July 3, 2010
As an active anti-corruption crusader, Saharareporters is pleased to see Mr. Balarabe Musa on this year’s National Honors List. He is a man of principle who deserves to be decorated and celebrated. But the list also contains a bewildering army of incompetent, corrupt, greedy and discredited Nigerians, and it is a shame to tell the world they number among our best.
Okhai Mike Akhigbe, to whom Goodluck Jonathan is giving one of the nation’s highest honors, the GCON, has no honor. He was Number Two to General Abdulsalam Abubakar, who has been cited in several corruption scandals. Their government bought and sold Nigeria for self-enrichment, and it is known that in the last weeks of their administration, they were registering companies to which they funneled lavish contracts and funds. Even before all that, Akhigbe had enriched himself lavishly in the Babangida government.
Justice Katsina-Alu, whom he is also awarding the GCON, lacks integrity. His role in some of the political scandals that have beset Nigeria in the past couple of years is well known. He may be the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, but he lacks legal and popular respect.
Justice Niki Tobi was a judge of the Supreme Court who did not see anything wrong with unserialized ballot papers while delivering his infamous tie-breaker ruling regarding the bastardized 2007 presidential election. On top of that, Tobi got his son appointed to the Court of Appeal for his role in validating that despicable election.
Justice Dahiru Musdapher was another member of the Supreme Court panel on the presidential election petition in 2008, and knowing that the judiciary needed to maintain a professional distance, accepted appointment by President Yar’Adua as a member of Federal Government delegation to the Hajj. Predictably, he went on to support the judgment that kept a sickly Umaru Yar’Adua in power until he died last May. He is not a man of honor.
Joseph Wayas, the former President of the Senate in the Second Republic, is also to be awarded the GCON. Grand Commander? This is a man who, in addition to having been in the middle of the mess that was the National Party of Nigeria, has become such a nuisance that, only last year, Arik Airlines banned him from flying with them. Reason: he got on board a flight and insisted on sitting in Business Class, although he had an Economy Class ticket!
And then, Jonathan’s list gets unbelievably abominable.
He gives to Patricia Etteh, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, TWO awards. At Number 5 on the official list, he decorates her with the Commander of the Federal Republic (CFR); and then at Number 25, she also gets the Commander of the Niger (CON). Etteh is the same woman who was forced to resign as Speaker of the House of Representatives two and a half years ago for spectacular fraud involving N628 million. In which case all we can say is that she must be a really, really special woman.
We could go on all day: Halilu Akilu has not discharged the burden of being involved in one of the most dastardly chapters of the Babangida administration: the bombing death of Dele Giwa. So why does Mr. Jonathan see fit to decorate him with an award that should be preserved for the nation’s best, in character and quality of service?
Mike Oghiadomhe, the Chief of Staff to Jonathan, is the former Deputy Governor of Edo State who, along with Lucky Igbinedion, ran the state into disgrace and dishonor, and presided over its unprecedented looting. The last we heard of him in his home state, he was seizing for himself, land belonging to the Azukhala Ekpen Community in Etsako Central Local Government. In the name of Nigeria, Jonathan is rewarding him with a CFR dipped in human excrement.
On the list: Ogbonnaya Onovo, the “Ribadu-never-visited-Nigeria” Inspector-General of Police. Nigeria is overrun by kidnapping, unsolved murder and electoral malfeasance. Reporters Sans Frontières this year conferred on Onovo the award of “Predator of Press Freedom”. So why is Jonathan in a haste to honor a man in whose watch this mess happens? What does Jonathan know that we miss?
Governor Bukola Saraki is known to be a money-launderer. We do not need the United States or the United Kingdom to arrest him in Dubai to know this. He is also a thief and a forger: on December 7, 1990, the police filed charges against him and his sister, Senator Gbemisola Saraki. By virtue of that case, it has been established that both of them must have lied in their electoral nomination forms in 2003 and 2007 because, on the basis of their criminal history, there is no way they qualified to run for political office.
“Billionaire” Femi Otedola, who owes loads of cash to several banks but is reported to be bankrolling Jonathan’s 2007 presidential bid, shows up on the list. The former governor of Ebonyi, Sam Egwu, is on the list. Enough said.
But not enough about Farida Waziri, who appears…drum roll, please… at Number 84. The allegations against Mrs. Waziri, many of which have been made and substantiated on this website, would disqualify her from a seat next to any self-respecting drunk in any beer joint. Apparently, not Jonathan. Her “Honor” confirms the contradiction in Jonathan’s claims about his preparedness to fight corruption. Remember he looked into Barack Obama’s eyes in the White House and made that promise. He went to the Council of Foreign Relations in Washington and repeated that promise. He has made that promise (wink-wink, Nigeria) in several public addresses in Nigeria. Perhaps Waziri gets her gift for her Nollywood skills: skillfully keeping the EFCC charade going.
A dishonest Jonathan proudly decorates Abdullahi Dikko Inde, the certificate-forging Customs boss who cannot explain how he obtained any of his academic certificates, from high school up to the university. In Ghana, Mr. Dikko would have been fired from his job, and prosecuted. But this is Jonathan’s Nigeria where “honor” is reserved for the worst among us.
There are other names on the list we would have loved to highlight, but we will leave that to the Nigerians on the street, to an awake and patriotic civil society, and to the mainstream media.
We write this comment today, rather than a new story exposing corruption, because the so-called 2010 National Honors List is an embarrassment. It is an insult to every hard-working and patiently hopeful Nigerian everywhere. It is an assault on decency. It is an admission that nothing is changing. It is confirmation to the international community that they may be wasting their time trying to help us. Perhaps Aesop, the ancient Greek, was speaking about Nigeria long ago: “We hang the petty thieves,” he said, “and appoint the great ones to public office.”
Jonathan, it seems, is interpreting him literally. In his ill-disguised desire to run as a candidate in next year’s presidential election, he seems to have decided to ride on the back of every tainted, corrupt Nigerian he can find.
Jonathan’s Nigeria continues a trend that ignores her sons and daughters who work hard, sacrifice deeply, pray earnestly and hope profoundly. Such a list would probably be very short, but it would be honest. And it would be true honor. The current list, by contrast, is a pathetic scandal. Internally, it says we are an unserious nation. Internationally, it makes us a laughing stock.
What if one or 10 or 20 of these people are handcuffed in Dubai or Singapore next week? What if they are declared persona non grata in countries that used to respect us? Are we the same people who claimed to have been embarrassed when Obama refused to come to Nigeria?
That is why SaharaReporters has only two things left to say. The first: We urge those decent Nigerians on Jonathan’s list to opt out, the way Chinua Achebe opted out of Olusegun Obasanjo’s in 2004 (and we definitely don’t mean the manner Prof. Tam David-West opted out because he was not given a bigger award). Let no self-respecting Nigerian soil his or her legacy or confer credibility on this laughable list by accepting this year’s award.
The second is to note that, by Jonathan’s ghastly standards, the list, as it stands, is incomplete. It is not sufficiently insulting. It is not even up to 200 people. That means there is plenty of room to pile up more despicable, contemptible names. Why not James Ibori? Turai Yar’Adua? Michael Aondoakaa? Abba Ruma? Marcel Awokulehin? Dimeji Bankole? And, oh…Patience Jonathan.
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