‘Gift’ as known, does not have adverse attribution, especially when its purpose is backed by good intention. It is an acknowledgement of goodwill or recognition of certain facts from the bond between the source and the target. Presenting gift could however, be stimulated by certain factors, or could be an act deliberately intended to attract a favorable attention. Gift however, has guiding principles, especially considering the personality targeted. A gift could be ‘Greek’ in nature, considering the famed Greek gift that may have clandestine objectives behind it.
‘Gift’ as known, does not have adverse attribution, especially when its purpose is backed by good intention. It is an acknowledgement of goodwill or recognition of certain facts from the bond between the source and the target. Presenting gift could however, be stimulated by certain factors, or could be an act deliberately intended to attract a favorable attention. Gift however, has guiding principles, especially considering the personality targeted. A gift could be ‘Greek’ in nature, considering the famed Greek gift that may have clandestine objectives behind it.
A ‘gift’ should be handed with serious caution, if the person for whom it is intended is under some legal restrictions as to his capability to receive such gift. An example is handing a gift to a serving government official. It is accompanied with some straight interpretations that such gift is clouded in intentions for some returns. When a public official is involved in a gift link, the initiator of the process is assumed to be conscious of fair practices and should consider meticulously the manner in which the gift is handed. When a business organization that operates in a competitive environment has gained or is bidding for certain contracts, and then, hands a gift with enormous value to persons in position to influence the awarding of the contract, such gift may be interpreted as having some dirty objectives behind it.
Although this piece is not intending to make this space into a classroom of some sort, it only attempts to inject clarity into the fogs stirred by the Gitto Greek gift.
Psychologists pulled a line between modes of conditioning/learning (making a subject understand a particular behavior); Operant and Classical conditioning respectively. "Operant conditioning" is the learning procedure in which the subject/person that is learning the behavior begins the process by himself and then, the teacher who wants him to assert that desired behavior motivates the performance so that he ‘keeps’ the behavior. It is also called ‘instrumental learning’. Meanwhile in Classical conditioning, the teacher or mentor who wants a person to learn is the initiator of the process by throwing a stimulus at the subject to provoke a reaction. And when the subject responds, if the response is a favorable one, the master motivates it so that the subject continues the behavior.
The ‘gift’ scandal involving the Gitto Construction Company and President Goodluck Jonathan could be likened to a Classical Conditioning process. Records show it, that the Gitto company is not new to the Federal Republic of Nigeria, especially to President Goodluck Jonathan. During his days as governor of Bayelsa State, President Jonathan always used the Gitto corporation for Construction works; succeeding Governor Sylva confirmed it during their bickering exchanges while waiting for the last election in Bayelsa State. It confirms a long relationship between the Gitto Construction company and President Jonathan –Gitto, obviously, benefitted most from this relationship.
President Jonathan’s statement that the firm promised to build a church for me, though may be symbolic as usual, attests that this case is a clear one of ‘Operant Conditioning’, handing gift out to the president in order motivate him to continue his behavior of favouring Gitto in future contracts bidding.
In stark reality, making such donation to a serving government official, especially one of President’s status, is a deliberate attempt at getting him for future usefulness’ and if the Code of Conduct for Public Officials is anything to go by, it is an impeachable offence. As if that one was not enough, the President’s senior adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Reuben Abati made a statement that could only be swallowed by fools in their paradise that the gift was no crime while serving as the President’s absorber and trying to throw heavier blow on the criticizing public. How many times will the President run into troubles with his proverbial’ actions and accompanied figurative’ statements, so that one Super-hero Abati will come and rescue him from critics? The other time, it was a metaphor, and this time; a simile? That is what the soon-to-be derelict is paid for anyways. After all, when his boss goes down, he goes with him.
If the President will be defending such acts, as he is bent on doing and is not made to withstand the law for it, the aftermath will be devastating than gleeful for him, for the PDP and for his Abati’s. It will yield a faulted legacy for other officials, and as this one will be cited in defense, the claimed anti-graft effort is easily defeated.
Another flaw in this gift’ is in its type; it trades affront to God. That the gift will have to be in the form of worship structure while the primordial responsibility of the donor is still sagging is blasphemy. God does not acquiesce to such entreaties, when the donor is in the sin of not completing his tasks competently. If it is the same God that we have always known in the ancient bible, and none other, then it is not certain that this gift is acceptable. Not at all!
A study into a related gift of church building by David in the bible reveals that God does not accept gifts from just any donor. Even when donor David had a genuine aim to build for God, 1 Chronicles 22:8 presented us with how God was apt at remembering David’s sinful activities of the past to decline his offer immediately; “But the word of the Lord came to me saying, Thou hast shed blood abundantly, and hast made great wars: thou shalt not build a house unto my name, because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in my sight”. In that scripture, God scolded David for offering to build Him a house, but told David instead, that you are the one who needs a house, and I should build one for you’. It boils down, without being figurative, that God understands that humans need a house and not God. If you must please God therefore, please mankind first by doing the duties you are paid for competently!” Else, if you build for God in your wildest imagination, the builders build in vain.
If God scoffed at David’s gift even as the donor had a genuine intention, what do we expect of God when a particular donor makes such gift out of mere showoff off’? It signals on the part of the donor, a surreptitious agenda to gain favor of ‘more contracts’ from the beneficiary taking the Greek gift. Records have shown that the generous Gitto Construction Company’s jobs lack completion and standard touches and yet, the corporation deems it appropriate to ‘build house for God’.
From records, the contract amount of N58.6billion for the construction of the second Niger Bridge is bloated and questionable. South-East legislators in the National Assembly have reportedly challenged it. Also, the Eket/Oron section of the East-West road is also incompetently handled by the Gitto Construction Company. The company also has a question to answer as to why the Bodo-Bonny road in Bayelsa is abandoned.
On moral credibility, Gitto Construction Company, being a company with a long existing relationship with President Goodluck Jonathan is renowned for making price variations on ongoing construction works, where it demands more at a stage that the reverse would no longer be thoughtful. Former Bayelsa governor Sylva, with whom President Jonathan scored a butt of conspiracy prior to the last controversial election in the State, mentioned one instance where one hotel project embarked upon by President Jonathan himself during his tenure as Governor of the state. President Jonathan had awarded the said hotel deal to Gitto Construction Company, a project which stopped at only the second floor when President Jonathan concluded his tenure as governor of the State. ‘Gitto’ then made a new upward change of cost by adding up N5billion when the successor, governor Sylva took over. Sylva could not question it as he then would rather stave off an imminent feud with his predecessor who masterminded it. Similarly, the said Eket/Oron road experienced delay due to a price variation by Gitto Construction Company. The Company, as alleged by former Governor Sylva, was also building a house for President Goodluck Jonathan in his home town –maybe as corporate social responsibility, the way it has just built a Church for the Community. Although it will take Sylva to explain that web of the house for President Jonathan in his hometown properly, it is all the same a unambiguous instance of inducement to merit’ future contracts from the Federal Government without being the most qualified. Is not this a practice of cronyism and overreaching of using official power to award contract without being checked?
No doubt, major contracts in the future will be awarded to ‘Gitto’ with cost above the competitive range, yet without being the best choice among other tenders.
The act of accepting any type of gift by a President is loudly condemnable. The constitution abjures it. We should set the records straight and call a spade by no euphemistic appellation. Were Nigeria a country with a serious and working Senate, few historical facts are suits to follow. Abati should also inform his employer with few examples as follows:
Robert Wodrow Archbald was impeached by the United States House of Representative on the account that Archbald had entered into agreements with litigants at a substantial benefit to himself. He allegedly solicited and accepted gifts from litigants and accepted gifts from attorneys. He was also indicted with affairs connected with holidays in Europe and other gifts received from coal mine workers and railroad officials. The senate after Archbald’s trial convicted him in 1913. He was accordingly removed from office.
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. He became President in 1945, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt died. Truman's administration was humiliated by accepting gifts in return for favors. Hundreds were fired as a result. Truman himself although was later proven innocent, but one incident in which his wife accepted a freezer in return for a White House staffer giving the donor special permission to travel to post-war Europe caused a significant flaw.
Daniel David Rostenkowski, a U.S. Representative from Illinois from 1959 to 1995 was indicted on two counts of misuse of public funds and sentenced to seventeen months in federal prison.
George Rogers, member of Massachusetts State Senate from 1975 to 1978 was convicted of bribery in 1978 and sentenced to two years in prison.
Otto Kerner, a governor of Illinois from 1961 to 1968 was jailed after the manager of two horse-racing tracks admitted to bribing the then governor; charges were filed after Kerner left office and he was convicted in 1973.
Bill Campbell, a Mayor of Atlanta was indicted and charged with fraud over claims that he accepted improper payments from contractors seeking city contracts.
James Guy Tucker, Jr., a Governor of Arkansas from 1992 to 1996 resigned in July 1996 after conviction on federal fraud charges as part of the Whitewater investigation.
William McCuen, a Secretary of State of Arkansas from 1985 to 1995 admitted to accepting kickbacks from two supporters he gave jobs, and not paying taxes on the money. He admitted to conspiring with a political consultant to split $53,560 embezzled from the state in a sham transaction. He was indicted on fraud charges and accepting a bribe; sentenced to 17 years in prison.
Nicholas Mavroules, a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts from 1979 to 1993 pleaded guilty to accepting gratuities while in office.
Richard Hanna, a U.S. Representative from California from 1963 to 1974. Received payments of about $200,000 from a Korean businessman in what became known as the "Koreagate" influence buying scandal. He was sentenced to federal prison.
A few examples explored above regarding cases of gifts’ and bribery’ scandals followed by dismissal should help the Mr. Reuben Abati in advising his president against his criminal inclinations as well as serve as proper clues for the Senate and the anti-graft agencies. The perturbing point however is with the festering senate. A senate that finds it a mountain task to ask the President to declare his assets is doubted as to their temerity to ask questions on President’s making inducements and soliciting for gifts from Federal Government Contractor(s). According to the President during the Church dedication, the Managing Director of Gitto promised’ to donate a church to him. In order words, it did not come to him as a surprise. The president was pretty aware of the gift and did not caution it as inappropriate ab initio.
Facts from the anti-graft annals in Nigeria reveal how the Nigerian senate wobbles in critical corruption matters. It depicts lethargy of crusaders that a person will become untouchable even as he evidently starched away or if you like, misappropriated’ $12.2 billion oil windfall that accrued to Nigeria following the Gulf crisis. Is it not in this same country that a current Senate President once donated a whopping N20million at a public gathering during the Babangida era, and he went with it and returned as Senate President? The acclaimed fight against corruption or anti-graft war is only an plan to witch-hunt perceived enemies of Government. An instance of the trial of Prof. Tam David West who was disgraced for receiving a gift of wrist watch from an American oil company –all because he did not mix with Babangida’s duplicitous practices.
If the government officials and the independent arms will not ask questions on this Greek gift as well as stand a giant effigy in questioning this sorts of malfeasances, 160 million Nigerians will be forced to SPRING.
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