HIDING BEHIND A FINGER

I have hesitated to acknowledge the misgovernance in my home state – Adamawa – for some very personal reason though this may sound contradictory to some as I have been an advocate of good governance right from the inception of the current political dispensation in 1999.  Too often jokers appear on the state’s political landscape, strutting around with bravado and flexing their muscles, forgetting the ephemeral nature of power.  I hesitate to comment on such characters for the simple reason of being careful not to ascribe to them a significance they do not deserve.

Freedom of speech is sacred and this includes the freedom to waste one’s time.  There would have been no harm in such talk – beyond the fact that one could find so many endeavours more profitable than writing on a government that seems to have nothing to its credit apart from grandstanding on the pages of newspapers and even this had to be done through phantom organisations.  It wouldn’t have been necessary to pen this piece, if the ludicrous had not become tragic and fraudulent.

The people of the state suffers through the crass and trite actions of the government that to all intents and purposes is piloted by the Chief of Staff to the governor, whose concept of governance is the display of raw power acquired through serial betrayals.  There is an air about the inanities done, which the governor and his COS do, with an “in your face” attitude.  You can see it in their smirking faces; feel it in their insolent voices whenever they deem it expedient to address the people.  Typical example is where the COS was forced to explain to aggrieved farmers what happened to the N2billion collected from the CBN on their behalf.  The delivery of the “explanation” was uttered as “revelations” and insolently demanding acceptance by those who felt cheated by the government and its operatives; it was done with an air of conscious effrontery, giving the impression that the speaker knows what he is doing but all that came through was a display of boastful power.

Two weeks to the inauguration of a new government and the subsequent house cleaning expected to take place in all government houses across the country, the Ngilari administration is running from pillar to post trying to create the impression that it is under siege from only God knows where.  Bala Ngilari and his advisers are turning Ahmadu Fintiri and the State House of Assembly as the bogeyman the people must fear and run away from.  We have seen increased media visibility and hype from groups, which the administration believe they can hide behind, and poke their sticky fingers into the eyes of the people of the state.  In trying to run from their shadows, Bala Ngilari and particularly his Chief of Staff are unwittingly creating evil – an evil that may ultimately consume them.  The deleterious effect of their action will only further push the people of the state further than they already are from them.

It happens, upon rare occasions, that perfidy too great to comprehend is visited on hapless people.  Here, we can observe the evil that is crushing our people.  When Fintiri, with a sense of humanitarian duty, made a mighty effort to rescue the people of Adamawa from the clutches of nepotism, underdevelopment and kleptocracy, the egotism and insecurity of a small group blew that unique opportunity for the people to experience physical development and drink from the fountain of good governance for the first time in all the years that democracy was restored.

When the state is torn by gigantic problems, seeking answers to questions that hold the survival of the citizens and improvement of their living standards, the governor and his Chief of Staff are busy hiring mudslingers to attempt to diminish the stature of the Speaker.  His crime?  His singular act of undressing them for the public to see them in their nakedness.

Chubado Tijjani, as most people have not heard of and most likely may not hear of again after the expiration of this government, is the Chief of Staff to Bala Ngilari.  When listening to people talk about the Chief of Staff, I became interested in speculating the reasons that make men so anxious to debase themselves.  Have you noticed how righteous he sounded when addressing the issue of the N2billion agric loan collected from the Central Bank?  Have you observed the patronising inflection in his voice while trying to justify this particular theft?

New facts emerged as to the scandalous level the Ngilari administration is dragging the state downhill.  His COS, who is behaving like the de facto governor, impetuously tried to justify stealing.  I don’t know how one can describe a situation where the COS claimed that the government spent N700million to “feed” Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).  Kashim Shettima, the Borno State governor, who stoically bore the brunt of the insurgency that displaced the people and the chief host to the largest number of IDPs among all the states in the northeast, spends N4million monthly to feed them.  Contrast this with Adamawa government’s claim of spending N700million.

The recourse to the public court with a rehash of half-truths by the government is pathetic.  The organisations put up by the government to denigrate Fintiri and the House of Assembly and who go by different names are neither progressive nor have any integrity.  They are just guns for hire who litter the state looking to survive anyhow possible.  They would have done well by advising Ngilari to take Fintiri to the EFCC just like the Estate agent who bought them two apartments in Dubai and who, in their characteristic parsimoniousness refused to pay him his fees, took them to the Commission and for which the Chief of Staff has been a regular guest to the Commission in the past two weeks.  The Speaker would then have been made to account for all the “financial recklessness” he committed in his eighty-six days in office.  The attempt to factionalise the legislature is in bad taste so also is projecting Ngilari as a meek and humble person – so also is Jonathan but look at where Jonathan has taken us.  Ngilari’s second-rate imitation of Fayose’s rupture of the legislature failed because many people saw through the ruse.

Fintiri empanelled a Judicial Commission of Inquiry, headed by a High Court Judge to look into the financial transaction of the Nyako administration, which Ngilari was a deputy governor.  I strongly advise Ngiiari to do the same rather than engaging in this cat and mouse game.

Fintiri is guilty in my book.  He is very guilty.  He shouldn’t have embarked on projects that were neglected by a government in which Ngilari was a deputy governor; he shouldn’t have made the mistake of demystifying governance by running an open and all-inclusive government when he knew very well that it is anathema to very many people.  He is guilty as charged and must therefore bear this cross for the rest of his life.

While our brothers and sisters are saddled with hunger, diseases, homelessness, murdered hopes and aspirations, the government is funding phantom organisations with the connivance of a media destroyed by the ubiquitous brown envelop to bring down a man whose superiority over them is not in doubt.  What are they hiding?  For now, it is only the Chief of Staff that is summoned by the EFCC to explain some financial transaction.  Soon the toga of immunity will be removed from Ngilari’s shoulders – then we will know how meek or humble he is.

What are they afraid of? What or what are they trying to hide by deflecting people’s attention from their government’s atrocities?  You can’t hide behind a finger.

THE ABLE AS INFERIOR TO THE INCOMPETENT

Adamawa is a state that has been serially raped since the inception of the current political dispensation sixteen years ago with a break here and a respite there.  While most states are moving forward the state appears to be perpetually in the reverse gear moving downhill.  The last eight years have been harrowing to the citizens of the state to say the least.  The state was in the firm grip of carpetbaggers for seven of the eight years and was briefly rescued by some dream merchants who attempted to resuscitate it by Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) technique.   The dream merchants were shunted aside by selfish, incompetent, power-grabbing allies of the carpetbaggers and sadly enough their inheritors are about to take over from the current crop of pretenders.  These pretenders aren’t ready to go quietly though they know they have time barely enough for packing their belongings out of government houses and offices.  In the last days of their administration, they are more concerned with surpassing the records of Stella Oduah, the delectable former Aviation Minister of the bulletproof BMW fame.

It makes no sense for a government that is on its way out and effectively in its lame duck period to recklessly “buy” two SUVs for the scandalous sum of N180million – irrespective of whether the vehicles are missile or bulletproof.  To top it all, another 50 Hilux pick-ups were bought for N400million.  Are you serious?  This nonsense taking place under the watch of a supposed ‘man of God’?  Anyway, this is beside the point.  The serious stuff began with trying to circumvent due process while committing this economic felony.  In clumsily trying to cover their assess, the government of Bala Ngilari sacked the director of the state’s Public Procurement Bureau and ganged up with disgruntled political pimps in the State House of Assembly to re-enact the 16 is greater than 19 doctrine of Goodluck Jonathan.  Nine out of twenty five members of the state Assembly were allowed to use the Government House Banquet Hall as temporary legislative chamber to purportedly “impeach” the Speaker, Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri and “elect” Jerry Kumdisi as the new “speaker”.  Ngilari, a lawyer with almost 40 years post call experience, superintended this illegality.

The drama unfolding in the state in the past two weeks made me looked again at the jokers in the Adamawa Government House, masquerading as leaders – Ngilari and his foot soldiers.  I came to the conclusion that they are either poor students of history or they failed to grasp the significance of democracy or even the offices they are occupying.  My conclusion is that their behaviour is a concrete illustration of a comic paradox.  Instead of responding to the essence of his responsibilities, he is devoting his time and public resources in trying to trivialise his predecessor; beholden to a perceived struggle for the control of the soul of local politics in their local government, where his predecessor is the top dog.  And this does not have any direct bearing on good governance in the state.  The current altercation between the executive and the legislature, stoked by the executive’s financial recklessness and administrative impunity, is an alibi by the governor and his side kick to “deal” with the speaker once and for all, thereby making him a political ‘nobody’ in their domain.  It is my believe that the speaker has transcended where they are trying to reach and far away from their grasp.  His political influence spreads across the state.  Ngilari and his sidekick only succeeded in diminishing the status of the governor of Adamawa state.

Bala Ngilari and his people (including the carpet baggers and the inheritors) are scared shitless of Fintiri and his band of dream merchants because in his short spell as acting governor, he has succeeded in showing the people of the state that government can work.  He went beyond the probable and made the people see the possible.  His style of governance was devoid of contempt, which the people were used to through impunity by past administrations.

The intrinsic significance of the Ngilari government lies in the philosophical fact they understand nothing about governance and government.  They swim in emptiness, content in the power they wield, though they do not understand how it could be used to better the lives of the ordinary man, whose love they crave.  Unlike Fintiri, the man they are trying to bring down.  Thus it is only the crass opportunist or ignorant that may think they are worthy of the offices they now occupy through legal gymnast and Other Peoples’ Interest (OPI).  In my view, they are just a corollary of astronomical incompetence whose sole achievement in the final analysis may be summarised thus – “they came, saw, were overwhelmed and perished while all the time being engaged in trying to destroy the legacies of their betters’.  They will perpetually be beholden to the unconditional acceptance of the premise that if I cannot perform, let the house come down on all of us.  They want us to celebrate mediocrity as being superior to competence; forcing the people of Adamawa state by sheer propaganda to accept “non-acceptance” – the sacking of the Director general of the Public Procurement Bureau and Jerry Kumdisi as leader of the legislative arm of government.  Accepting that 2 SUVs costs the government N180million.

Ngilari should be made aware that in this office one had to be competent – there are no alternatives or mitigating considerations.  But our governor failed to realise that the acceptability granted his predecessor by the people of the state was earned and was neither coerced nor contrived.  The acceptability of Fintiri wasn’t based on affection but as a recognition of his sterling qualities as a leader.

To paraphrase one philosopher – it is not my intention to be a fly swatter, but when the fly acquires delusions of grandeur, we have to blow the whistle on the pretentious noise made by the fly.  The actions of this particular fly since perching on the exalted seat of the governor of Adamawa state amounts to political embezzlement, which may just be a cover for incompetence and thievery.  It appears deliberate malice has taken control of the thinking faculties of Bala Ngilari and his key advisers.  They should be well advised to mark their time and disappear from our political radar.  I hate writing obituaries but I hope this is not an eulogy to Ngilari’s political career.

The able can never be inferior to the incompetent.