For God sake! How can a man who, according to Professor Wole Soyinka, “Built a career out of human rights abuses” suddenly become the change agent for the New Nigeria?
He has become the man who will cure Nigeria of all afflictions such as corruption, insecurity, etc. The only message coming out from Buhari is: “I will fight corruption and insecurity,” but he has been short on details on how he plans to achieve these twin objectives. He is yet to give Nigerians an economic blue-print, five weeks to the presidential election.
In the face of dwindling revenue, General Buhari is yet to articulate an innovative, and creative road map on how to move the economy forward.
It is not enough for Buhari and his party to tell us that he will fight corruption without telling us how. Of course, that is the easiest claim any politician can make but the statement cannot be taken as a commitment. It is all talk, and talk is cheap if it is not backed by an action plan which is currently missing.
For the life of me, why should the APC National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun brand every Nigerian who opposes Buhari’s presidential ambition as corrupt? Is that not a gratuitous insult? Is this not a typical example of an elder behaving badly? Why are these people so self-righteous when we see how corrupt they are too?
My worst fears were confirmed after reading news reports credited to the APC chairman recently that Buhari will not probe past corrupt acts because he wants to draw a line in the sand and move on. I chuckled and then laughed. If this is Buhari’s position, how then will he fight corruption, when even before the election, he has given a blanket amnesty to those accused of being corrupt?
Can anyone spot the contradiction in the public message of “change” and the utterances of the APC leadership? In one breath, they accuse anyone who is opposed to Buhari’s ambition as corrupt- and in another breath, Chairman Oyegun stated that Buhari won’t probe past corrupt acts.
Hear him: “The only people I can think of, who will fear the Buhari presidency are those who do not want change; they are those who want to continue with business as usual; they are those who want to continue to profit from the level of corruption in the society.
“The message will be clear – whatever you engaged in before that was detrimental to the people of this country, please stop it. There will be a line drawn in the sand; on one the part is the past, the other side is the future.” How will this deter people from corrupt acts if- past crimes carry no weight of punishment?
If the signals from Odigie-Oyegun are anything to go by, then the clamour for change by the APC may end up just giving Nigerians more of the same or just selling a bad apple disguised as an orange.
Now hear Buhari in Port Harcourt where he went to launch his campaign: “I will send corrupt people to Kirikiri.” Really? (Probably without trial). That would have made sense if the PTF probe report wasn’t so damning.
But unfortunately, Buhari’s Spartan incorruptible and austere credentials being trumpeted by Oyegun and his supporters have been ripped apart with his indictment in the management of the Petroleum Support Trust Fund, PTF.
Based on the probe report conducted in 1999-2000, the PTF under Buhari’s supervision was mismanaged. The report was however neither made public nor was it acted upon by former President Obasanjo.
In its summary, the committee had advised Obasanjo to “set up a high powered judicial panel to recover huge public funds allocated to the PTF and to take necessary action against any officer, consultant or contractor whose negligence resulted in this colossal loss of public funds.”
According to the report, the sum of N25,758,532,448 was mismanaged by the Afri-Project Consortium (APC), a company contracted by the PTF as management and project consultants.
Buhari as PTF chairman was said to have also “delegated to them the power of engineers in all appropriate projects requiring such power-” which made them assume absolute powers to initiate, approve and execute all projects by the PTF.
The mismanagement that took place in the PTF under Buhari’s watch was said to have been carried out by APC (the company) in their capacity as management and project consultants. Both their management services fees and budgets for several projects carried out during the existence of the PTF were greatly overpriced.
The question now is who will send Buhari to Kirikiri for the mismanagement, corruption and huge financial losses suffered by the taxpayers when he was chairman of PTF?
With his indictment for mismanagement by a committee instituted in 1999 by Obasanjo, Buhari’s ability to manage the Nigerian economy and fight corruption has being called to question.
Will he lead by example by voluntarily surrendering himself at Kirikiri Prisons. Imagine the effects of such an action on many corrupt people who currently walk the streets free.
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