More money has been allegedly
stolen under Goodluck Jonathan than there was money to steal.
Lai
Mohammed, APC National Publicity Secretary, is one of President Buhari’s
ministerial nominees. When he appeared for screening before the Senate, Senator
Godswill Akpabio made a wry observation. He said: “If I know (Lai Mohammed)
very well, he may have one or two propaganda to drop before he leaves here.”
His Senate colleagues burst into laughter because they understood what he meant.
Lai Mohammed is a master
propagandist. He is well-known to be economical with the truth. During the
election season, he cried wolf every other day, claiming to unearth new
“fantabulous” PDP plans to rig the election. One of the most outrageous was his
allegation that PDP used disappearing ink on the ballot papers of APC
supporters in Ekiti. He also alleged PDP imported one Gyora Berger from Israel,
with the mandate to jam all the card-readers in the North-West and the
North-East.
Our
distinguished Senators failed to ask Mohammed about these tall-tales for which
he is known and loved. They failed to determine if we are to expect more of the
same from him as Honourable Minister, or whether he intends to tamp it down a
little.
Anti-corruption APC
The APC is
now Nigeria’s self-styled anti-corruption party. Five months after the
elections, the only recognised public policy of the new Buhari administration
is anti-corruption. The government’s economic policy is anti-corruption. Its
social policy is anti-corruption. Its foreign policy is anti-corruption. Buhari
plans to revive our ailing economy with anti-corruption. He plans to fix our
broken educational system with anti-corruption. He also plans to fix our health
and social services with anti-corruption.
Hear him: “The monies we realise
from anti-corruption campaign will be adequately used to improve education in
the country.” “The money saved will finance jobs, health-care and the provision
of social safety net for the needy, weak and vulnerable of our land.” When can
we expect these dividends of anti-corruption to start competing with our
proceeds from oil?
Fabrication of data
The APC
has consistently exploited the gullibility of Nigerians. Recognising the low
level of education in the country, the party has gone all out to promote its
anti-corruption policy with lies. It went to town with the CBN governor’s
bombast, first that $50 billion was missing from the nation’s coffers; and
later that $20 billion was missing. Any Nigerian with a modicum understanding
of economics knows it is impossible for such huge sums to be missing in an
economy the size of Nigeria’s.
Professor
Soludo declared that, in the five years of Jonathan’s administration, no less
than 30 trillion naira had been stolen. The APC again went to town with this,
not minding that the total annual federal budget under Jonathan was a little
over 4.5 trillion naira. In short, more money has been allegedly stolen under
Goodluck Jonathan than there was money to steal.
This
fabrication of data did not stop once APC came to power. The APC claimed it met
an empty treasury. However, Dr. Abubakar Sulaiman, Deputy Chairman National
Planning Commission debunked this claim by revealing that Jonathan left behind
$30 billion. There was also some $2 billion left in the Excess Crude Account
and the Sovereign Wealth Fund; amounts that would have been more had the governors
not insisted some of it should be shared.
Buhari
says: “Jonathan’s ministers stole 150 billion dollars.” How exactly did Mr.
President come by this outlandish figure. These figures are just plucked out of
thin air. APC chieftains say one million barrels of oil was stolen everyday
under Jonathan. That cannot be because it is virtually half of Nigeria’s daily
oil-production.
Oshiomhole
says a senior official of the Obama administration revealed that a Jonathan
minister stole $6 billion dollars. How can one single individual possibly steal
that much? This claim has since been denied by the Americans. Oshiomhole also
claims a consultancy fee of 140 billion naira was paid for the Second Niger
Bridge when the total cost of the bridge is only 108 billion. APC chieftains
just keep coming up with outrageous figures, in order to keep burnishing their
bogus anti-corruption credentials.
Promises, promises
During the
election, APC ignored the parlous state of the economy and went to town,
promising Nigerians heaven on earth. It promised to pay a stipend of 5,000
naira monthly to the 25 million poorest Nigerians. This would come to 125
billion every month and 1.5 trillion every year. The party must have known it
was impossible to do this with a 4.5 trillion annual budget, least of all at a
time when oil is now selling for less than $50 a barrel. Nevertheless, it used
this promise to deceive the gullible.
APC
promised to provide free education; free daily meals for millions of Nigerian
public school children; free tertiary education; free healthcare and free
houses. All this have turned out to be fictitious. Buhari promised to create
740,000 jobs within a year in the 36 states of the federation, as well as one
million jobs for Igbo youths by revamping the huge coal deposits in Enugu State
for electricity generation. However, in five months, his administration has
created no new jobs. Instead, it has lost many by its go-slow and do-nothing
stance.
Reneging on promises
Once the
election was “won,” Buhari declared on TV Continental that, unlike the Quran
and the Bible, the APC position during the election is subject to change.
Suddenly,
the APC found it necessary to deny the two key documents on which it had based
its presidential campaign: “My Covenant with Nigerians,” and “One Hundred
Things Buhari Will Do in 100 Days.” These documents bore the official APC logo,
were promoted on the APC website and were used extensively on the campaign
trail by APC officials. But once the election was over, the APC reneged on the
promises made in them.
Garba
Shehu said: “I did not fund or authorise any of those. I can equally bet my
last kobo that candidate Buhari did not see or authorise those publications.”
Lai Mohammed swore that: “Buhari never promised to do anything in 100 days,
that’s the honest truth.” However, the 100 days document was the handiwork of
the policy and research directorate of the APC presidential campaign, headed by
former Governor Kayode Fayemi.
Buhari
himself introduced the Covenant document in the first person. He said: “This
covenant is to outline my agenda for Nigeria and provide a bird’s eye-view of
how we intend to bring about the change that our country needs and deserves.
The covenant is derived from the manifesto of my party, the All Progressives
Congress. It however represents my pledge to you all when I become your
president.” But once he became president, Buhari now claims he had nothing to
do with the document.
Assets declaration
In a
document titled, “I Pledge to Nigeria,” Buhari declared: “I pledge to publicly
declare my assets and liabilities, (and) encourage all my appointees to
publicly declare their assets and as a pre-condition for appointment.” However,
after the election, Femi Adesina, the president’s special adviser, denied the
president ever made such a promise.
He said:
“You need to get his words right, go and check all that the president said
during the campaign, in no place would you see it attributed to him as a
person. But then there is a document by his party, the All Progressives
Congress, saying he would declare publicly, so we need to set that right, it’s
a declaration by his party.”
When the
president finally succumbed and declared his assets publicly, he failed to
disclose their value. The president had led Nigerians to believe he had barely
one million naira to his name. He claimed to be so cash-strapped, he had to
borrow 27.5 million naira to pay for his APC presidential nomination papers.
But then 30 million naira suddenly appeared in his bank account in his assets
declaration.
We were
told he has only two houses; one in Daura; the other in Kaduna. But then his
assets declaration show he not only has a house in Abuja, he has four other
houses as well. It was also disclosed that he has an undeveloped land in Port
Harcourt and an undisclosed number of shares in banks. The president also has
farms, a ranch and livestock. Before his election, Buhari had only 150 cows:
after his election, these had jumped to 270.
Lying is corruption
What is
obviously lost to the APC is that there is a definite contradiction between
fighting corruption and telling lies. Corruption cannot be fought with
deception. It is a classic principle of jurisprudence that “he who comes into
equity must come with clean hands.” But APC clearly does not understand this at
all. It is remarkable that the very party that fought an election by taking the
moral high ground of being anti-corruption is the one that has shown the most
blatant inclination to twist, bend, distort and obfuscate the truth at every
turn.
By its
actions, the APC is a party of lies and liars. The party claims to be a vehicle
of change, nevertheless, it presented a 72 year-old as its presidential
candidate, a man who had been in power 30 years previously. Buhari himself
accepted the mantle of progressive change, nevertheless he nominated Audu Ogbeh
as minister, a man who was minister some 30 years previously.
For APC,
change means recycling old PDP politicians; avoiding the young; and relegating
women into obscurity. Change means ensuring the principal organs of government:
the executive, legislature and the judiciary, are now all monopolised by the
North. It means the key staffers of Aso Rock are now virtually all Northerners.
It means the INEC Chairman is now from the North, the same region as the
president.
Change for
the APC is declaring Rotimi Amaechi innocent until proven guilty; while
declaring Diezani Allison-Madueke guilty until proven innocent. Change means
the president can overlook the South-East in appointments.
Clearly,
this is not the change Nigerians were led to expect. This is not the kind of
change APC promised Nigerians while seeking our votes. What the party has done
is to betray the trust of Nigerians. To put it bluntly, Nigerians were deceived
into putting the APC in power. This makes it all the more anomalous that the
same APC claims to be the party of anti-corruption. Someone needs to tell APC
chieftains that telling lies is corruption.
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