It’s unsettling how we came to this level of corruption in a country whose citizens are very godly. Every street you turn, one is likely to be greeted by a cathedral or a minaret, signifying our links with two most powerful religions in Nigeria.
Even those who claim that they were not created by God Almighty, piously assemble at their sanctums or shrines to worship to whatever they believe in.
Whether in the cathedral, mosque or sanctum, one thing runs as a creed-do what is right and acceptable to God-as none of the religions teaches anyone to steal, loot or impoverish the people or the nation.
But what the Lord has forbidden like the Tree in the middle of the Garden of Eden is what many Nigerians, particularly those saddled with public offices, have often fallen on. They seem to be attracted and trapped by graft. Recent revelations from the National Assembly have shown that nearly every top government functionary in the country is afflicted with kleptomania -an inborn desire or spirit to steal public funds.
In this deadly game to loot public treasury, men and women, tribal and religious leaders appear to be endowed with equal zeal and deft. As it has been established with many cases already in public domain, gender is not a setback in the looting of the public coffers. Indeed, it is as if women are even m ore ingenious in the looting game than men and they are not ashamed of their repugnant deed.
A few cases buttress the point: Ettegate, Cecilia bank scam, SECgate and the embarrassing privatization programme that ingeniously transferred our commonwealth to a few cronies of the Obasanjo regime through the backdoor, were aided and abetted by women.
The most annoying thing about these women is that at every public forum, the try to sermonize on how best to succeed in life. They preached the gospel of hard work as the basis of success but latched on public till to smile to their banks. What an irony?
As if that was not enough, we are once again being confronted with another interesting drama that is still unfolding from the probe of the Nigerian capital market. It is not likely that the outcome of the probe will produce anything different from previous ones.
While that remains to be seen, the woman at the helm of the SEC affairs, Ms. Arunma Oteh, has tried to be more dramatic in her dealing with those trying her. But it appears to me that she is only clever by half and would be reined in, if we were in a country that believes in probity.
Without going into the merit or demerit of her allegations against Herman Hembe, the chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Capital Market, it is clear that Oteh has already misfired and should be fired. If she thinks that her brilliance, beauty and acting skills can save the day for her after spending public funds like a python consuming eggs in the back hours, then she has successfully bamboozled all of us.
But Nigerians of good conscience must insist and extract an explanation from Oteh why she bribed Hembe with a N4 million and a Business Class ticket to attend a non-existent capital market conference in the Dominican Republic last year.
They are many questions she needs to answer before we allow her to go back and enjoy the free funds at the SEC just because some powerful elements in this administration tapped her to join the government. Oteh should tell us something: why did it take a public hearing for her to open up on the bribe she offered Hembe since October 2011? She, the bribe giver, is as culpable as Hembe, the alleged receiver. There is no escape route for her.
But whatever is happening in the National Assembly today is a product of the members’ disposition to politics and way of life. The members, who head various committees and probe panels, have been dancing naked in the market place without gauging how the people who elected them into the place, feel.
Like Judas Iscariot, they have sold out and disconnected from the electorate and romanced with pecuniary interest groups for their own benefit. That is why is has become a tradition for lawmakers to lobby for powerful and lucrative committees in the NASS.
A common practice is for the committee heads to quickly organize public hearings and invite the heads of MDAs under them to ‘answer to issues of public interests’. We have seen it all. We saw how Ndidi Elemelu handled the Power Probe and got his fingers burnt; we saw what happened to the committee that probed Mrs. Onagoruwa of the NCP; we are still waiting to hear from Farouk Lawan after the overwhelming evidence of stealing of public funds in the name of subsidy and fuel importation.
It is a shame and tragedy that while other forward-looking nations have used probes to instill sanity and probity in their public life, our lawmakers see such as an avenue to attract undue media attention and harass government officials to gratify their needs.
This type of politicking can at best stifle development and take us back to the Dark Age, which we detest as odium. Rupert Murdock and his son, James, will not forget in a hurry what the UK parliamentarians did to them in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal involving the now rested News of the World, NoW.
That is what makes a nation’s legislature tick and respectable. Nigeria is not yet there. We have the people but the political will from the top is either not there or muffled by selfish party interest.
That is why Aminu Tambuwal, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, who is seen as an agent of change in the NASS, given the way he emerged as the Number 4 citizen of this country, should rise above his party sentiments of protecting those they love and dispensing with those they don’t.
The NASS has a sacred mandate to ensure that its probes are holistic and the findings and recommendations effectively implemented by the other arms of government. The NASS should not hesitate to sanction the Executive for any violation of its resolutions so as to continue to enjoy the respect and support of Nigerians who elected them.
The current situation where the Presidency treats resolutions of the NASS with disdain or at best picks and chooses which of the motions to implement, is an insult to the generality of Nigerians. If the assurance by the chairman of the HoR committee on Media and Public Affairs, Mr. Zakari Mohammed, that the era of selective compliance by the Executive with NASS resolutions is anything to go by, then we can begin to take the members seriously.
It is only by ensuring that its resolutions are binding on all that Nigerians who are entrusted with public positions and funds would begin to live above board and refrain from stealing directly from public till without fear.
If that becomes the norm, men and women, tribal and religious leaders would begin to know that neither their religion nor tribe could save them from the hangman’s noose if they cross the line of decency while in public service.
Enough of playing to the gallery in the name of serving the public while the thief plunders our inheritance in broad daylight.
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