Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Bandits in uniform, or a country of anything goes by Chido Onumah

Good and great piece!

As with his other books I would definitely order for this book.

Assuming that there are strong reasons to hold that Nigeria would be better than this under a federal structure, this is a piece than can cause revolution and lead to a worthier federation!

But I have very strong doubts on this!

I am not saying that there are no thieves in Igbo land where I come from or in Yoruba land where I was partly educated.

I am saying that it will be possible to stone an Igbo thief in Anambra State (crude as this measure may seem but even more crude as the thieves are) or an Hausa thief in Kano State or even an Idoma thief in Benue State than to stone a thief who is an Igbo or Yoruba or Idoma in Abuja! And if the thieves in these places can run to Abuja( interpreted here to mean Federal Courts or Supreme Courts) then you can see the power of the Nigerian centre.

Working in Edo State for some years I got a memorable shock on how a federal idea of Nigeria could be a disservice to Nigerian humanity . One of their own, as a Governor, raked their wealth and looted the money belonging to his brothers and sisters; and as Governor Osumbor who took over would later say "made a disaster out of governance".

He was later tried in Enugu where he wore a prisoner's attire to the scene as if to mock the whole process .He was later convicted but entered a plea bargain and paid some amount, something of nothing, in comparism to what he is believed to have stolen and/or looted.

But, Why try a thief who is charged for stealing the money of Edo people in Enugu, you would ask ,assuming you are ready to mentally decolonise Nigeria with me!And who could have demdned justice on this matter more than an Edo man who is entitled to the money that was stolen!

Well, this is where we are and may remain for a long time!

And by the way....where is the Radio Democracy that Oga Wole Soyinka promised long ago?

May be old age may have come and the idea is asleep!

But…just imagine if there were such radio and information like this were broadcast on such platform!

Lawrence Ogbo Ugwuanyi,Ph.D
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Department of Philosophy and Religions
UNIABUJA.









--------------------------------------------
On Tue, 3/29/16, Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com> wrote:

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Bandits in uniform, or a country of anything goes by Chido Onumah
To: "USA Africa Dialogue Series" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Tuesday, March 29, 2016, 11:40 PM



This is
a very important,  thoroughly & superbly 
written
exposé, explication and challenge by Chido
Onumah!

Justice
must be done to those who have been swimming in the
cesspit of corruption, without a thought to the poor,
long-suffering  and helpless
masses.

I have
often regretted that I did not join the army. Just one
coup, just one.  Give me six months and I
clean up thoroughly –  line them all
up 
no big grammar
no  defence lawyers  and no corrupt pastors to beg for
you . Yes I
am a military thug and you have five minutes  to
start vomiting  di
money 
or else yu go
quench here right now and the vultures  nah
dem go eat you tomorrow morning.

 The
irony : di military
: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

"The important thing
is for the trial to go on and if he is found guilty, bundled
to jail. I am
reliably informed that the rot in the military is far worse
than what we have
experienced with our politicians. And that is saying a lot
considering the
criminal proclivities of Nigerian politicians. We have seen
a bit of the rot in
the Air Force. We await the revelations from the Army and
the Navy." (
Chido Onumah)

This
means that there should be scrupulous vigilance failing
which there could be a coup – remember how Buhari was
toppled by  Babanginda's coup
d'état  on  August
27, 1985…

"There are many
Abachas, Dasukis, Badehs, Amosus and Sarakis in the system,
people who "pledge
to Nigeria my country, to be faithful, loyal and honest",
yet they will steal
from the same country at every opportunity. But why are
millions of Nigerians
who bear the brunt of the licentiousness of our thieving
public officers not
outraged?
There is
no outrage
because most of us will behave the same way if we found
ourselves in the shoes
of Abacha, Dasuki, Badeh, Amosu or Saraki."( Chido
Onumah)

The bold
letters are for emphasis and I'm sure that the Adepojus
and Ikhides  might disagree  -
even violently  -  and
bloody
hell  the
Zalangas could be shouting most vehemently
against the idea that they could
possibly "behave in the same way if they
found themselves in the shoes of Abacha , Dasuki, Badeh ,
Amosu or Saraki"


 In
my opinion such a preposterous
idea  is a
low blow to the good
citizens  of
Nigeria and an insult to
their and our collective integrity . But obviously Chido
Onumah intends that
this low blow  should prick the accused
and thus affronted intelligentsia to the quick and more
radical than what the
Buddhists call right
action, for justice delayed is
justice denied and
as the saying goes, "All
that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men
do nothing…"
Nothing at all.

Good
words : "Knowing
how powerful the thieving class is in Nigeria, President
Buhari should be praised
– I can't think of any politician who would have done
this – for his courage
and political will"

 As
Lord 
Mailafia
Obadiah (a good man)  observed not too long ago
"But it has also been said that the world has
been prevented from utter destruction because of the
existence of the 36 secret
holy ones who are also presumably Jewish -- the
Tzadikim
Nistarim ".  And then he went on to
express the hope : "Let us all aspire to
be counted among the secret holy ones who will redeem
Africa!"

In this
respect, in  my heart 
I pray that
 the
relentless Lord of
Knowledge Ogbeni  Kadiri will be counted amongst
the righteous ones  because already he is
sounding a little like the Prophet Jeremiah , sent to
Nigeria and the Africans and
hollering just like Fela : "This
is an African court !"

And as he had occasion to ask
someone just the other day, "So
what a hell are you waiting for?"

That was a
question….

Cornelius

We
Sweden



On Tuesday, 29 March 2016 18:49:00 UTC+2, Chido Onumah
wrote:


http://www.chidoonumah.com/
bandits-in-uniform-or-a- country-of-anything-goes/
I
had a few sleepless nights last week. It had nothing to do
with the
searing heat in the country or the epileptic power supply by
Nigeria's
eternally dysfunctional electricity company. My discomfiture
had to do
with the report about the heist at the Nigerian Air Force.
The dizzying
allegations of sustained robbery by the officers in charge,
though not
completely surprising, left me breathless. I ruminated on
the trial of
Alex Badeh. I reflected on the figures, did the math, and
was driven to
despair.I
then asked myself the same question I asked a few years ago
while
researching grand corruption in Nigeria and the looting of
the Nigeria
Police Force by an ex-Inspector General of Police, Tafa
Balogun. From
all accounts, Mr. Balogun was a pathological criminal who
rose to become
the chief law officer of Nigeria. By the time he was forced
to retire
in January 2015, he had stolen billions of naira belonging
to the
Nigeria Police in what would go down as the most barefaced
stealing
spree by a public officer in Nigeria. The question I posed
was: what
kind of country or system makes it possible for public
officers to loot
their establishments so easily, ceaselessly and shamelessly?
To
understand the Badeh and Balogun syndrome, this is the
question every
sane Nigerian ought to be asking. I shall return to
this.Alex
Sabundu Badeh, 58, until his retirement last year was a
four-star flag
officer of the Nigerian Air Force who served as the 18th
Chief of Air
Staff (October 4th, 2012 – January 16th, 2014), the 15th
Chief of
Defence Staff of the Armed Forces of Nigeria (January 16,
2014 to July
13, 2015), and Commander of the Presidential Fleet during
Olusegun
Obasanjo's presidency, according to a Wikipedia entry.
He was born in
Vimtim (a town sacked by Boko Haram in October 2014) in Mubi
Local
Government Area of Adamawa State, North East Nigeria, into a
family of
peasant farmers.Fast
forward to Wednesday, March 16, 2016. The trial of Badeh
began at a
Federal High Court in Abuja where we were told that as Chief
of Air
Staff, Badeh made N558.2 million ($2.8 million at the
official exchange
rate of N197 to a dollar) monthly from the salary account of
the
Nigerian Air Force (NAF), an account we were informed
predated Badeh's
tenure. N558.2 multiplied by the 15 months that the
diversion lasted
(between September 2012 and December 2013) comes to N8.3
billion. We
know that not all of that money went to Badeh. He had to
settle the
boys, perhaps going as high as the ministry of defence and
the budget
office of the federal government! But whatever the balance,
as Chief of
Air Staff, Badeh was a stupendously rich man. I don't know
any business,
not even that run by Bill Gates or Warren Buffet that
boasts of that
kind of return on investment in 15 months.   Badeh's
loot, we understand, was the leftover after salaries and
allowances of
workers from NAF had been defrayed from the N4 billion
received monthly
and it was conveniently earmarked "for general
administration for the
office of the Chief of Air Staff". And he administered it
in the
interest of the Badeh clan. Badeh bought a retirement home
for N1.1
billion, a deserving prize for his trouble in ending the war
against
Boko Haram. He bought a commercial plot of land for N650
million and
paid N878 million for the construction of a shopping mall
and another
N304 million to complete the mall. When his sons wanted to
own houses,
he bought a house worth N260 million for his first son,
renovated it
with N60 million and furnished it with N90 million. And when
his second
son turned down a house worth N340 million, he ordered that
a second
house be bought for N330 million to compensate for the
indiscretion of
his man Friday."The
amount in most cases was usually converted into US dollars
by the
Finance Officer at Nigerian Air Force Headquarters, Abuja.
Thereafter,
it is brought to the Director of Finance who in turn takes
it to the Air
House which is the official residence of Chief of Air Staff
at the
Niger Barracks," revealed a prosecution witness, Air
Commodore Aliyu
Yishau (retd.), who said he served as former Director of
Finance and
Account of the Nigerian Air Force (NAF). You still wonder
why the
country has a foreign exchange crisis.Badeh
obviously had no business being in the Nigerian Air Force
or building a
career as a pilot trained at the expense of Nigerian tax
payers. But
this is Nigeria, a country of anything goes, where perverse
actions
perpetually multiply and endure as instruments of
governance. Badeh, of
course, is not alone. The man who succeeded him as Chief
(Thief?) of Air
Staff, Adesola Nunayon Amosu, a retired Air Vice Marshal,
has been
indicted in the arms procurement scandal during his tenure.
One of the
criminal deals involved the procurement of two second-hand
Mi-24V
helicopters instead of the recommended Mi-35M series at a
cost of $136.9
million. The second-hand helicopters were allegedly not
operationally
airworthy at the time of delivery while a brand new unit of
the same
helicopters costs about $30 million. On November 13, 2014,
two officers
were killed when the Air Force chief allegedly pressured
them into
flying one of the unserviceable helicopters which crashed in
the
North-east region.According
to reports, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission
(EFCC) has
seized houses and other properties belonging to Amosu, Air
Vice Marshal
J.B. Adigun, the immediate past Chief of Accounts and
Budgeting of the
Nigerian Air Force, and Air Commodore O. O. Gbadebo, who was
the
Director of Finance and Budget at NAF. When Amosu's wife,
Mrs. Omolara
Amosu, was arrested by EFCC operatives, the sum of N3
billion was
allegedly traced to her bank accounts. She has voluntarily
returned N381
million in three tranches of N180m, N101m, and
N100m.Amosu's
putative boss, ex-National Security Adviser, Col Sambo
Dasuki (retd),
alongside Shuaibu Salisu, a former Director of Finance and
Administration, Office of the National Security Adviser,
Aminu Babakusa,
a former General Manager, Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation,
Acacia Holdings Limited, and Reliance Referral Hospital
Limited, is
currently being prosecuted by the EFCC on a 19-count charge
bordering on
money laundering and criminal breach of trust to the tune
of N13.5
billion. A committee set up to investigate Dasuki's office
indicted more
than 300 companies and individuals, including serving and
retired
military officers. In one case, the committee found out that
a company,
Societe D'Equipment International, was overpaid to the
tune of €7.9
million and $7.09 million.True
to form, the trial of Dasuki could not continue last week
because he
refused to show up in court. But he doesn't have to. The
important thing
is for the trial to go on and if he is found guilty,
bundled to jail. I
am reliably informed that the rot in the military is far
worse than
what we have experienced with our politicians. And that is
saying a lot
considering the criminal proclivities of Nigerian
politicians. We have
seen a bit of the rot in the Air Force. We await the
revelations from
the Army and the Navy.If
you want to understand why Nigeria is not working, why we
are a fourth
rate nation, look no further than the Dasukis, Badehs, and
Amosus of
Nigeria, their compatriots in agbada (the grand boubou) and
their
partners in wigs. People like our billionaire judges, like
Olisah Metuh,
Stella Oduah, and Bukola Saraki, the Teflon President of
the Nigerian
Senate who is currently standing trial for false asset
declaration and
for repaying his personal loans with state fund. There are
others like
Ikedi Ohakim who as governor of Imo State paid $2.29 million
cash for a
property in Abuja, Ahmed Sani Yerima, Mohammed Danjuma Goje,
Abdullahi
Adamu, George Akume, and Josuah Dariye – executive
scoundrels who have
found refuge in one of the most disreputable institutions in
Nigeria –
the Senate. Not even the colonial masters could have damaged
this
country the way these men and women who claim to be
Nigerians have done.
Indeed, it's a safe bet that the legendary unfeeling
colonial
chieftain, Lord Lugard, will weep no end if he were to
return to the
house he built in 1914.Clearly,
these thieving individuals like their alter ego, the
fiendish late
military dictator, Sani Abacha, have no concept of a nation
of people.
Their moral universe is limited to family and friends. That
is why their
politics, to paraphrase radical scholar and activist, late
Prof Eskor
Toyo, is reduced to a grabbing game, a cake sharing contest.
So, for
example, while Abacha was head of state, pretending to love
Nigeria and
working to uphold her honour and glory, he, his family, and
accomplices
were busy looting the country and stashing the loot where
their hearts
were: Switzerland, Liechtenstein, etc. In just one instance,
in December
1999, the Swiss government announced the freezing of $550
million in
different banks belonging to Abacha and his family, former
National
Security Adviser Ismaila Gwarzo, and Abubakar Atiku Bagudu
(current
Governor of Kebbi State). It is simply impossible to know
exactly how
much Abacha and those around him stole from Nigeria in the
five years of
his tyrannical rule.There
are many Abachas, Dasukis, Badehs, Amosus and Sarakis in
the system,
people who "pledge to Nigeria my country, to be faithful,
loyal and
honest", yet they will steal from the same country at
every opportunity.
But why are millions of Nigerians who bear the brunt of the

licentiousness of our thieving public officers not outraged?
There is no
outrage because most of us will behave the same way if we
found
ourselves in the shoes of Abacha, Dasuki, Badeh, Amosu or
Saraki.And
the reason is simple: "Much of what passes for corruption
is not simply
a matter of greed but rather the byproduct of legislators
or public
officials who feel more obligated to family, tribe, religion
or ethnic
group than to the national community and therefore divert
money in that
direction." That was Francis Fukuyama writing about the
relationship
between nation building and state building in his book,
Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial
Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy. These
bandits in uniform and agbada, according to Fukuyama,
"are not
necessarily immoral people, but their circle of moral
obligation is
smaller than that of the polity for which they
work".Savagery
rears its head when we believe something that belongs to us
is stolen,
when anyone comes into our small circle of moral obligation.
So,
somewhere in Aluu, Rivers State, four undergraduates are
lynched and
burnt by mortally offended fellow citizens for allegedly
stealing
laptops and cell phones; somewhere in Lagos a woman is
beaten and
sexually assaulted by an incredulous and bloodthirsty mob
for stealing
pepper; in Ondo State, a man is mercilessly bludgeoned to
death by
"irritated angry youth" for being gay; and somewhere in
Kano, a man is
set free after more than two decades in prison for allegedly
stealing a
transistor radio. Yet each time Dasuki, Badeh, or Saraki
appears in
court, oozing splendor, they are not tailed by
"ordinary" Nigerians
mocking and jeering but by a throng of well-heeled lawyers,
friends,
associates, and family members. These high-profile
supporters know that
it is not only Dasuki, Badeh, or Saraki that is on trial.
 What
they seem to be saying is, "That is the way the system
works. Only a
fool would want to be law abiding in a patently lawless
society." So,
Dasuki, Badeh, Saraki, and company, can sleep comfortably at
night
knowing full well that there is a chance that in the end
they will be
free to enjoy their loot. As a people, we have imbibed the
dictum that
when evil is commonplace it becomes a tradition. That is the
case with
corruption in Nigeria. Corruption is a national tradition.
It has been
with us since independence, got worse through many military
regimes and
became a directive principle of state policy in 1999 when
the military
again foisted one of their own, Olusegun Obasanjo, that
exemplar of
everything wrong with Nigeria, on a hapless
nation.It
is for this reason that these indicted public officers,
rather than
going to court to prove their innocence, shout
"persecution" and
"political witch-hunt" at every opportunity. You can't
really blame
them! Why should they be punished for upholding tradition?
It is for the
same reason that we have not heard a word from the military
high
command or from retired military officers, including
ex-heads of state,
on the revelations about our military. Knowing
how powerful the thieving class is in Nigeria, President
Buhari should
be praised – I can't think of any politician who would
have done this –
for his courage and political will. Of course, the issue
goes beyond
President Buhari to the question posed at the beginning of
this essay.
As long as Nigeria remains the way it is, public office will
be nothing
but sinecure for self-serving individuals.We
need to create a country where there is no incentive for
Nigerians to
steal from Nigeria. No sane person steals from himself. When
people feel
ownership of this country, we won't see the high
incidence of wanton
pillage of public fund currently going on at all levels and
in all
sectors.In the interim, let Nigerians
who suffer the effect of corruption pick up the gauntlet and
act. After all, the enfant terrible
of Rivers State and now HONOURABLE
(emphasis mine) Minister of
Transportation, Rt. Hon. Rotimi Amaechi, once remarked
publicly that he
and other thieving politicians get away with murder because
Nigerians
have not risen to defend their patrimony by stoning those
who
gratuitously steal from them.con...@hotmail.com; Twitter: @conumahThis
piece is an excerpt from an upcoming book: We are all
Biafrans – A
Participant-Observer's Interventions in a Country Sleeping
Walking to
Disaster.



Warm
regards,

Chido
Onumah

Coordinator, African Centre for Media & Information
Literacy,

P.O.Box 6856, Wuse, Abuja, Nigeria

www.africmil.org

www.chidoonumah.com







--

Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at
Austin

To post to this group, send an email to
USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com

To subscribe to this group, send an email to
USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com

Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue

Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html

---

You received this message because you are subscribed to the
Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails
from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.