June 26, 2010
Michael Aondoakaa, the infamous Attorney-General of Nigeria during the administration of Umaru Yar’Adua, was bottled last week by the United States. He will never again enjoy a visa to enter “God’s Own Country.” There are celebrations across Nigeria.
People are jumping up to the roof, but it is often in hot and sweaty places where they are in no danger of being chopped to bits by the ceiling fan, because there is no electricity.
People are clinking glasses, but they are metaphorical cups: Nigerians are increasingly unable to afford to drink.
People dance, but they know they must save their strength. And they must make sure they are able to make it home, as neither transportation nor security is guaranteed.
Only yesterday, it seems, Aondoakaa was a massive legal and political fixture. In a society in which to be in power is to be the law, Aondoakaa determined who was wrong and who was right; who went before a judge and who went to a nubile Ethiopian woman; who went to jail and who went to a party.
Yar’Adua did not argue with the man’s arrogance. He knew Aondoakaa was his claim to the omnipotence and omnipresence of the rule of law in Nigeria.
But Aondoakaa was publicly and perversely compromised. He allegedly took money from politicians to bribe judges. He allegedly took money from judges to bribe politicians. He was reportedly as happy with gold as he was of silver, with Senegalese women as he was of Ethiopian. He took from each with as much discrimination as he took from all.
It is difficult to hide in a place like Nigeria, and Nigerians complained about Aondoakaa by the busload until the buses broke down.
They complained with vuvu-zealous unanimity until the vuvuzelas broke down.
They complained with beer parlour courageousness until the beer parlous ran out of beer.
But Aondoakaa not only kept his job, his profile in the federal cabinet kept rising. In September 2008, Yar’Adua sent him along with Ojo Maduekwe to the United Nations General Assembly to represent Nigeria. Together, they really had nothing to do except haunt the streets of New York City.
So they haunted the streets of New York City for weeks until it was time to go back to Abuja and regain control.
It was a party that could have gone on forever. Except that Yar’Adua failed to cooperate. He was a sick man, and he constituted himself into an obstacle in the way of fun and games. And then, in November of 2009, he needed emergency evacuation to Saudi Arabia.
That was when the nightmare began.
Yar’Adua’s closest, most powerful and most trusted tried to hold things together until their principal returned to power, but he never did. The famous and powerful kitchen cabinet became the infamous cabal. It was the last call in the pub.
The worst-case scenario became the only-case scenario: Satan was in town, and Aondoakaa’s soul was his first demand. He lost his job, and began the slide into infamy and irrelevance.
This week, the United States revoked his visiting privileges. In between, it was reported that the former AG was being investigated in the United Kingdom’s Serious Organized Crimes Agency for money laundering.
The new position of the United States must hurt the once-powerful AG, but it is really a verdict on our nation, Nigeria, and a slap on the face of Goodluck Jonathan. It is a reminder that he has all the information in his hands to do something about corruption but has refused to.
It is also a clear reminder that there are many public officials in Nigeria who are embarrassingly corrupt. Those in power ignore the mess because it is convenient for them, but the world is increasingly paying attention.
Nations and development partners pay attention when we proclaim one thing but practice another. They pay attention when we come to them for scarce resources, including credibility, for purposes of “development.”
Clearly, they had seen Aondoakaa ride the bicycle until the wheels fell off.
He is down to his lowest, but it would be stupid for us to delude ourselves that he is the only one whose records foreign governments are holding or have passed to President Jonathan ever since he promised them he would “fight” corruption.
Former Delta State governor, James Ibori, who was Aondoakaa’s counterpart in Yar’Adua’s inner circle, was never placed in handcuffs in Nigeria for his scorched-earth looting in Asaba. To Nigeria’s eternal shame, it took a foreign government extending itself around the world to take Ibori off the streets.
What is going to happen next?
Nigeria is going to continue to sleep with corruption, but it is clear that a few more funny rich will be identified abroad, even if we never do anything to them at home.
I am willing to consider this compromise, now that some of our foreign friends are beginning to accept that being friends with Nigeria means the Nigerian people, and not simply a few adventurous who stumble into power.
Hopefully, therefore, they will name more names, withdraw more visas and prosecute more of these people. But if they really want to help Nigeria, they should interpret the “proceeds of crime” principle to the last punctuation.
This means they must be willing to deport the families of these criminals to any airport in Nigeria and leave them there. I do not see any innocence in any family member who is enjoying the good life abroad on looted public funds while the ordinary Nigerians who were robbed for their pleasure are subjected to a horrendous existence.
I believe it is even more critical that the United Nations begins to pull more of its weight—and not simply talk about it—when it comes to exploring the linkage between corruption in the developing world, and underdevelopment.
Clearly, for instance, to appoint to a high office a former Nigerian official who is so corrupt he is criticized by leading international anti-corruption bodies is a betrayal of that country—and of the cause of development—by the UN.
To continue to sponsor a bottomless pit in which funds and political support are being respectably and lavishly supplied to corrupt governments is diplomatic merry-go-round, not development.
To permit the likes of Aondoakaa to walk the hallways of the United Nations when the international community knows they symbolize a nation walking backwards is worse than permitting human rights violations in that country.
Let the developed nations recognize that the only effective change they can make in the corruption question to countries like Nigeria is to expose emphatically our corrupt people who hide their loot and their families in their lands.
Corruption is a strong instrument of under-development. If nations such as mine will not do the right thing, its friends must do whatever it takes. After all, as they say in the United States, “friends do not let friends drive drunk.”
• [email protected]
People are jumping up to the roof, but it is often in hot and sweaty places where they are in no danger of being chopped to bits by the ceiling fan, because there is no electricity.
People are clinking glasses, but they are metaphorical cups: Nigerians are increasingly unable to afford to drink.
People dance, but they know they must save their strength. And they must make sure they are able to make it home, as neither transportation nor security is guaranteed.
Only yesterday, it seems, Aondoakaa was a massive legal and political fixture. In a society in which to be in power is to be the law, Aondoakaa determined who was wrong and who was right; who went before a judge and who went to a nubile Ethiopian woman; who went to jail and who went to a party.
Yar’Adua did not argue with the man’s arrogance. He knew Aondoakaa was his claim to the omnipotence and omnipresence of the rule of law in Nigeria.
But Aondoakaa was publicly and perversely compromised. He allegedly took money from politicians to bribe judges. He allegedly took money from judges to bribe politicians. He was reportedly as happy with gold as he was of silver, with Senegalese women as he was of Ethiopian. He took from each with as much discrimination as he took from all.
It is difficult to hide in a place like Nigeria, and Nigerians complained about Aondoakaa by the busload until the buses broke down.
They complained with vuvu-zealous unanimity until the vuvuzelas broke down.
They complained with beer parlour courageousness until the beer parlous ran out of beer.
But Aondoakaa not only kept his job, his profile in the federal cabinet kept rising. In September 2008, Yar’Adua sent him along with Ojo Maduekwe to the United Nations General Assembly to represent Nigeria. Together, they really had nothing to do except haunt the streets of New York City.
So they haunted the streets of New York City for weeks until it was time to go back to Abuja and regain control.
It was a party that could have gone on forever. Except that Yar’Adua failed to cooperate. He was a sick man, and he constituted himself into an obstacle in the way of fun and games. And then, in November of 2009, he needed emergency evacuation to Saudi Arabia.
That was when the nightmare began.
Yar’Adua’s closest, most powerful and most trusted tried to hold things together until their principal returned to power, but he never did. The famous and powerful kitchen cabinet became the infamous cabal. It was the last call in the pub.
The worst-case scenario became the only-case scenario: Satan was in town, and Aondoakaa’s soul was his first demand. He lost his job, and began the slide into infamy and irrelevance.
This week, the United States revoked his visiting privileges. In between, it was reported that the former AG was being investigated in the United Kingdom’s Serious Organized Crimes Agency for money laundering.
The new position of the United States must hurt the once-powerful AG, but it is really a verdict on our nation, Nigeria, and a slap on the face of Goodluck Jonathan. It is a reminder that he has all the information in his hands to do something about corruption but has refused to.
It is also a clear reminder that there are many public officials in Nigeria who are embarrassingly corrupt. Those in power ignore the mess because it is convenient for them, but the world is increasingly paying attention.
Nations and development partners pay attention when we proclaim one thing but practice another. They pay attention when we come to them for scarce resources, including credibility, for purposes of “development.”
Clearly, they had seen Aondoakaa ride the bicycle until the wheels fell off.
He is down to his lowest, but it would be stupid for us to delude ourselves that he is the only one whose records foreign governments are holding or have passed to President Jonathan ever since he promised them he would “fight” corruption.
Former Delta State governor, James Ibori, who was Aondoakaa’s counterpart in Yar’Adua’s inner circle, was never placed in handcuffs in Nigeria for his scorched-earth looting in Asaba. To Nigeria’s eternal shame, it took a foreign government extending itself around the world to take Ibori off the streets.
What is going to happen next?
Nigeria is going to continue to sleep with corruption, but it is clear that a few more funny rich will be identified abroad, even if we never do anything to them at home.
I am willing to consider this compromise, now that some of our foreign friends are beginning to accept that being friends with Nigeria means the Nigerian people, and not simply a few adventurous who stumble into power.
Hopefully, therefore, they will name more names, withdraw more visas and prosecute more of these people. But if they really want to help Nigeria, they should interpret the “proceeds of crime” principle to the last punctuation.
This means they must be willing to deport the families of these criminals to any airport in Nigeria and leave them there. I do not see any innocence in any family member who is enjoying the good life abroad on looted public funds while the ordinary Nigerians who were robbed for their pleasure are subjected to a horrendous existence.
I believe it is even more critical that the United Nations begins to pull more of its weight—and not simply talk about it—when it comes to exploring the linkage between corruption in the developing world, and underdevelopment.
Clearly, for instance, to appoint to a high office a former Nigerian official who is so corrupt he is criticized by leading international anti-corruption bodies is a betrayal of that country—and of the cause of development—by the UN.
To continue to sponsor a bottomless pit in which funds and political support are being respectably and lavishly supplied to corrupt governments is diplomatic merry-go-round, not development.
To permit the likes of Aondoakaa to walk the hallways of the United Nations when the international community knows they symbolize a nation walking backwards is worse than permitting human rights violations in that country.
Let the developed nations recognize that the only effective change they can make in the corruption question to countries like Nigeria is to expose emphatically our corrupt people who hide their loot and their families in their lands.
Corruption is a strong instrument of under-development. If nations such as mine will not do the right thing, its friends must do whatever it takes. After all, as they say in the United States, “friends do not let friends drive drunk.”
• [email protected]
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