WITNESSING THE BIRTH OF FELONY

Atiku Abubakar, the former Vice President of Nigeria has a new song.  It is called “Restructuring”.  Even if it is remix of the original, the former vice president is singing it with gusto wherever and whenever he got the opportunity of being given a microphone.  I called Atiku’s new found song as a ‘remix’ of an old wine because the song have been around since after the annulment of the June 12^th 1993 presidential elections in which the late MKO Abiola was coasting to victory.  Some people believed Babangida annulled the elections to favour the north – and this was farthest from the truth.  The likes of Atiku Abubakar benefitted immensely from the cacophony of noise generated by the miscarriage of justice done to the whole country by Babangida.  The media-induced power shift was what made it possible for Atiku to be catapulted from a seeker of the office of a governor to that of a vice president.  From then hence, Atiku has been battling to become the president of the country.  His doggedness is commendable.

In the recent past, Atiku has been going round the country trumpeting the restructuring song like a child with a new toy.  I find it strange that while he was the vice president their government convoked a national conference (whatever its shortcomings) to among other things, look at the political and economic structure of the country.  I can’t remember Atiku taking a position on the issues then raised one way or the other, may be because at that point in their relationship with Obasanjo he still thought the old fox from Abeokuta will still hand over the country to him at the end of their constitutionally guaranteed tenure.  I am also very much interested in this restructuring song only if the lyrics will be made clear to me.

Atiku Abubakar has never hidden his ambition of ruling the country and has always believed that he is the best prepared for the job.  But he has constantly mismanaged his chances of being numero uno.  When the Muhammadu Buhari campaign organisation was set up, Atiku was made the campaign co-ordinator for the north – this was after receiving a bloody nose from Buhari during the primaries in Lagos.  Bola Ahmed Tinubu was also appointed as the co-ordinator south.  Atiku in his wisdom decided to stay put in the comforts of his Asokoro residence while Tinubu was a permanent fixture in Buhari’s political hustling, be it in the north or southern part of the country.  At a point in time during the campaigns when a BBC reporter sought to know why he was not participating in the campaign, his answer seem strange to me.  He claimed not to be invited for a campaign that I believed he was supposed to do the invitation.  This was after Goodluck Jonathan, the then president and presidential candidate of the PDP, visited him at home.

With a government in place in Abuja and Atiku realising he has lost any influence or relevance in the new government, he withdrew to Yola and practically took over the state government from those who believed they are the kingmakers and therefore should call the shots.  With his coterie of provincial advisers and close aides, he then cut his new album – restructuring.  By all means let’s restructure our polity.  What I am yet to get from him is the “how”.  I have been an advocate of restructuring Nigeria for a long time and my own view was to break up the country along the amalgamation lines.  But this was before the atmosphere was poisoned by ethnic bigots.  Most of those advocating for restructuring may not comprehend the enormity of what they are calling for.  Nobody has come out with a template of how the country should be restructured beyond the mere lip-service they pay the concept.  I hope Atiku is not just trying to “belong”. 

I have come to the conclusion that those calling for restructuring are mostly made up of people who lost relevance in a wider political pond and chose to become ethnic champions with the hope of being relevant in a fractionalised Nigeria.  With the heightened ethnic and religious assertiveness among and between our diverse groups, we may be unwittingly setting ourselves to an ethnic and religious conflagration that may ultimately consume us.  South Sudan is a good example.  This is a country made up of almost 99% Christians but failed to find common ground in their religion.  Ethnicists are holding the country hostage, not caring about the death and destruction ravaging the country.

When I think of Atiku and his lack of policy consistency, I cringe to think of him as the president of Nigeria, in spite of the fact that Goodluck Jonathan has lowered the bar of leadership.  Atiku thinks of himself as a great leader.  Greatness in my opinion is an exaggeration and like all exaggerations of dimensions, it connotes a corollary of emptiness.  Greatness makes me think of an inflated balloon when I try to associate it with Atiku.

I don’t think Atiku or his advisers care about the sufferings or feelings of the solid bulk of our working classes which support society; or the souls of the common people, of the countless anonymous ones in the uniformity of brotherhood.  If you believe Atiku’s call for restructuring is for them, then you need to think again.  It is only a felony against their aspirations.

Those calling for restructuring of the country have been conditioned to think a particular region or group are favoured by the present structure.  Yes, the present structure favours the fat cats amongst us who feed fat off the government and most of those calling for restructuring, Atiku inclusive.  Let them be crusaders in the cause of the underprivileged.  Not by the decibels of their noise making shall be judged, but by their impact on the society and by those they serve.  Let us stand united in this spirit and crush the felony of the privileged against the underprivileged. 

JIBRIN IN THE REALM OF VALUES

These are hard times for most Nigerians.  A little over a year ago, Nigerians trooped out in their millions to vote for change and change they got.  The All Progressives Congress (APC) campaigned on the “change” mantra and from the results of last year’s elections, the generality of Nigerians seemed to have bought into it.  The problem is that we have failed to key-into it.  Most of us were only thinking of personnel changes and not attitudinal and this is where our problems arises.  We were thinking of only changing Diezani and bringing in Nchokoh for him to start where she stopped – business as usual. 

This misconception of change is not only by the poor and the wretched but by almost all our elected officials bar the President.  We are today treated to stories of crass theft, euphemistically called “budget padding”.  The forty thieves who, in the cover of the night, shared our commonweal among them are now dragging each other in the public square as to who is the saint and who is the devil.  The media is making too much fuss about Abdulmumini Jibrin’s new found vocation of fighting corruption.  I am not quite sure both Jibrin and the media are aware of what the whole thing is all about.  Fighting corruption, I mean.  Being honest and possessing the ability to live aboard board.  To vie for political office because one wants to serve, have the ability to serve and has something to offer and not just to be close to the cookie jar.

It took ages of living a Spartan life by people like President Buhari to be regarded as perpendicular; this was not achieved on the pages of newspapers or screens of smartphones and tablets.  There is a deliberate pattern and rhythm to such a lifestyle.  It doesn’t happen overnight or when one lost an office and feel it is convenient to become a whistle blower.  We had the likes of Dr. Usman Bugaje and Dr. Haruna Yerima in the same House of Representative.  These were people who went to the House of Assembly with the intention of reforming the system but what did we do with them?  We voted them out after just one term and replaced them with the likes of Jibrin.

Jibrin knew he was going down from the moment the President refused to assent to the Appropriation Bill transmitted to him by the national assembly in April.  He had known quite well when he sent text messages to all Chairmen and Deputy Chairmen of Standing Committees asking them to remain steadfast in “justifying” their reports, especially in the media.  This was after he made additional “insertions”, as he called it, to the budget without the knowledge of the same standing Committees.  So he knew he was going down; what he cannot stomach is his removal as Chairman of the Appropriation Committee.  What his pride and greed cannot take is the lack of another opportunity to “insert” projects not meant to be executed in next year’s budget.

His unrelenting media war against those he accused of being corrupt is a sign that he knows he is finished as a lawmaker.  That is the ought to, anyway and so it ought to be.  He is part of a system which he is now trying to destroy just because the system appears to have jettisoned him and not for any altruistic reasons.  Such a vicious system hardly forgives any of its beneficiaries who choose to expose its sleazy activities.  It is therefore a matter of life and death for Jibrin to continue to live the persona he is striving to create for himself.  He needs a prestige he don’t deserve; an achievement he didn’t accomplish; to save a name he never had or earned the right to bear.  I am of the firm believe that the things he is now preaching are farthest from his mind.

It is my humble opinion that Jibrin and Dogara et al, are superficially varied manifestation of the same thing.  Of the same intentions ab initio.  Selfishness is their only guiding moral principle.  They have worked together in harmony through all the paddings and “insertions”, each giving-in to the other’s selfish demand, though Jibrin was the one who pushed himself forward and hogged the limelight when the President refused to sign the budget.

The culprits are the people.  I failed to see any hint of rationality in what they now respond to.  I have given up all hope of understanding them.  I am very convinced that Jibrin and his co-travellers in politics represent so impertinent, so vicious a fraud that to suspend the evidence of my eyes is beyond my elastic capacity.  To canonise Jibrin as an anti-corruption crusader will be sacrilege.

AS THE NYAKOS AND FINTIRI APPEAR BEFORE ABUJA FEDERAL HIGH COURTS

The former governor of Adamawa State, Murtala Nyako, and his son, Abdul-aziz, are currently facing trial at a Federal High Court in Abuja for different cases of alleged corruption. The Nyakos and others are standing trial in a 37-count charge bordering on criminal conspiracy, stealing, abuse of office and money laundering to the tune of N29 billion preferred against them by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as they are alleged to have at various times between 2011 and 2013, used five companies – Blue Opal Nigeria limited, Sebore Farms & Extension Limited, Pagoda Fortunes Limited, Towers Assets Management Limited and Crust Energy Limited to commit the alleged fraud. As their trial continued, former acting governor of Adamawa State, Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri was also arraigned before an Abuja High Court on similar but different charges. Mr. Fintiri was last month arraigned by the EFCC on a five-count charge bordering on money laundering. He was said to have defrauded the Adamawa government to the tune of N970 million and 4.8 million dollars when he was the governor of the state for three months. As is to be expected, each of the cases has been unique in hearing and other processes that will lead to the determination of the case. In the case involving Abdulaziz Nyako, the court last month, ordered the EFCC to pay the sum of N12.5 million being exemplary damages in favour of the senator for unlawful freezing of his account and illegal detention. This is because the judge, Justice Gabriel Kolawole, held while delivering judgment in the fundamental rights enforcement suit, that Senator Nyako, was detained in the custody of the commission in excess of the period prescribed by law. The court in the same judgment also held that declaring the younger Nyako ‘wanted’ without evidence of crime is tantamount to a breach of his fundamental human rights by the EFCC. Justice Evoh Chukwu of the Federal High Court Abuja in a similar vein blamed the EFCC for delaying judgment on former governor Nyako’s case. This was after the counsel to Nyako, Yakubu Maikyau said they needed to study a document tendered by the EFCC counsel because it was voluminous before going on with the cross-examination which justice Chukwu sustained explaining that the document should have been served to Nyako’s counsel, Maikyau long before now, adding that the fresh document amounts to delay of judgment.  But before the conclusion of the case, Justice Chukwu who was handling the trial of the former Adamawa State governor and his two children as well as other major cases like the trial of former officials of the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF), Sani Lulu, Taiwo Ogunjobi and others died. The Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice Ibrahim Auta, then re-assigned the case to Justice Okon Abang following the death of Chukwu in June. The case was initially scheduled to commence afresh by way of re-arraignment on July 7. However, the court could not sit due to the extension of the Eid-el-Fitri holiday announced by the Federal Government on July 5, further delaying the case as the EFCC will now have to re-arraign the former governor and his son before Justice Okon Abang on September 12, 2016. Even as the matter has dragged due to no fault of the accused persons, it is pertinent to point out that the delay in dispensing with the case, which the late judge complained about is set to further aggravate with the processes, as the new judge handling the case needs time to appraise himself with the facts of the matter. But of serious concern is another coincidence, having to do with the fact that the wife of the former governor, who is a step mother to the other accused person, who are both being arraigned, is also a judge in a federal High Court in Abuja. Previous cases that are similar in nature have raised concerns in the past and it will not be out of place to ask certain questions if only to ensure a fulfillment of a vital requirement in the dispensation of justice, which is seeing that justice is not only done but seemed to be done. Candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the last governorship election in Rivers State, Dr. Dakuku Peterside, not long ago raised an issue out of a similar coincidence when the wife of a former governor of the state, Justice Mary Odili, who is believed to be close to Governor Nyesom Wike, a party in a matter that went to the Supreme Court, was serving as a judge when the apex court delivered its judgment. Peterside said "credible information" confirmed that Wike had met with the Supreme Court justices that sat on the matter at different places before the judgment was delivered stressing that Wike himself confirmed during his thanksgiving service that former governor of the state, Dr. Peter Odili, and his wife, Mary (a justice of the Supreme Court), were his advisers. He said, "Despite my acceptance and temperate public comments on the verdict of the Supreme Court on January 27, 2016, Wike, by his unguarded utterance last Sunday, seems to give credence to the pervading doubt being expressed on the judgment in public space especially in the media”. "For the record, in his speech at the church service, Wike probably forgot that he was on live telecast when he stated: 'Let me thank our former governor, Dr. Peter Odili (husband of Supreme Court Justice, Mary Odili). He will call me midnight to tell me what to do....he will say go so so place." I took all his advice, and here we are today." Though Wike reacted by saying Peterside was crying wolf and trying to incite President Muhammadu Buhari and the military against the governor and the people of the state, the point made by Peterside cannot be waved aside. Parties usually feel uncomfortable if they notice any development that would erode their confidence in the impartiality of the courts and the court, when such issues are raised usually obliges in order to give a sense of justice to all. It is to avoid such accusations and doubts in the judicial system that it becomes imperative to point out that having both Nyako and his son, tried before an Abuja Federal High Court when a member of their family is a judge within the same precinct should call for concern. Not only that, but there is also the need to draw attention to the case of the former acting governor, Fintiri, coming in an Abuja Federal High Court for the same reason. Fintiri it was who played a major role as speaker of the Adamawa State House of Assembly that led to the impeachment of Nyako in 2014. If the coincidence in the case of Nyako and his son can be ignored on the basis that the facts of the case would speak for itself, that of Fintiri should bother any unbiased mind due to the no love lost relationship between him and members of the Nyako family. It would therefore not be out of place to allay the fears of those who for good reasons harbor such concerns in order to deepen the faith of the citizenry in the judiciary.

ADAMAWA STATE: LET THE GAMES BEGIN

There has been a great deal of discussion of late about the “re-defection” of Nuhu Ribadu and Marcus Gundiri back to the APC fold.  The cacophony of voices and the amount of bile generated is enough to drown a walrus.  It is causing the APC boat to list and my prayer is that this will not cause the boat to capsize.  It is exactly these same issues that caused the PDP boat to go under, which of course the APC profited from.  At least in Adamawa State.

A year ago, the people of the state entrusted the APC with the governance of the state and by extension their destiny, despite the presence of “heavyweights” in other parties – Nuhu Ribadu in PDP, Gundiri in SDP and Ahmed Modibbo in the PDM.  The trust reposed on the party and its gubernatorial candidate is an extraordinary responsibility that most of our politicians don’t appreciate.  This piece is not about condemning or condoning anybody or any person’s acts of commission or omissions but only a contribution to the debate on the motives of our politicians in moving from one boat to another without compunction. 

It is no news that the PDP boat has long capsized.  This may be attributed to its baggage of impunity, haughtiness, immorality and other unwanted gear it loaded from all the ports it passed along in its sixteen years of kleptocratic governance.  The PDP, which continuously ruled Adamawa State between 1999 to 2015 hasn’t experienced smooth sail since 2005 when the fight between Obasanjo and Atiku Abubakar kicked off.  The electorate swept aside the PDP in 2015 and voted in the APC.  In my estimation, the PDP in Adamawa State simply morphed into the APC, with all its baggage, and now the chickens appear to be coming home to roost.

The “re-defection” of Nuhu Ribadu to the APC appear to have ruffled some unsettled feathers in the state because some local politicians, who have been calling the shorts and flexing their local political muscles, in the state believe they will lose their relevance once the more urbane, cosmopolitan Ribadu and the other defectors get settled in. The noises coming out of Yola is akin to punching the panic button or waving a red flag at a mad bull.  Let’s look at the whole brouhaha and try to interrogate the reasons behind the frothing in the mouth by government officials.

Nuhu Ribadu and Marcus Gundiri along with some of their supporters decamped from the PDP and the SDP respectively ‘back’ to the APC last week.  This should not be motive enough for all the spilling of blood we are witnessing.  The unstated reasons may not be unconnected with the control of the party by the various camps trying to position themselves for 2019.  Many people believe Nyako is trying to reinvent himself through Ribadu while BD Lawal, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, is trying to get a foothold, which he now lacks, through Gundiri.  Those who are jittery can be found in the Atiku camp, which hitherto have been enjoying total control of the APC in the state with unqualified support from most of the citizens, whose choices have been narrowed.  To someone like Atiku, the control of the party and government in Adamawa state is his main political life support since his sacking from Abuja by Bola Tinubu.

The Atiku crowd may flatter itself in believing that no one will wrestle control of the party because they are in control of government machinery.  They should ask Goodluck Jonathan how ineffectual that could be.  The haste in punching the panic button by top government operatives the moment it became apparent that Ribadu and Gundiri are ‘re-defecting’ is indicative of the insecurity of those pulling the levers of governance in the state.  Any government worth its name will gladly welcome the duo into its fold – as a matter of fact go out of its ways to woo them.  I am at a lost as to what the group is scared of.  Nuhu Ribadu may be a brand name in the fight of corruption in Nigeria, but that brand has lost its lustre long ago when he chose to associate his name with those he accused of being monumentally corrupt and inept in the past.  For him to be relevant again, he must prove he is a reborn Ribadu of days gone by, when his name struck fear in the hearts of thieves.  He still has three years to do so. But then those associated with his re-entry into APC are still before the courts to clear their names on allegations bordering on what he fought against as a policeman.  He will be well advised to avoid repeating his 2015 faux par.

As to Marcus Gundiri and his alleged sponsor, the SGF, the jury is still out.  Gundiri has been a constant occurrence on Adamawa political landscape but easily fades away immediately elections are held.  We have seen this same pattern of politicking with both the late Wilson Sabiya and Dr. Bala Takaya.  The moment elections are over they vanish into thin air only to resurface when the bell is tolled for polls.  The stress of playing opposition politics, which may keep the government on its toes, is not for them; ideologies and manifestoes are something for “lesser” politicians who don’t have a pool of votes.  I hope they do not intend to play such politics that was their wont in the past because the days of such archaic thinking is long gone.  Though the SGF have been active in politics at the national level, he is barely known politically in Adamawa State and this may be his opportunity to make him known.

The PDP listed and capsize because we reached a stage in our political development that Nigerians began to believe that getting the party’s ticket for any elective office is sine quo non for winning any office; many believe that the party is “undefeatable” and “indestructible”. Many people joined the party in droves for fear of being left out of the “loop”.  The weight of those who were running to the umbrella coupled with its hated culture capsized the boat.

I am afraid the APC is listing now, particularly in Adamawa state where everybody want to sit on the starboard while the stern is empty at the moment.  The first shots of 2019 have been fired.  We have a three year marathon competition ahead of us.  We will see who are the long distance runners and who are merely 100 metres dash specialists.

Just my thoughts, anyway.

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.