouraged!

    • james_grim_teacher

      Social crusaders and civil society gurus are very smart. Nobody is going to cheapen his life mission and calling by defending corrupt politicians believe me.
      Nigerians are not fools.

  • Maverick

    Why corruption is laughing at Buhari

    President Muhammadu Buhari’s trump card is the fight against corruption. He has realised that most Nigerians hate the blow corruption has dealt on Nigeria for decades. Much of the money that would have been used to provide infrastructure and build the nation has been stolen and stashed away in foreign bank accounts and also invested in property and businesses overseas.

    Therefore, anytime Nigerians hear that a corrupt public officer has been arrested, they go wild with joy, asking for stiff penalty for the person. Some even ask for the death penalty. But who can blame Nigerians? Corruption has caused the death of many children who could have survived if there were good medical facilities in our hospitals. Many Nigerians had died in road crashes caused by potholes that would not have existed if the money set aside for road construction was not embezzled. Many Nigerians had died of dehydration in the desert trying to cross over to Europe for greener pastures because the money that should have been pumped into the economy had been embezzled, leaving the nation impoverished.

    Having realised how impassioned Nigerians are on the issue of corruption, Buhari has taken advantage of it fully. There is no speech he makes in Nigeria or overseas that he does not harp on corruption and how it has crippled the nation. The same thing occurs when Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, presidential aides and APC leaders speak.

    Anytime there is a negative news story against the government, the Presidency releases a story on corruption or announces some huge amount of money recovered, and the attention of the public is immediately taken away from the negative story.

    But there are issues that point to the fact that corruption is laughing at the efforts being made to eradicate it. The first instance is the shocking pictures of malnourished and dying Internally Displaced  Persons in camps in Borno State released to the media last month by Doctors Without Borders. The pictures looked as if they came from some distant country ravaged by war and blockaded from food and water or like pictures of Biafran children during the Nigerian Civil War.

    Doctors Without Borders said that 200 people died in a month in the camp from starvation and dehydration. The body described the situation as a “catastrophic humanitarian emergency” and said that refugees at the camp spoke of “children dying of hunger and digging new graves every day”.

    It was shocking that such pictures came from an IDP camp that the Federal Government and the state governments said they had spent billions of naira to take care of in addition to the various products donated by individuals and organisations. It is obvious that while the President tells the world that he is fighting corruption, corruption is waltzing around under his nose, stealing the funds and the food meant for the IDPs.

    Similar pictures emerged recently about our prisons, where inmates, especially those on the awaiting-trial-list who are not allowed to step out of the prison, were seen looking like skeletons because of starvation and malnutrition. Ironically, the Minister of Interior, Abdulrahman Bello Dambazau, said in May that the Federal Government had an annual budget of ₦10bn for the feeding of its 63,142 prisoners (the population as of March 31, 2016). Nigerians asked in shock: “What happened to that money?” The answer is simple: Corruption.

    Also, some weeks ago, it was reported by some news channels that the Central Bank of Nigeria embarked on a secret recruitment involving only children of the top political class. It sounded like a joke that could not be possible in the administration of Buhari, who has repeatedly said that he would fight corruption to a standstill. But that story turned out to be true. The Presidency said nothing about that corrupt practice.

    While that was dying down, another story surfaced that the Federal Inland Revenue Service had done a secret recruitment that had the children of the high and the mighty as beneficiaries. Again, the Presidency said nothing, and did nothing. No person was punished. The recruitment was not cancelled.

    As if that was not enough, last week, it was reported that the Nigerian Prisons Service had undertaken its own secret recruitment. It still followed the same pattern. As usual, the Presidency said nothing and did nothing.

    It was also reported that the Chief of Army Staff, Buratai, has properties in Dubai worth millions of dollars. It was also reported that the same Buratai has been in the military from youth and has no other source of income except the military. It was also observed that Butatai’s salaries (without any expenditure) since he was recruited cannot be enough to buy such properties. One wonders why our president has not found it necessary to probe or sack Buratai.

    It was revealed by one of the judges under investigation that Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi and Ogbonnaya Onu tried to bribe the judge for him to overturn Wike’s mandate. APC described the allegation as laughable and Buhari yet said nothing.

    It was also reported recently that 5 truck loads of foods meant for IDPs got missing. We’re yet to hear any move from Buhari on how to unravel the truth about it.

    Excluding these three Federal Government bodies, other government bodies may have carried out a similar secret recruitment or are planning to do the same. And there is a trend in all of the recruitment exercises. To fulfil the requirement of the constitution that recruitment must reflect the federal character, those recruited were randomly assigned states across the federation.

    What can be deduced from this secret recruitment of the children of the influential and well-connected is that the silence of Buhari shows that he is aware of it and endorses it. How then can the fight against corruption be successful with such occurring repeatedly?

    To know whether the fight against corruption has any effect, you need to visit any government agency or attempt to do any transaction with any of them, whether on the federal, state or local government level. It is a complete case of business as usual. Bribes are still demanded brazenly. There is no secrecy about it. Nothing still gets done if bribes are not offered.

    Buhari may spend four years in office, or a maximum of eight years, if he gets re-elected in 2019. It will be tragic if after all this effort and raised hope, we discover at the end of his tenure that nothing has changed on the issue of corruption. Corruption is not like armed robbery whose perpetrators can be easily seen. Corruption is also tempting unlike armed robbery, which is too risky. It does not have the type of bad image associated with armed robbery. It pays huge dividends, given the honour society accords to those who are well-to-do. Therefore, fighting corruption is not as easy as fighting a crime like armed robbery. It requires a systematic and systemic approach, with the creation of strong institutions, investment in technology, reduction of the direct contact of officials with funds, reorientation, and living by example by the leaders.

    But most importantly, something feeds the corruption that takes place in Nigeria. It is the availability of free money that is seen as belonging to nobody. There is a kind of competition among those who are involved in public service to grab as much as they can. This attitude of public money not being anybody’s money has its root in the type of federal structure we practise, which makes all resources deposited in the federation account and shared among the three tiers of government every month. If it is not changed for a structure that empowers the states to work for their money and choose how to spend it, corruption will continue and even get worse, in spite of all the efforts of Buhari and anybody who will come after him.

    In its manifesto, the ruling All Progressives Congress has this as one of the things it would do if elected: “Initiate action to amend our constitution with a view to devolving powers, duties and responsibilities to states and local governments in order to entrench true federalism and the Federal spirit.” Since the APC won last year, its top guns, including the party chairman, the President, and the Vice President, have been singing a different song on the issue of restructuring and true federalism.

     On bended knees, we appeal to this administration to embrace restructuring and true federalism to save Nigeria from corruption, retrogression and ethnic and religious strife.

  • Maverick

    There is no war against corruption
    In Buhari’s first coming, he bamboozled Nigerians with a so-called war against indiscipline. This entailed treating Nigerians, young and old, like primary school children. We were forced to queue at bus-stops under the watchful eyes of soldiers wielding whips with orders to flog publicly those deemed unruly. Late-coming civil-servants were required to do frog-jumps. The pathetic thing about this was that the government actually believed such charade constituted cogent public policy. Once Buhari left, Nigerians stopped queuing. So much for the war against indiscipline.

    The truth of the matter is that President Buhari is a retired military officer; he has little idea what constitutes effective public policy. As military strongman in the 1980s, he dealt with food shortages by sending soldiers to break into private warehouses and shops. He fought trade imbalances by taking Nigeria back to the stone age of trade by barter (counter-trade). He sought to extradite a Nigerian from Britain by drugging and crating him. These are the indices of a man bereft of modern and judicious policy ideas.

    Fighting corruption with corruption

    The same goes today for Buhari’s newfangled “war against corruption.” The whole thing is one big farce. The president clearly does not know what corruption means and how to fight it. As a result, he ends up with the contradiction of attempting to fight corruption with corruption; an exercise in futility.

    As military head of state in the 1980s, Buhari failed to understand that imposing retroactive decrees and killing Nigerians under them is corruption. Putting the Igbo vice-president in Kirikiri prisons, while placing the Fulani president under palatial house arrest, is corruption. Detaining people like Michael Ajasin in jail, even after they were discharged and acquitted by kangaroo courts, is corruption. Jailing journalists for telling the truth is corruption. Shepherding 53 suitcases of contraband unchecked through customs during a currency change exercise is corruption.

    Today, Buhari still does not understand that corruption is not limited to stealing money. The government claims to be fighting corruption, but at the same time it has been corrupting the political system. Disregarding the rule of law under a democratic system is corruption. Flouting judicial verdicts is corruption. Trying politicians on the pages of newspapers instead of in law courts is corruption. Unlawfully killing hundreds of Shiites in Kaduna is corruption. Detaining Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky and his wife for over four months without trial is corruption.

    In its one-year in office, the government has not established a single institution or passed any legislation necessary to fight corruption. The much-ballyhooed Whistle-blower Act is still blowing in the wind.
    Corruption cannot not be fought with human rights abuses and violation of the rule of law. It is better for the guilty to go free than for the innocent to be wrongfully accused and convicted.

    If President Buhari were truly interested in fighting corruption, he would be faithful to the pledge he made to Nigerians in his acceptance speech as president in April 2015. He said then: “I pledge myself and the government to the rule of law, in which none shall be so above the law that they are not subject to its dictates, and none shall be so below it that they are not availed of its protection.” If he was true to his word, he would not have gone on national television to declare Dasuki and Kanu guilty without the benefit of trial in a court of law.

    Not surprisingly, the State Department of the United States came out recently to accuse the government of the following abuses: “Vigilante killings; prolonged pretrial detention, often in facilities with poor conditions; denial of fair public trial; executive influence on the judiciary; infringement on citizens’ privacy rights; and restrictions on freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and movement.” These are not the indices of a government engaged in a war, or even a fight, against corruption.

    Promoting corruption
    The government claims to be fighting corruption but continues to create and sustain institutions that promote corruption. In its one-year in office, the government has not established a single institution or passed any legislation necessary to fight corruption. The much-ballyhooed Whistle-blower Act is still blowing in the wind. Instead the government has gone a long way to undermine anti-corruption institutions established under previous administrations.

    EFCC, ICPC, and DSS are all legacies of past administrations. Under Buhari, these organs of government have been converted into organs of the APC for the persecution of the political enemies of the president and his party. Under Obasanjo, the EFCC went after the members of the president’s party first and foremost. Under Buhari, the EFCC goes primarily after members of the opposition.

    Under Jonathan, INEC was a champion of free and fair elections. Under Buhari, INEC has become a champion of inconclusive elections. Under Jonathan, the privacy rights of Nigerians were respected. Under Buhari, the privacy rights of Nigerians are disrespected. Even the sanctity of the government house in Uyo, Akwa Ibom was violated by the DSS.

    Buhari’s anti-corruption double-standards are becoming legion. The president insists Abacha never stole any money, and then institutes the probe of the PDP for the mismanagement of the recovered non-existent Abacha loot. He accuses the PDP of using public funds to finance its 2015 election campaign, but fails to disclose where the APC obtained the money to finance its own very expensive election campaign. The APC commends INEC for running the ostensibly free and fair election that brought it to power in 2015; then it challenges in court every election conducted by the same INEC in the same election cycle that APC lost.

    The government fails to recognise that sustaining a wide margin between the official naira/dollar exchange-rate and the parallel market rate (currently 198 to 320); has created a major avenue for corruption in banking circles. It is corruption to employ the children, relatives and friends of members of the Nigerian political establishment into juicy positions in the Central Bank of Nigeria without the scantiest regard for professionalism. It is corruption to pad the 2016 budget with literally billions of naira of hidden fraudulent allocations; so much so that the budgetary process has become stalemated: the victim of a battle royal between a grasping presidency and a self-serving legislature.

    Corrupt APC politicians
    Surely, President Buhari knows he cannot fight corruption successfully while he is surrounded and sponsored by corrupt APC politicians. Like charity, an APC war against corruption must begin at home; in the APC. The president makes a song and dance about fighting corruption, yet his APC party is steeped in corruption.

    However, APC members are exempted from Buhari’s anti-corruption prosecution; except perhaps for Bukola Saraki who must be prosecuted for committing the same crime Bola Tinubu was absolved of. Saraki became Senate president by playing the same party-betrayal card Aminu Tambuwal played to the delight of the APC under Jonathan, which is now to the annoyance of the APC under Buhari.

    If Buhari were serious about fighting corruption, he would have fought against the dubious protocol within APC that all presidential aspirants must fork out a nomination fee of ₦27.5 million to the party. Costly elections lead to corrupt governments, because the excessive money spent is inevitably recouped from government coffers. But instead of fighting against this dubious protocol, Buhari claimed he was constrained to borrow the money from his bank. A few months later, the president declared he has ₦30 million in his bank account.

    The APC does not even pretend to be anti-corruption. Both the corrupt and the clean are welcome with open arms into the party. No politician with corruption allegations hanging over his head is ever denied membership of the APC. As a matter of fact, the party is a safe harbor for corrupt politicians seeking protection from APC persecution. A large chunk of APC membership is now made up of defunct PDP members; and the “navigator” of the APC is none other than Olusegun Obasanjo; PDP president for eight years.

    Apparently, if you are a member of the PDP, you are deemed by Buhari’s APC to be corrupt. But once you cross over to the APC, you automatically become squeaky clean.

    As military strongman, Buhari jailed Bisi Akande on corruption charges in the 1980s. But come 2014, the same Bisi Akande became the interim chairman of his anti-corruption APC. In 2015, Femi Gbajabiamila was the APC choice as Speaker of the House of Representatives. Today, he is the Majority Leader of the House. However, Gbajabiamila was convicted for professional misconduct by the Supreme Court of Georgia, U.S.A. in 2006 for defrauding a client of $25,000.

    While the government is busy grandstanding about anti-corruption in the press, its APC legislators are busy fighting over “juicy” committee positions in the House and Senate. Surely, “juicy” legislative committees are anathema to anti-corruption. What makes a committee “juicy” is precisely its scope for providing avenues for corrupt enrichment to legislators.

    Anti-corruption hypocrisy
    APC’s anti-corruption crusade has become so lopsided, it is clearly no more than an instrument for check-mating and decimating the opposition. The standard retort is to insist the singling out of PDP members is inevitable because the party had been in power for 16 years. However, some of the legacy parties of the APC, such as the ACN, have also been in power for long in the states. The EFCC has gone after PDP governors, such as Sule Lamido and Godswill Akpabio, but has ignored APC governors, such as Rotimi Amaechi and Babatunde Fashola.

    A judicial commission of enquiry set up by the Rivers state government maintained that, under former governor Rotimi Amaechi, a whopping ₦53 billion disappeared from the Rivers state reserve fund. However, the EFCC has not even invited Amaechi for questioning. Neither has he been excoriated in the government’s media war on corruption. On the contrary, Amaechi has been awarded the “juicy” new super-ministry of transport, which now includes road, rail, maritime and aviation.

    Similarly, Babatunde Fashola was accused of spending ₦78 million of government money upgrading his personal website. Among other allegations, he was said to have inflated the cost of the Lekki-Ikoyi link-bridge from N6 billion to ₦25 billion. However, the EFCC hears no evil and sees no evil in the Fashola case without even investigating it. Instead, Fashola was awarded the “juicy” new super-ministry of power, works and housing.

    Abubakar Audu was under prosecution by the EFCC for misappropriating ₦11b of state funds when he was governor of Kogi between 1999 and 2003. Nevertheless, he was nominated as APC governorship candidate for Kogi in 2015. In spite of the fact that the EFCC had filed charges of corruption against Timipre Sylva for defrauding Bayelsa state of ₦19b between 2009 and 2012; he nevertheless became the governorship candidate of the APC for Bayelsa in 2016.

    How can the government expect Nigerians to believe it is sincere in fighting corruption under such hypocritical circumstances?

    Anti-corruption public relations
    Anti-corruption is good public relations, but it is no substitute for a viable program for economic growth. In the final analysis, the government’s anti-corruption campaign is all sound and fury signifying nothing. Making a difference means fulfilling the government’s campaign promises. It means ending the petrol shortage. It means increasing electricity generation and distribution. It means providing jobs for unemployed youths. It means providing social security for the teeming poor. In these practical decibels of government, the APC is at sea. It simply has no idea what to do.

  • shakara123

    Reno, may your ink never go dry. This piece aptly puts into focus PMB credibility of fighting corruption, which to say he is not fighting corruption at all.

  • Alhajivinco

    Reno has a point. But what does he have to say about the monumental corruption that went on under Jonathan’s watch, which was bound to cripple us sooner or later as it is doing today?