Opinion
…Tinubu, Wike, Yahaya Bello and El Rufai as case studies
By Steve Osuji
FROM CORPORATE MAGNATES TO CORRUPTION MAGNATES: We used to have corporate magnates and industry moguls. Men and women who were leaders and pace setters in various sectors of the economy. People who by sheer industry, zeal and brainpower led their corporations to acclaim and resounding success.
We also had political leaders and godfathers. Men of stature who were shining examples of what good leadership ought to be.
This class of worthy men and women were outstanding by the impact they made to the society and legacies they left.
This crop of men are few these days. Today, Nigeria is filled with corruption magnates and state abductors. Nigeria’s economic and political environments are now infested with people who are astoundingly successful as a result of their ability to corrupt the system and pilfer our corporate patrimony kept in their charge.
Today’s Nigeria is notable by the thievery of political leaders and their ability to devise wholesale conversion of the public till to their personal estate.
Nigeria’s new ‘statesmen’ are men and women with the uncanny ability to capture the sovereign or a part thereof for their exclusive use and criminal disbursement. They are preoccupied with managing their loot. They never think production nor add value to the wellbeing of the people or country.
RISE OF SOVEREIGN ABDUCTORS: State capture or abduction, if you like, is a political phenomenon which started in Nigeria in 1999. It started as a form of negative godfatherism: a political leader seeking to dominate his constituency and dictate who gets what. It evolved from a previous era when great leaders were naturally sought after by greenhorns who needed mentorship, direction and political leverage. Godfathers of yore thrived on character, dignity, principled leadership and high socio-philosophical underpinnings.
In the last two decades, godfatherism has morphed into state abduction. People at various levels of authority now have a tendency to capture the space in their spheres of authority; be it at the level of local government, state or federal.
This is a trend that has manifested in Nigeria’s political circles in the current dispensation.
Sadly, President Bola Tinubu epitomised this new way. Other petit abductors in the mold of Tinubu include Nyesom Wike, Yahaya Bello and Nasir el Rufai, to name the current champions.
BOLA TINUBU: History has recorded President Tinubu as Nigeria’s buccaneer President. The ultimate bad guy; plutocrat and kakistocrat meshed into one. Disembler of public institutions, anti-constitutional, anti-intellectual and innately philistinic.
Tinubu personifies graft and corruption at rarefied heights. Upon grabbing power in Lagos State in 1999, the wily fox devised a sub-sovereign capture not known in Nigeria’s history.
He didn’t only grab Lagos by the scrotum, he reached beyond to take over the entire southwest at a point in time.
He succeeded to a large extent until recently when he lost grip of Osun and Oyo States.
Since 1999, Tinubu has installed governors of Lagos State, the honeypot of Nigeria. He has also planted governors in States like Ogun, Osun, Oyo, Ekiti, Ondo, Kogi, Imo, among others.
STATE CAPTURE AS WORST CORRUPTION: EXPRESSO wagers that since the advent of governance, the worst form of corruption must be the hijack of a state by an individual or a clique. It’s the ultimate failure of state. It breeds impunity which elevates corruption to a brazen and unmitigated apogee.
Recall the event President Tinubu staged to declare that it was his turn to be president of Nigeria, he told the world that President Muhammadu Buhari would never have become president of Nigeria without his support. As a proof of his prowess as king maker in a democracy, he declared further that a certain Governor Dapo Abiodun (Eleyi) would never have been governor of Ogun State without his approval.
The import of this statement is that the entire people of Ogun State, and indeed, Nigeria, didn’t matter. It also means that the electoral process was a charade and his being audacious enough to boast about it in public without fear of any consequence is tell-tale sign of state failure. It also means that he rules Ogun State by proxy, if not Nigeria.
NIGERIA AS A KIDNAPPERS’ DEN: Last February, Bola Tinubu finally captured Nigeria for a prize. He engineered a political contraption called APC, installed a president and suborned the electoral system.
He also gobbled up the judiciary and pocketed the parliament. He jerrymandered the military, security and intelligence superstructure putting them under his thumb. The media and the intelligentsia who had been the last line of defence have been molded into court jesters. High minded intellectuals like Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka; thought leaders like Professors Olatunji Dare and Niyi Akinnaso; thought leaders like Kayode Fayemi, Sam Omatseye, Idowu Akinlotan, Reno Omokri, Femi Fani-Kayode and Dele Momodu, among others, have become the stanchion on which this grand farce is hoisted. They lent ample intellectual prowess to the capture of the Nigerian state; the largest democracy in the Black world.
BUDDING SUB-SOVEREIGN STATE-JACKERS: Following from Tinubu’s massive success as a thief of the state, little brats like Nyesom Wike, Yahaya Bello, Nasir El Rufai and David Umahi, among others, have tried to replicate Tinubu’s grand larceny. They have deigned to abduct their states, converting same to their personal estate.
As witnessed in the general elections last year, these governors adopted their stooges as candidates and deployed state resources to campaign and shoo them into office in sham elections. They also sponsored the entire State House of Assembly members, filling the space with their thugs and running dogs.
Today, the state abductors influenced all appointments and are practically ruling the various states by proxy. The so-called incumbent governors are mere marionettes dangling from the former governors’ strings. Many of them take orders from the chief of staff in government house who is the de facto governor.
In Rivers State where the stooge, Governor Siminalaye Fubara is already fighting for for liberation, Nigerians have been told how Nyesom Wike is alotted tens of billions of state’s fund every month.
In the Kogi grand farce, the clown of a governor seen prostrating on all fours before Yahaya Bello on inauguration day has told the people to always obey Bello and ignore his orders should there ever be conflicting orders.
Both el Rufai and Umahi are more cold-blooded in their approach. Their “houseboy” governors wouldn’t dare make a whimper. They are in solemn awe of their “abductors”.
KIDNAPPERS EVERYWHERE: Do you still wonder why Nigeria is currently infested with kidnappers and brigands? Nigeria is currently ruled by hardened criminals, state-jackers and abductors. All systems and institutions are corrupted and broken-down. Not even in neighbouring smaller countries like Togo, Ghana and Benin Republic do we have incidents of kidnapping as we have in Nigeria today.
While the CORRUPTION MAGNATES in government houses have hijacked the treasury, the evil trend percolates all the way to the buttom of the society.
No one is thinking about the sovereign entity, no one is producing, everyone is scheming, dealing, looting, stealing, killing, kidnapping, doing one vice or another.
Nobody is in charge anymore, Nigeria has become an extended gangland.
Have we wondered why no other country in the world is besieged by kidnappers and looters like Nigeria? It’s because Nigeria is the only country under the vice grips of career criminals and corruption magnates.
15th February, 2024.
C.E.
Tags: El Rufai Nyesom Wike President Bola Tinubu Yahaya Bello
