Ibori’s friends and a nation in denial

Last week, a cherished friend of mine, resident abroad, sent a frantic message on whether I had seen a video making the rounds on the Internet. I told him I had not. He let out a bewildering scream as if not having seen the video would incur Armageddon. So I asked for a gist of whatever it was.

He talked about a speech made by Senator Peter Nwaoboashi (PDP, Delta North) at an event that looked like a reception for former Governor James Ibori, who was recently released from a United Kingdom prison after serving term for money laundering and fraud.

Having developed shock absorbers for politics and politicians in Nigerians, I waited for him to fill me in on content of the speech. For me, there was nothing extraordinary about the senator even dancing on his head on account of the return of a man who can be described as his political godfather.

My friend lamented that Nwaoboashi insinuated that Ibori, while in prison, controlled political affairs in Delta State and supported the emergence of Senator Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara as Senate President and Speaker of House of Representatives respectively.

I could sense his disappointment when I asked him what was special about any of these. I have no information about whether Ibori supported Saraki in his aspiration or not but it is public knowledge that the duo moved together a lot during the Umaru Yar’Adua Presidency and  I see nothing untoward about friends helping each other, even while in prison!

Secondly, facts about his influence in Delta State politics are those that I am quite at home with. As correspondent of The PUNCH in Asaba between 2000 and 2001, I had a firsthand feel of what you could call the Ibori magic.

I did not have more than one personal encounter with Ibori but he periodically addressed the media. I recall a few of those meetings, where he sat at the head of the table; commissioners flung on his either side with correspondents sitting across. You could not be at any of those meetings and not get blown away by his charisma.

But you didn’t even need to move close to Ibori to feel the mystique. From Asaba to Warri, to Burutu, Patani and Ndokwa, some electricity came with the name: “James Onanefe Ibori,” as he was addressed at official events.

Many things worked together for this University of Benin graduate of Economics. He was young, suave, good looking, intelligent, confident and had access to the treasury of what was Nigeria’s richest state at that time.

He also had courage and alongside Governor Victor Attah of Akwa Ibom State, championed the agitation for resource control under President Olusegun Obasanjo. With this, he walked into Obasanjo’s lion’s den but gained the admiration of his people who very likely saw resource control as an opportunity to share more money.

Over and above all of this, Ibori was generous and this is the key to acquiring political influence here. His state had money and he entrenched a culture of unrestricted distribution of this resource. With that, he won loyalty to himself.It didn’t seem there was anything he could not accomplish during his tenure, he knew the power of money and exploited it.

I recall a particular instance that the Speaker of the state House of Assembly was impeached in Ibori’s absence.  He was said to have called the masterminds of the coup to reverse themselves but they refused. Within 24 hours, while still out of the country, the former governor instigated another rebellion in the House and the impeached leadership was restored!

I also know that almost every public official out of Delta State since 1999 wears an Ibori badge! The two governors after him were his commissioners. Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan even went on to be Secretary to the State Government.

Senators after he left office, with the exception of the late Pius Ewherido (who was Deputy Speaker of the House of Assembly) were commissioners under Ibori while a lot of those in the House of Representatives were members of the House of House of Assembly when he was governor. Why would I then be surprised at Delta North senator’s praise and worship of his lord?

But do I recommend the celebration of vices and their perpetrators as a healthy course for our nation? I do not, but a more pertinent question we should ask ourselves is whether our country has reached a consensus on a universal set of moral and ethical codes governing us?

The answer is NO. Our interpretation of corruption is determined by who is concerned and whether we have benefitted from their abuse of office or not. This is why none of Ibori’s beneficiaries would see sense in the current public irritation. But is this peculiar to them?

When Asiwaju Bola Tinubu appeared before the Code of Conduct Tribunal in 2011 for instance, a horde of supporters thronged the premises of the tribunal with placards. Governors Rauf Aregbesola and Abiola Ajimobi of  Osun and Oyo states respectively were by his side as were a formidable team of  senior lawyers including Wole Olaosebikan, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu (SAN), Charles Edosomwan, Niyi Akintola, Dele Belgore, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, KabiruTuraki, IfedayoAdedipe, DejiSasegbo and Dele Adesina to mention a few.

Supporters of Saraki also turned his CCT trial into a circus when he was charged last year. Saraki phenomenally had the complement of about 80 lawyers, according to reports.

A son of a former Head of State, Mohammed Abacha and the late former Governor Chief DSP Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa State are two other examples of people who maintained a heroic status even after evidence of corruption had been established against them. It is therefore startling that our condemnation of corruption is selective.

Even President Muhammadu Buhari, who we all seem to agree to be the best of us, has recently begun to show evidence of a sudden lack of clarity about what corruption is.  Does he not currently harbour two men against whom evidence of corrupt practices have been in the public for months? And when he would eventually wake up to the reality, he only “ordered” the Attorney-General of the Federation to investigate these men, when they remain in office and are able to influence the course of the inquiry!

In addition to these, Buhari recently eulogised Saraki, as one of the “most influential politicians of our time, who has made tremendous impact on the country.”  He would balance up a few later when he paid tribute to Speaker Dogara as an emblem of the capacity of the youth to turn Nigeria around.

I thought this was a spit in the face of Nigerians who are up in arms against the National Assembly on the opacity of their operations. Suffice it to add that a lot of the ammunition employed by the populace in the build-up of hate against senators and Representatives were supplied by Buhari’s government.

Aside from the collective resentment of Abuja legislators, this administration has worked hard to convince Nigerians that Saraki was nothing more than a fraudulent politician and cheat given his trial at the CCT and Federal High Court Abuja for alleged forgery.

And in Dogara’s case, the issues of budget manipulation, raised by former chairman of the Appropriation Committee of the House of Representatives, Jubril Abdulmumi, remain unresolved as far as the Nigerian public is concerned. Yet, the President’s goje is playing another tune for nothing but political expediency.My guess is an eye on 2019!

So, for every Nigerian, leader or led, interpretation and reaction to corruption are dependent on divergent factors.

This is why I insist that the current war against corruption died on arrival. Nothing but a sociological process which allows us to make a clear distinction between public and private money would change things. Our leaders do not deploy public funds for the public good but for power acquisition while the people sell their loyalty for  crumbs that fall into their hands. But governance needs to be more about the people and sustainable development. Why do the countries we call “developed” have welfare schemes for the unemployed and the elderly for instance?

In addition, we must build a national movement in which every stratum of Nigeria knows exactly what we are fighting and joins the train. Here, we should agree on a universal definition of corruption, which is not coloured by position, tribe or religion; reform our investigative, prosecutorial and judicial processes. Without this, we will remain a nation living in denial of our collective rotten reality. And such a people never solve a problem, they only just tiptoe around it, until it swallows them.

Twitter: @niranadedokun